To mark Disability History Month, HRZone has partnered with Diversity and Ability to bring you a three-part series ‘Disability History: Lessons for Future-Proofing HR Practices‘. Part two, below, examines the missing link between ERGs and disclosure.
Are you facing a paradox? Bustling, vibrant and supportive Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), yet your formal disclosure rates for disability and neurodiversity remain notably low. It raises a question: Why do employees hesitate to disclose when these groups seem open and active?
We see organisations consistently encounter this issue. They’re stagnating on inclusion because the same voices are heard every time, meaning new perspectives, provocations, and momentum aren’t found.
Your ERGs are telling you something that you might be missing:
Inclusion must be intersectional to be sustainable.
A disclosure-based model doesn’t open the door for a culture of belonging.
Tackling intersectionality
ERGs are primarily siloed into identities; to participate, individuals must choose one facet of their identity to champion. If you’re a Black, Queer, Disabled woman, which do you pick?
Our CEO, Atif Choudhury, reminds us that if you work twice as hard in a workplace to achieve the same outcomes, you’re hard-wired to share less. If you’re already managing microaggressions against your Blackness, your Queerness or your gender, it’s a lot harder to publicly carry another label that others may use against you.
If you’re a white person, proudly wearing Disabled as a label is that much easier. This dynamic results in an echo chamber, even within your diversity ERGs. The conversations that take place in a disability ERG, for example, get stuck on one type of experience, so the most marginalised don’t feel welcomed.
How can you counteract this?
- Investigate the output from your ERGs: Are the same voices often the loudest? Whose experiences do they really represent?
- Encourage collaboration between the ERGs: Create spaces for them to collaborate so intersecting identities can take centre stage
- Don’t silo your inclusion efforts: Focusing on gender this year and anti-racism next year won’t result in lasting equity. You’ll end up leaving the most marginalised women behind this year and the most marginalised people of colour behind next year.
Sharing within an ERG is a controlled choice, often limited to people with similar experiences. In contrast, formal disclosure can feel invasive.
A disclosure-based model is setting you up to fail
Even in inclusive workplaces, employees may worry that disclosing a disability could lead to subtle or overt biases, impacting their professional image or career progression. While ERGs provide a peer-to-peer support system where they may feel safe sharing, disclosure feels more vulnerable as it formally brings their condition into the organisation’s official knowledge.
ERGs are often viewed as safer spaces with a level of peer trust. Formal disclosure, however, requires trust in the broader organisational structure, especially in leadership and HR. If employees feel uncertain about how their information will be used, they may choose to keep personal details within the confines of ERGs rather than disclose them officially.
Additionally, disclosure often involves a cost-benefit analysis for employees. If they don’t believe that sharing their condition formally will lead to meaningful support or accommodations, they may see no reason to take on the added risk of disclosure. Without visible benefits, formal disclosure may seem unnecessary.
What’s the difference between sharing and disclosure?
Sharing within an ERG is a controlled choice, often limited to people with similar experiences. In contrast, formal disclosure can feel invasive, especially if employees worry their information might circulate more broadly than intended. Privacy concerns play a significant role in why employees may choose to limit disclosure to less formal settings.
To understand this, we must first differentiate between two concepts – sharing and disclosure.
- Sharing is often informal and happens in trusted spaces, like ERGs, where employees casually discuss their experiences and identities
- Disclosure, on the other hand, is formal and recorded and involves officially stating a disability or neurodiverse condition to the organisation.
The difference between these two can illuminate why people may be comfortable sharing but reluctant to disclose.
If you want to do what’s best for your people, then disclosure shouldn’t be the goal. Disclosure is done when there is no other choice because reasonable adjustments have become intertwined with job protection and performance management.
Disclosure, for so many, is a choice based on fear. It’s an action taken not for the good of the individual or the business but for a need to be upfront about their diagnosis to prevent job loss from performance concerns.
For someone to feel included, they don’t need to tick a box on a form.
Learn from ERGs
Diversity isn’t the goal, inclusion is. For someone to feel included, they don’t need to tick a box on a form. They need support, open arms and psychological safety. Your ERGs are getting that right. So learn from them:
1. Promote adjustments at every stage of the employee journey, from interview to onboarding. But don’t stop there; remind all employees, at regular intervals, that adjustments are there for them.
2. Don’t make employees take a leap of faith. Clearly describe the process of requesting and accessing adjustments so they know what it will look and feel like for them.
3. Model sharing within your teams. Share things that feel scary to you so that others feel encouraged to do the same. Celebrate the successes of your own adjustments, whether it’s a new calendar management system or a communication practice you’re employing.
4. Use the social model of disability as your guiding beacon to focus on barriers, not labels. Doing so creates space for conversations rooted in sharing, not disclosure.
No tick box needed
Rather than focusing on getting people to disclose, prioritise creating a workplace where individuals feel valued without needing to tick a box. When adjustments, empathy, and psychological safety are embedded into everyday practices, formal disclosure loses its significance. Employees feel included because the culture embraces them as they are, without labels or conditions.
By learning from the trust and connection fostered in ERGs, companies can create an environment where all employees feel seen, valued, and supported – no formal disclosure required.
