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Nearly 7 in 10 disabled staff hit conflict at work, and Acas says it's rarely about the disability

ended 24. September 2026

New Acas research has found 68% of employees whose condition substantially affects daily life have experienced conflict at work, against 44% of the wider workforce. Disability discrimination cases at Acas have doubled in a decade and now make up nearly one in five of everything they handle, over 28,000 cases last year alone. Full study: https://www.acas.org.uk/new-study-looks-at-why-disabled-workers-face-significantly-higher-rates-of-conflict-at-work

The research, based on interviews with disabled employees, found the conflict is almost never really about the disability itself. It's about slow responses to adjustment requests, poor communication, managers applying policy rigidly instead of thinking, and nobody explaining why something is or isn't possible. Acas's Julie Dennis put it plainly: it's misunderstanding and delay doing the damage, not the condition.

For a small business, this is fixable and cheap compared to a tribunal claim. Acas wants employers to create an actual space to talk about what someone needs, tailor the response instead of running a standard script, move fast once a request lands so trust doesn't erode, train managers to handle these conversations with confidence, and use occupational health early rather than guessing.

  • Have you seen a workplace conflict that started small and only escalated because nobody addressed it quickly?
  • Do your managers know what to say when someone raises a health condition, or do they freeze and go quiet?
  • Is a rigid one-size-fits-all policy easier to manage, or does it just store up trouble for later?
  • Would you know when to bring in occupational health, or does that only happen once things have already gone wrong?

6 responses from the Newspage community

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Kate UnderwoodVerified
Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR and Training
This backs up exactly what I see in businesses every week. It's almost never the disability causing the row, it's the silence afterwards. Someone asks for an adjustment, a manager goes quiet because they don't know what they're allowed to say, and three weeks later that silence has turned into a grievance. You don't need a big HR department to fix this; you need a manager who picks up the phone within a day, asks the person what actually helps, and isn't afraid to say 'let me find out' instead of nothing at all. Get occupational health involved early too, it takes the guesswork out and stops managers making decisions on gut feel.
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Tony SanchezVerified
Founder at Bridging Loan Directory
As a small business owner, the message I take from this is that silence is a management decision too. Leaving someone chasing an answer about support can damage trust before a decision has even been made.

A small firm may not have an HR department, but it can acknowledge a request, explain who is dealing with it and say when the employee will hear back. If more advice is needed, say so.

I understand the appeal of a standard policy when you are juggling everything else. But treating everyone identically is not necessarily treating them fairly. A policy should help you respond to someone’s circumstances, not save you the trouble of asking about them.

The aim should be to help someone do their job. Once the conversation becomes a battle to be believed, the employer has a much bigger problem to resolve.
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Sarah DaviesVerified
PR at https://balanceatwork.co.uk/
This story shows exactly why a one-size-fits-all workplace policy is never enough on its own. Workplace issues often escalate, not because support does not technically exist, but because people do not feel able to raise something early, managers are unable to respond, or the process feels too rigid. For me, the real test for employers is not simply 'do we have a policy? but 'do people know it exists, trust the conversations, and do managers have the confidence to ask before a manageable issue becomes a much bigger one? We're seeing this in our own research at Balance@Work, where we work with organisations to support staff with hormone health conditions and menopause in the workplace. 33% of people in the finance and insurance industry said they don't feel comfortable discussing things like their hormone health with their manager, and 48% of those working in healthcare say they're not aware of any guidance, showing that workplaces up and down the country aren't having conversations!
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Sarah GatfordVerified
The Positivity Pathfinder - Head of Interactions at Sarah Gatford Ltd
Conflict rarely starts big. It starts with a question nobody answers. By the third attempt, people stop asking and start collecting evidence.

Most managers freeze, scared of saying the wrong thing, so they say nothing. That doesn't help. One response could sort it: 'I don't know yet, but I'll find out by Friday.' Then they do it.

Policy protects process, and people need to feel heard. Speed signals respect whilst silence signals the opposite.
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Kelly SmallcombeVerified
Fractional Chief People Officer at Meliorem HR Consultancy
44% is already a bad number, 68% should worry everyone. But most small employers aren't slow because they don't care, they're slow because they genuinely don't know what to do, and they're stretched thin doing everything else. We can't keep laying this entirely at employers' door without giving them the tools to act faster. Occupational health referrals are expensive and good providers are hard to find when you're a five-person business. Telling that founder, working eighteen hour days chasing the funding round that decides whether the job exists at all, to build a considered adjustments process is asking a lot. None of that excuses ignoring an employee who's raised a genuine need, that conflict is real and it costs them, but blaming employers without funding practical support just leaves everyone worse off.
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Debbie DenyerVerified
Executive Coach & Facilitator at Coach the Difference Ltd
I’m often contacted when trust has been eroded, wellbeing affected and sickness absence has followed. Yet I’ve never come across an employee asking for unreasonable adjustments. Most are low/no-cost: clearer expectations, help prioritising, timely feedback, agendas in advance, noise cancelling headphones.

Individually, these can seem insignificant, but collectively, they can have a huge impact. Uncertainty about expectations, reluctance to keep asking for clarification, or being put on the spot without time to process all add cognitive load, leading to exhaustion, frustration and loss of confidence.

Many adjustments are simply good management benefiting the whole team. Training and coaching helps managers recognise the impact, and develop new habits.

We don’t expect someone who needs glasses to simply try harder to see. Adjustments level the playing field. Have the conversation, listen, act and keep learning. The cost to an organisation is small, but the cost to a human can be huge.