Many people balance their working lives with a long-term physical and/or mental health condition. With the rise of remote and hybrid working, what does an inclusive workplace look like for them? Calum Carson writes that we must understand better the individual experiences of those facing health issues, not only to ensure that existing inequalities are not repeated as the world of work changes, but also to prevent new ones replacing them.

The world of work has undergone a series of transformations in recent years that have opened up remote and hybrid ways of working to millions of people across the globe. Many organisations now provide much more flexibility to their workforce in choosing how they wish to work in a post-pandemic landscape. Individuals whose job allows them to work from home have a choice to spend all or part of their time outside of the office.

For those with some form of long-term physical or mental health condition, working full time within an office environment can be particularly difficult. They may have encountered more resistance to changing this way of working before the pandemic, but recent changes can enable them, at least on paper, to balance their conditions with their professional lives in ways that work best for them. Moving forward, it is important to consider whether the new models of working are inclusive of all workers’ needs, particularly when it comes to the complexities of providing an inclusive and supportive framework for disabled workers.

To understand these needs more clearly, a new academic research project has been launched to explore disabled workers’ experiences of remote and hybrid working over the past five years. The Inclusive Remote and Hybrid Working Study aims to enable employers, policymakers and researchers to understand more fully what best practice looks like in the design of inclusive models of remote and hybrid working. It also aims to ensure that the needs of disabled workers across the UK are better understood and taken into account when organisational and policy decisions are made about the post-pandemic workplace.

Addressing inequalities, preventing new ones

The research was motivated by ongoing discussions among employers, policymakers and researchers as to what the future shape of work might be for disabled workers. Now there is an opportunity to design an inclusive future employment landscape. Disabled people at present have significantly lower employment rates than non-disabled people. Remote and hybrid working models can support their job retention by enabling them to manage work around their health conditions/impairments (particularly for those whose conditions fluctuate in intensity).

Before the pandemic, employers often withheld this opportunity for a variety of reasons ranging from concerns over productivity to unwillingness to reinvent models of work, all the way through to a more prosaic resistance to change. During the pandemic, the widespread (and very sudden) adoption of remote and hybrid working policies dispelled many arguments employers often used against flexible ways of working. This worked as an opportunity to demonstrate that many workers can discharge their responsibilities outside of the office effectively. For disabled workers, having the freedom to work in different ways can enhance their professional lives. For some, this freedom provides the means to remain securely within the labour market on a longer-term basis.

The enhanced flexibility offered by remote and hybrid working may help address the existing disability employment gap in the UK as well as provide new opportunities for disabled workers to progress further in their chosen roles and careers, and in ways in which they can balance their conditions with their working lives more effectively.

Effective implementation

Employers must manage the implementation of these working models appropriately to ensure that all staff have equitable access to opportunities. For example, a lack of duplicate specialist equipment in the office and home and inaccessible digital technologies may prevent disabled workers’ full participation at work. Enabling easier forms of remote working but making it more difficult to work in the office too is simply no progress at all.

Building knowledge

The origins of this research can be found in a previous Work Foundation project. Over the course of 2021, researchers from the Foundation and Lancaster University explored the ambitions and perspectives of disabled people, many of whom have not been a part of conversations about our changing working lives since the beginning of the pandemic.

Seventy per cent of the 400 disabled workers who took part in this small-scale study said that if their employer did not allow them to work remotely, it would negatively impact their physical or mental health. Survey respondents and interviewees highlighted clear benefits of working from home, including having more autonomy and control over when and how they work, which in turn allows them to better manage their health and wellbeing. This brought wider benefits for their organisations too: 85 per cent of disabled workers surveyed felt more productive working from home.

Some disabled workers were facing real challenges as a result of a poorly-managed transition to remote or hybrid work, and this could also limit progress in reducing the disability employment gap. Both survey respondents and interviewees highlighted concerns that they might lose access to opportunities at work if they need to be based at home, and these concerns were greatest among individuals with multiple impairments or conditions. Seven in ten respondents (70.3%) with multiple impairments agreed that opportunities to stretch and grow might go to those in the office, compared with five in ten (52.8%) of respondents with a single impairment.

Perhaps most relevantly for this new project, outdated cultures meant that some disabled workers felt left out or isolated while working at home, particularly when colleagues used different working patterns. It is these particular findings that the Inclusive Remote and Hybrid Working Study is building upon, seeking a better understanding of disabled workers’ experiences to date and what they need for such forms of working to be more inclusive to their needs in the future.

• You can participate in The Inclusive Remote and Hybrid Working Study by completing their survey here. The study is led by researchers from Lancaster University and the Work Foundation, alongside project partners from Manchester Metropolitan Business School and Universal Inclusion.
• This blog post represents the views of its authors, not the position of LSE Business Review or the London School of Economics.
• Featured image provided by Shutterstock
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