New Guide for Disability Discrimination

Acas has released a guide to help employers and managers identify, tackle and prevent disability discrimination in the workplace.

The free guide ‘Disability discrimination: key points for the workplace’ helps employers get to grips with what disability means, how it can happen, and how to prevent and manage complaints in the workplace.

Over the past year, the Acas helpline dealt with around 12,000 calls on disability-related discrimination. More than 4 in 10 disabled people seeking work found that misconceptions around their capability were the biggest barrier to getting hired.

To prevent disability discrimination in recruitment, an employer should:

• Make vacancy details available in alternative formats, such as braille, audio, or easy read
• Accept applications in alternative formats
• Be aware that a job application form could inadvertently be discriminatory
• Stay clear of any wording that might be open to legal challenge
• Avoid advertising solely in one kind of place or media
• Only ask candidates to complete tests if they are relevant to the job, and make sure they can be accessed by people with a disability

“Disability is a complex area of employment law that can encompass many conditions or situations that employers may not be aware of. HIV, cancer, depression, phobias, diabetes or an impairment caused by obesity are all conditions that could be considered as a disability. We have published this new free guide to help employers understand the basics around equality and disability discrimination as falling on the wrong side of the law can result in a costly employment tribunal,” said Acas Head of Equality, Steve Williams.

The new guide is part of a series of Acas equality guides. Click here to find out more from the guide.