[Title: Inclusive hybrid work]
[Text: What are you doing to support employees with disability?]
[Audio: Soft background music]
Female voice over: An interview.
[Visual: Chelsea enters the scene and sits on a chair.]
Chelsea: Some colleagues might describe me as I race ahead.
[Text: We spoke to Chelsea about her experiences with hybrid work as a person with disability in the Victorian public sector.]
Chelsea: My brain has at least two songs going off at any time and a conversation all the time. Which is fun, [laughs] on some levels.
[Text: Chelsea’s friend watched on to learn more about her daily experiences.]
[Visual: Chelsea’s friend enters the scene and sits on a chair.]
Chelsea: When you first take medication for ADHD, a lot of people have the experience of their mind is quiet for the first time in their lives.
I went for this walk with my friend and everything was so much more clear at that point, what had been going on. And she burst into tears on my behalf [laughs]
And said, ‘I can’t imagine what it was like trying to live with that your whole life and also not knowing really that that was different.’ All I could do was to internalise feeling like I just have to do better.
I also really struggled with open plan offices. I really did. That did create a lot of problems. There are definitely people who are really keen to try and solve that issue. It’s just a matter of time, the time it takes.
Having a late diagnosis means that you’ve been told a lot of your life that your needs don’t matter. I need you to consider using planning software that you already have access to, but you’re not using. And you’re not using it because the other people in your team don’t have these challenges, don’t have these needs.
It’s very hard to say, ‘This is what I need’, to your manager, and it’s even harder to have them not take it seriously.
[Visual: Chelsea’s friend blinks solemnly. When Chelsea approaches, her friend smiles and hugs Chelsea warmly. They sit together.]
Chelsea’s friend: It must be so tiring, self advocating. But for someone like you, I just think, oh she’s so confident, she’ll tell me… You know what I mean? [laughs]
But now that you say it, it makes total sense.
Chelsea: It’s a grind, asserting your rights as a person with a disability, whether that’s a condition, or a mobility problem, or neurodiversity.
I had a wonderful boss once who I know you knew as well, who used to say, ‘If your needs are met, the work will flow.’ And it was just so easy to navigate because that was the upfront ethos.
Chelsea’s friend: I think that’s just such a good philosophy for managers in general. Sometimes people have disability, but they haven’t shared that.
And it might be because they’re not aware that they have disability, or that they don’t want to share it at work because it’s personal. And I’ve seen people react to them negatively.
Chelsea: So if you have an employee who you can talk to in a compassionate and curious way about functional issues, it’s up to them to have the willingness or the ability to be curious themselves.
I don’t want to go back to a situation where I have to make a case to work productively from home and be the only one who’s an exception to that. There are a lot of people with a lot of needs who’ve benefited a lot from the flexibility.
Chelsea’s friend: I hope that we take the learnings from the last couple of years. The fit out is physically difficult for some people. I hope we will build back better.
Chelsea: Oh, that’s a lovely, lovely hope. That’s great hope.
[Text: What are you doing to support inclusive hybrid work? Find out what you can do at vpsc.vic.gov.au/inclusivework]
[Text: Co-sponsored by]
[Visual: Department of Transport and Planning logo and Victorian Public Sector Commission logo]
[End of transcript]