When we talk about the employment of disabled people, people often just focus on what the disabled people can or can not do, but if we believe in the social model, than the real focus should be on employers on how they can develop their policy and practices to be more inclusive to disabled people, which as an topic is still in its infancy, especially the inclusion of those with significant impairments.

In the past, the business case for employing disabled people has focused on the fact disabled people are perfect employees who never go sick. I fear this ‘integration’ talk has been unhelpful as disabled people should no longer have to compensate with superhuman abilities to earn their existence in the workplace. Employers want the best out of people that helps their business and that means to find those diamond employees, employers need to be flexible in supporting people to work for them to get the very best from them, assuming they are the best applicants for the job.

Adaptations may include allowing people to work more from home, something which can been vital for me, being flexible on hours by focusing on agreed outcomes and deadlines, and much more we are only starting to see happen. It is only with this flexibility can we start getting a win win solution for disabled people and employers.