How should you address disability in the workplace?

Disability and social inclusion

How a company treats employees with disabilities is a major issue. The figures speak for themselves: according to OCIRP, 12 million people in France live with a disability. Of those, 1.5 million have a visual impairment. Another 850,000 people have reduced mobility. Numbers like these show just how important it is to address disability at work in the right way. The aim: to build knowledge and raise awareness across the board, and make companies more inclusive. In France, companies with more than 20 employees must employ people with disabilities. The threshold is set at 6% of the total workforce. But some initiatives go much further. 

Companies taking action for stronger social cohesion

Far beyond their legal obligations, many companies have made disability — physical and mental alike — a priority.

STMicroelectronics, the French-Italian chip designer, launched a few years ago a full awareness-raising programme to help non-disabled employees understand disability, delivered through a range of playful, digital activities. The initiative won a management innovation award. In parallel, around 500 people with disabilities work for the company, thanks in part to training adapted to applicants’ disabilities. A generous approach that builds cohesion between colleagues and boosts motivation. Working together whatever your condition is entirely possible — you just have to move past your assumptions.

The BOSCH group, for its part, chose to raise awareness among HR teams and managers. How? By simulating job interviews with mock candidates who genuinely live with mental health conditions. The goal? To remove the fears around hiring, so managers can in turn raise awareness within their teams and pass on the brand’s values. And that’s not the German multinational’s only initiative. It also works with charities (such as Starting-Block) to raise awareness among its employees, including through dedicated awareness days. 

The Derichebourg Multiservices group (a provider of business and environmental services) chose a different but equally effective approach: ambassadors. Paralympic athletes regularly run workshops to share their experience of pushing past their limits. A positive, inspiring message that prompts everyone to question themselves and step out of their comfort zone.

As you can see, there are almost as many ways to raise awareness and fight disability discrimination as there are companies. Large organisations find it easier to run this kind of initiative. It isn’t always so simple for start-ups and SMEs. At Arcane, we’ve developed solutions suited to organisations of every size. 

Bringing teams together around disability

This subject matters to us, which is why most of our Criminal Quests can be played by people with a physical or mental disability. Over recent months, though, we decided to go further. We created “Follow The Brain”, a team building experience built around cognitive bias, in partnership with Réseau H. Réseau H is an integration enabler that builds practical, innovative solutions, fully adapted to people with disabilities. They support their clients in designing and rolling out disability policies through training, communication plans and events. Their speciality? Ethology — the biology of behaviour. 

Why build an activity around cognitive bias? Invisible disability is still hard for most people to grasp. Designing this game lets us shine a light on it. What’s more, we all carry cognitive biases that distort how we judge others. Our perception of people with disabilities is unlikely to shift unless we become aware of our own mental blocks — the ones that add a disability on top of the disability.

The solution? Build connections. Once you move past your prejudices, you realise that difference is created by our fears and exists largely in our imagination. That realisation is what sets group dynamics in motion.

Building team spirit through inclusion

Welcoming employees with disabilities can make the team you manage more effective. Why? Because the team rallies around a shared goal and a sense of togetherness: wanting the best for the person next to you, and creating a feeling of belonging. Relationships and emotion come into play, and the working atmosphere eases. As Françoise Descamps-Crosnier, chair of the National Committee of the FIPHFP, points out, hiring a person with a disability can be held back by HR simply through lack of knowledge. Yet bringing someone with a disability into a team generates genuine cohesion, solidarity, pride and performance in the workplace.

In the public sector, the figures are encouraging. There were 160,000 employees with disabilities in 2006. By 2019, there were more than 250,000.
Employers are clearly becoming more aware of how disability sits within a working community.

Don’t worry: sensitive as the subject may seem, Arcane introduces it gently and with warmth. Our cohesion activities have been tested and approved by the players themselves!

Follow the brain

In this dedicated murder investigation, participants play police detectives assisted by a brilliant ethologist (think Patrick Jane in The Mentalist). He’ll be a great help in decoding the cognitive biases of the various suspects and understanding how the characters interact, so the team can unmask the culprit. 

By stepping inside the protagonists’ heads and emotions, players get a much better grasp of their own cognitive biases.  

Take one example of cognitive bias: negativity bias is our natural tendency to give a negative element far more weight than a positive one of equal consequence. The point is to understand that negative information grabs our attention more than positive information. In “Follow the brain”, the bank director overstates his share of responsibility for the theft, because all he remembers is that 3 of the 5 banks he worked for were robbed. Our ethologist explains to the players that this isn’t reliable evidence, since bank robberies are common.

After an hour, participants understand the people around them — and their own cognitive biases — far better. Want to know more about this team building experience? Simply get in touch. 

Ready to take the leap?

There are, in short, plenty of ways to break down workplace prejudice about people with disabilities. Every company has to find the approach that best fits its own needs. 

Break down the barriers! Open the door to our workshops on social inclusion. There’s still work to do, particularly around invisible disability, but the progress of the past ten years deserves recognition. Whatever challenges your team faces, Arcane Experience will find the shared project that brings your people together.

Disability and cohesion across teams

Did you know that companies taking disability inclusion seriously don’t just earn greater goodwill from their customers? They can also reach new customer groups and build a very special kind of team cohesion internally. So what are you waiting for? The management of tomorrow is yours to build.

Arcane Experience is here to help: teamwork, shared goals, human connection, group cohesion, a sense of belonging, team performance, building bonds and bringing a team together. Social cohesion holds no secrets for us, and it will give your internal dynamics a real lift. Our expert teams are ready for you!