A conversation about access we need to have
To be totally honest, a year ago I didn’t know what an ‘Access Rider’ was. Rising introduced me to them and it was a real “why doesn’t everyone already know about this” moment.
An Access Rider (or access document) is usually a document that states what your access needs are to ensure you have equal access to work. You can share it with an employer, friends or anyone who might need to know your needs (*hint hint* everyone). People sometimes send off access riders with their cvs and recently some of the team experimented with linking them to our email signatures to see how that would feel.
The team made ours together, we thought about all the different ways we move throughout the world of work and what felt good for our brains and bodies. I was surprised by how hard I found it to articulate what felt good for me. Workplaces usually just ask if you need a standing desk, not - what do you need to feel happy, safe and celebrated?
When was the last time you felt actually comfortable at work?
Taking time to consider how we work well and safely made me realise how many times I’d unnecessarily pushed through discomfort for the sake of workplace etiquette. I thought about every time I’d sat through a meeting that had overrun without telling people I needed to leave, or that I was tired, or that I genuinely wasn’t listening anymore. I thought about every time I’d sat in an office chair, stood at a bar or waited tables enduring physical pain. Every time I’d turned up to a zoom meeting after being in tears but smiled and asked how their ‘hump-day’ was going. What would it look like to share a document that outlined all the reasons I would not put work first over health and basic care?
At first, for a few victorious weeks, it felt so empowering. Here we were telling the world this is what I need to be good at my job and show up for you fully. It made SO much sense. It felt good to set a precedent for our community too, we encourage people all the time to be authentic and honest about their needs (in case you hadn’t noticed, Rising is pretty big on practising what we preach). By adding a little bit of honesty and me to every email felt defiantly vulnerable and freeing. Of course, I had forgotten in my dream-access-bliss-bubble that not everyone thinks like Rising does.
Having set this precedent – quietly to some, loudly to others – a partner returned their shortlisting feedback and sighted only an applicant's access document as a reason they weren’t shortlisted. I wasn’t so blissfully unaware that I didn’t know that unconscious bias (or conscious, let’s be real) leads to employers not hiring disabled and neurodivergent people, but for an opportunity we had shared with our community? That felt much harder somehow. We had encouraged our community to attach their access riders to their applications and it was that advice that had cost someone a paid opportunity. Now it feels important to explicitly state why we have access riders and what they mean for everyone.
Workplaces have gotten really good at talking about accessibility, but making things accessible, not so much. It’s very clear that in this case, and in so many others, the workplace blames the individual for asking too much and not the arbitrary workplace systems we’ve built that serve so few of us. That’s when I started writing this, because if this piece of writing can contribute to more people writing an access rider then we’ll be a community of people who ALL have needs, not individuals who are too difficult to work with.
I’m writing to remind you that stating your basic needs is not demanding, it’s not challenging, you are not too messy to work with, you are not TOO MUCH to work with.
If you’re a non disabled, neurotypical person thinking I don’t have needs, you do, and by writing an access rider you are inviting other people to share theirs safely. Attaching an access rider to your email signature says to everyone contacting you that they’re safe to state what they need.
You know when you’re in a workshop and you have to go round and say your name and a bit about you, this is a stressful space for me because I always look round and make a judgement call about whether I feel empowered and safe to share my pronouns. If the facilitator doesn’t make space for me to share that about myself I’m suddenly an individual who needs something additional to everyone else. Special, different, challenging. It is such a relief when a cis person shares their pronouns before me, it gives me permission to not be those words that are assigned to underrepresented communities in those spaces. Even if at first it feels a bit strange to share your needs/pronouns/preferences if you’re someone who self identifies as non disabled, neurotypical, cis, het and white, please do. You’re making it safer and warmer for everyone else.
Being honest about what your needs are can feel scary, and believe me seeing the repercussions reminded me why. It does make you feel vulnerable to state things about yourself that you’ve been told, probably since birth, are inconvenient and undesirable. We know that grind culture and capitalism and the government have all said, nope, keep working regardless of how tired, ill or broken you are. But if enough of us say we need more we will get more for those who need it most. Please start sharing your needs so that it’s safe for everyone to share theirs.
Here’s my access rider - this is what I need.
What do you need?
Not sure where to start?
We madethese worksheets during our August of Rest as starting points for our access docs. There’s also:
Some great publicly shared examples from Cassie Robinson
This guide from Unlimited is great for the basics
And this is a whole booklet of access riders from an exhibition
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