I'm Leon Coningham from the SBS Inclusion Program.
I'm speaking to Berindah Aiken from Corrective Services about disability and workplace adjustments.
Berindah, can you tell us a bit about your disability and how it affects you in performing your work?
I have something called proximal focal femoral deficiency.
What that means is that I was born with a very short right leg. So my right foot was in line with my left knee. I had four toes, four fingers, one of my fingers doesn't bend and I also don't have a formed hip. Over time, I've had a range of surgeries that have allowed me to wear a computerised artificial leg.
So I started off when I was one, having a hip reconstruction. And then by the time I was 27, I needed to make a decision as to whether I would have further surgery which was a calculated risk.
If it went wrong, I wasn't going to be able to walk. But if it went right, it would really enhance my quality of life.
And what sort of work do you do?
Now, I'm the statewide manager of specific needs.
I started off in Corrective Services as a psychologist and became a senior psychologist and chief psychologist and now statewide manager.
And my role is to lead a team where we focus on the needs of people with disability in custody.
So that's including identification of people with disability, their management in custody, making sure that we are advocating for reasonable adjustments and also working for their reintegration back into the community.
So talking about reasonable adjustments. What sort of adjustments do you need in order to perform your job to the best that you can?
Probably the most important one is the opportunity to work from home.
Being an amputee is fatiguing and there are times when my leg hurts and I would prefer not to wear it. And so working from home really gives me a lot of flexibility to do that.
Also, I'm not great with trains and you know, other distances. And so I will drive everywhere or when I can't do that, I have access to cab charges so that I can catch a cab to somewhere that I need to be.
I'm traveling a little bit at the moment for the Executive Masters of Public Administration and I have adjustments then for accommodation, it's about having the flexibility of my work hours as well.
So sometimes I might need to start earlier and finish later or have a shorter day.

And how did you go about advocating for your own workplace adjustments?
I've worked for Corrective Services for approximately 20 years. So I've had workplace adjustments for that entire time.
And when I first started, I was permanently on crutches, and it was very difficult going in and out of the jail environment on crutches.
And my manager at the time recognised that and suggested that I apply for work from home and that was before it was a possibility for everybody like it is now.
And so we started off with just random days when I felt like I needed to work from home instead.
Can you describe a time when you've requested a workplace adjustment where it hasn't been provided?
I think early on in my career, there was a situation going into the jail where people in custody take a lot of pride when they are sweepers. And one of the things that they tend to do is clean quite a lot.
There's an environment when you go through a visits area which is outside to a foyer and then out again into the jail proper.
And the foyer space was highly polished, and it was a slip and fall risk for a range of people. And I did slip on crutches when it was raining.
When I raised that issue, it became an issue about me and about my crutches. So, someone actually came and picked up my crutches without my consent and you know, checked the tips.
That's one of my very few negative experiences.
And as I've progressed in my career, I've learnt from those experiences of how I can do this better and really learning about advocating for myself highlighting that this is not an issue about me, this is an issue about the environment, and this is actually something that's beneficial for everybody in that scenario, other people were also slipping.
And so when it was raised that this is beyond Berindah with a disability issue, mats were put down and changes were made.
So in this case, the adjustments were quite minor really, but also benefited a range of people other than yourself.
That's right.
And just on talking about advocating yourself, what would be your advice to people who might have a disability and are looking at what they need in terms of adjustments?
I think it's really important that we all have a voice in advocating for ourselves. We know ourselves and our disabilities the best. We are the experts on ourselves and nobody else can share our lived experience.
And so, it's important to be open and transparent to the point that other people can understand what your needs are and how by meeting your needs, they can get the best out of you as an employee.
And what would be your advice to potentially the managers of people with a disability, who are advocating for themselves.
Listen and be curious and if you don't understand, ask questions, but ask questions that are not about the intricacies of a disability because you don't actually need to know that what you need to know is how can I best support you to do your job in the best way that you can?
And would that be the question that you would ask then?
Yes. And I do. 
Thinking about your own team and workplace adjustments that have been requested for your team. How have you gone about finding the budget or, or making those adjustments come to life?
I think the first thing to recognise is that adjustments often don't cost anything.
So sometimes it's just about adjusting somebody's hours or adjusting where they work, whether they work from home or whether they work from a location closer to them.
And when we do need to pay for adjustments, it's often something like a different chair or a stand for their computer.
Occasionally when someone has had a vision impairment, for example, we have purchased software or other equipment.
But again, these are fairly low-cost items.
What workplace adjustments have you used or witnessed in the recruitment process?
I can reflect that I've really changed my recruitment practices over time, and I think we’re much more rigid in the way we undertook recruitment in that we talked about something needing to be fair.
So everyone had to have the exact same conditions, but there's no equity in that.
So what we are doing is we are setting up conditions that are useful for some people, but they are not for others.
And so, I think there are two things.
So one is that we need to really think about what is the role and what am I trying to test in this scenario to get the best out of this potential employee?
So if I have a policy officer role, for example, it would be unhelpful for me to be doing timed testing because policy doesn't happen in a timed fashion or yes, it would be valid if I had a role where someone was required to answer questions without notice in a very short time frame, then it would be suitable to withhold the questions and just present them during the interview again, that's pretty rare.
