Tue, 18 May 2021
On the 24th May from 5pm to 6pm, Founder and Trustee of City Disabilities, Robert Hunter, will be presenting a webinar hosted by No5 Barristers’ Chambers following the recent conclusion of a survey conducted by City Disabilities.
The survey was entitled “Attitudes to disability in the workplace” and surveyed hundreds of people with disabilities across a range of professions. The survey revealed how people with disabilities felt about their workplaces, colleagues and employment. One of the results showed that over 48% of respondents felt they had experienced prejudice or inappropriate attitudes from their employer and/or colleagues because of their disability. This concerning figure also indicates that there are potentially more active and deliberate instances of discrimination happening in the workplace.
Liz Dawes, who works at the Charity with Robert Hunter said: “In my experience, people frequently admit to feeling awkward around disability because they lack exposure to it. That’s understandable, but illogical assumptions about people with disabilities that have long been thought highly offensive when applied to race, gender or the LGBT community are also common”.
Robert was a Partner and Head of Fraud at Allen & Overy for over 20 years and then at Herbert Smith Freehills for a further 8. He was consistently ranked as the “star” fraud practitioner in the Chambers guide and featured in the Legal 500 “Hall of Fame”. Who’s Who Legal referred to him as “one of the smartest lawyers in London”.
Robert has been deaf since his teens and profoundly deaf for much of his career. He also has dyslexia.
Liz added: “People want practical help; they don’t want theoretical chats about being more “disability aware”. Incidents of poor behaviour tend to drop when management have made clear what expected behaviours are. Employers can lessen the risk of their employees being inappropriate if they tell them, specifically, what to do and this talk does that”.
Robert will be delivering this webinar on Monday 24 May from 5pm to 6pm, titled “Getting it Right: A guide to disability etiquette”. To register, please visit: https://www.no5.com/events/getting-it-right-a-guide-to-disability-etiquette/
