'Daily nightmare' | The workplace conflict driving disabled employees out of work

Disabled employees are being pushed towards formal disputes, financial insecurity and, in some cases, leaving employment altogether when requests for workplace support are dismissed or poorly managed.

New Acas research found that conflict was driven less by employees’ disabilities than by how employers responded to them. Across interviews with disabled workers, requests for reasonable adjustments were questioned, delayed or reframed as evidence of poor performance and misconduct.

The study, conducted by the National Centre for Social Research, involved 30 disabled employees who had reported experiencing disability-related workplace conflict during the previous 12 months.

It follows Acas’s 2025 conflict prevalence survey, which found that 68% of employees whose disability substantially affected their daily lives had experienced workplace conflict, compared with 44% of working-age adults overall. The figure stood at 49% among those whose disability had a more limited impact.