Employers: influencing disabled people's employment through responses to reasonable adjustments.

Obtaining reasonable adjustment(s) (RAs) legally requires disabled people to disclose their impairment(s) to their employer, the provision of which can be crucial to them performing the essential duties of their job. Yet, employers report a key barrier to employing disabled people is their lack of willingness to disclose their impairment(s). This article examines the lived experiences of disabled people's employment endeavours identifying why this may be occurring. Disabled interviewees communicated that previous experiences with employers strongly influences their employment objectives, and willingness to disclose. The participants' shared ethnographic experiences of employment demonstrate that RAs can be the predominant factor in their remaining employed and that prior encounters with employers have made them aware that employers are often unwilling to approve the RAs necessary for them to seek employment, to obtain employment, to perform their duties, to fairly compete with co-workers, to preserve their health, and/or to maintain employment. Employers often claim they have few disabled employees because current employees will not disclose their impairment(s) and they face barriers to locating and hiring disabled people who want to work. Employers are often unknowledgeable about disability and don't make genuine efforts to employ disabled people. The research found that how disabled people are treated when asking an employer for reasonable adjustments impacts if they will request them in the future and influences their future employment goals. The research concludes that reasonable adjustments will remain a key barrier to disability employment if unknowledgeable employers remain those solely empowered to decide upon their provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]