Disability Employment Awareness Month Blog Series - Part 2: Dear Colleagues of Disabled Employees
This letter is part 2 of a 3-part series, adapted from a talk I gave to an organization in October 2025 in celebration of Disability Employment Awareness Month. Read part 1 here
Next, I’d like to share a few words with the colleagues of disabled employees:
Dear Colleagues,
Thank you for being here. Thank you for your interest in making the workplace a safer, more inclusive place for people with disabilities.
In case you didn’t know, disabled people are everywhere! In fact we are the largest minority group in the world. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 15% of the world is living with disabilities and chronic conditions. In the US, that number is even higher - 1 in every 4 adults has a disability.
The disability community is a club you can join at any time in your life. It’s part of the human experience. Everyone is disabled at some point in their life, temporary or not. For example, pregnancy, injuries, mental health conditions, illnesses, and aging can all change a person’s needs.
I think you’ll be able to relate when I say life feels like an obstacle course. You nagivate each challenge in your life and you get to the other side and you look back and say “phewf, I don’t know how I did. But I did it”. What we as disabled people would love for you to understand is that for people with disabilities, life can be like a jungle gym that’s not designed for us.
Imagine the rungs on the monkey bars placed way too far apart. Imagine the swings are hung a bit too high so you can’t get into the seat or push off the ground. Imagine the spinning roundabout that doesn’t slow down but rather speeds up when you get on it so you’re too dizzy to orient yourself. It’s not because your limbs are too short. It’s not because your brain processes stimuli differently. It’s not because your body is the way it is. It’s because of how it was designed. The reason I explain it this way is to illustrate my main point, which is: our bodies are not a problem to solve. Our environments are.
Lauren smiling, taking a selfie over her shoulder, in front of her laptop, with a presentation cover slide on the screen that reads "National Disability Employment Awareness Month - October 2025"
We live in an ableist world. It shows up in our common phrases and metaphors, what we joke about, what doctors tell parents to worry about for their newborns, how we run meetings, the stories we consume on TV shows and movies, and within our cities and built environment. We are all in the water, so we are all wet. It is so engrained in our culture, you can’t really escape it.
But we can call it out. We can advocate for better. We can make progress. And this is an invitation to help us create anti-ableist workplaces, communities, and places of education.
A lot of the burden of making changes to our environment is often on people with disabilities. One of the only times I felt truly welcome as a deaf person at an in-person event was a few years ago at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf. They hosted the deaf author of the book “True Biz”, Sara Novic. Sara was on stage signing in ASL. In the front row of the audience was a translator interpreting in English. And on the stage was a projector screen with live captions. Amazingly, this was the first in-person speaker event I attended in recent years and really felt energized rather than drained. So as you can imagine for your colleagues with disabilities, that’s a lot of mental load, having to figure out for themselves, wondering “how am I going to exist in this space?” and figure out how to make that happen.
I offer you a few questions to reflect on: How can you help remove more barriers for your fellow employees? How can you include more voices of disabled employees in developing systems for how we work and thrive together? Are you willing to ask for changes to create an environment where everyone feels valued?
Don’t worry about being perfect.
Ask, take one action, be open to receiving feedback, adjust, repeat.
Thank you for being compassionate to your colleagues. Let’s collaboratively build a world where everyone feels a sense of belonging.
In partnership,
Lauren
Read Dear Employees with Disabilities (Part 1). The final installment, Dear Company Leadership (Part 3) is coming soon.
