Building Inclusive Workplace for People with Invisible Disability: ADHD

Many disabilities are less apparent than others and there is much more to disability than meets the eye. For example, people with learning difficulties, mental health conditions, and autism, are not necessarily visible. Therefore, people may not realise that others suffer from a condition or disability unless they are specifically informed of them. These types of conditions demand a new way of approaching disability. Acknowledging the presence and validity of invisible disabilities is a key component of this awareness effort.

Many people with invisible disabilities deal with critical judgments and discrimination due to a lack of understanding. Fear is a major reason why people with disabilities — invisible or otherwise — do not disclose them. Those who are already employed may be afraid of opening themselves up to discrimination. Another reason for silence is that people with invisible disabilities may think that co-workers will not believe that they have a disability, and job seekers may be reluctant when asked on an application if they have a disability. Many fear that answering yes will reduce their chance of getting the job.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected many who have historically faced significant barriers to employment, including people with invisible disabilities, compounding the economic hardships they faced before the pandemic. Traditionally, people with disabilities face persistently lower rates of employment compared to their peers without disabilities. In addition to the increased health risk associated with the pandemic and increased risk of exposure in many in-person workplaces, people with disabilities have been confronted with lost wages, job loss and long-term unemployment.

Human resource management practices play a particularly important role in making the Indonesian labour market gender equal and inclusive. A better understanding of hidden disabilities can improve the staff wellbeing in the workplace. People would feel more comfortable to talk about their condition, ask their employers to change their desk chair, shift time, or work site to help them have the best experience in their career. Decisions and actions of HR professionals could open doors for disadvantaged groups of people to employment and allow them to utilize their skills fully. Building a gender equal, non-discriminative, and inclusive workplaces free from discrimination starts with awareness of HR professionals.

Against this backdrop, the United Nations initiates to implement a project “Employment and Livelihood: An Inclusive Approach to Economic Empowerment of Women & Vulnerable Populations in Indonesia”. The project is funded by the UN Multi-Partner Trust Funds (UN MPTF). Four UN agencies, International Labour Organization (ILO), UN Development Programme (UNDP), Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) implement the project. This webinar series is one of the activities in the project.

The webinar series is in collaboration with the Ministry of Manpower, Association of Indonesian Employers (APINDO), Indonesia Business and Disability Network (IBDN), Indonesia Business Coalition for Women Empowerment (IBCWE), the National Movement for Competent Indonesia (GNIK) and other like-minded organisations. One of the topics is “Invisible disabilities in the world of work: How can we create a more inclusive work place?”. In this topic, we would like to share good human resource management practices that promote gender equality, non-discrimination, and inclusiveness at workplaces, with the human resource directors, managers and practitioners as the target audience.

This webinar aims to raise awareness to HR managers/practitioners about invisible disabilities, by sharing experiences and good practices. The participants will learn how to assure fair recruitment, avoiding biases and unintended discriminations for people with invisible disability. By having the awareness, it is expected that the audience can make their workplaces to be equal, non-discriminative, and inclusive for everyone.