And so we want to give everybody the opportunity to shine as much as they can.
And then I think the other element is about making sure that for those people who do need adjustments that we can actually facilitate those.
So it might be that somebody needs an extra 15 minutes of reading time, or they may need a document to be accessible and it might need to be a soft copy rather than a hard copy.
We might be better off having somebody do an MS teams interview than in-person.
So it's about making sure that we can foster an environment so that person can shine and be their best and perform at their best for that interview.
What would you say to some recruiters who still hold on to that concept of fairness that everything has to be exactly the same in order to be fair?
It isn't actually fair. What we need is equity.
And the way that we have equity is to make sure that we break down as many systemic barriers as we can.
And that's in the workplace and in the interview process.
So getting rid of things that are actually unnecessary, making sure that you are really honing in on what you are trying to assess and then making sure that everyone has a level playing field.
And that means that some people will need things that are different to others.
It doesn't mean that it's unfair.
It just means that you are elevating everybody to the same level so that they can compete appropriately in a merit-based selection.
Sometimes making workplace adjustments is not straightforward because it might impact other people. Do you have any comments on that?
Even though I am a person with disability, there's no guarantee that I'm going to get it right 100% of the time.
And I reflect on a recent case where someone came wanting a workplace adjustment and it was escalated to me because the team wasn't quite sure what to do.
And the person came with a very set idea about what they wanted.
And I asked them to consider alternatives and I gave them a range of alternatives from my experience of other people with similar needs.
But the person was quite focused on one solution. The difficulty that I had was that their solution would impact other people who also had workplace adjustments.
And I struggled to navigate that in terms of how do I meet the needs of this one person whilst not breaching the privacy of other people in the team and having a good solution for everybody.
I think what happened in this case was that I didn't communicate enough. I didn't find the right way to express that my aim here is not to be obstructive by any means.
I really want to work with you on this, but I have to consider the whole team and other people as well.
And I think if I had been more open in my communication, I would have been able to have a better outcome for everybody. And coming from that, what's your advice then to managers in situations like that be more open?
Sometimes you can feel like as a manager, it's your responsibility to solve all the problems.
But you need to also let people know what's going on so that these are the factors that you're considering right now and really reassuring the person that your ultimate goal is to make sure that their needs are met.
But we have to do it together and we also have to consider the broader team as well.
So New South Wales government have a policy of introducing eventually a workplace adjustment passport. Can you tell us how that works?
The workplace adjustment passport is an important initiative because it allows people to establish their adjustments one time so that you can negotiate that with your manager.
And then if you move to a different location, it's already established, and you don't have to continually repeat the reason why you need adjustments and negotiate those again and again.
And that's one of the difficulties I think for people with disability, having to continually talk about their needs.
Whereas this, it's a one time you can of course update it as your needs change, but it's something that continues with you throughout your career.
What would be your advice to an individual who is really struggling to get the workplace adjustments they need?
I think it's important to persist. Don't give up and don't just suffer through. There are a lot of ways that you can seek support.
The DCJ [Department of Communities and Justice] Disability Employee Network has tremendous experience in providing support to people to advocate for themselves or when they don't feel like they have a voice to be the voice for them and do that jointly.
If you are not successful with your manager, then it's important to escalate it. It can go to the next manager to HR, to the People's Branch are really important advocates as well.
And then hopefully it's not the case but if you need to Anti-Discrimination NSW is an important resource.
You talk about technology and innovation, helping people with disability. What are some of the innovations that you've seen more recently? 
COVID was a horrible thing that we all went through. The benefit though, for Corrective Services particularly was that it allowed us to think about working from home.
But it also enhanced our technology where we didn't have MS teams, for example, that's our go to for communication and meetings.
So it's really opened up so many more opportunities in terms of not having to be in the workplace, to attend face to face meetings, not having to travel to attend meetings with external organisations, being able to use transcription and captioning.
Actually having an Auslan interpreter come into the meeting without having to travel to us.
It's allowed us to have so many more opportunities than we had before.
I've been speaking to Berindah Aiken from Corrective Services about disability and workplace adjustments.
Thank you very much. Thank you so much for this opportunity.
So we've heard from Berindah about her experiences with workplace adjustments. But if you feel that you're not getting the adjustments that you need, what are your options?
I have Sally Dews from Anti-Discrimination NSW here to discuss what some of your options are.
I'm a Conciliation Officer at Anti-Discrimination NSW.
So I investigate complaints of discrimination and help parties try and resolve complaints.
So we don't take sides, but we sit down with both parties often together and help them discuss the complaint and resolve it.
So if you've requested an adjustment in the workplace because you have a disability and your employer is not responsive to that request.
It may be that you have a complaint of disability discrimination under the Anti-Discrimination Act.
If you want to talk to someone about that, you can call our enquiries line on 1800 670 812.
And the next step after advice, if someone does want to make a complaint?
Then on our website, which is antidiscrimination.nsw.gov.au, you have the ability to lodge a complaint with us.
I'd like to thank Berindah and Sally for their time on the podcast today.