Staff with disabilities
If you are a staff member and need any support, services or facilities to do your job and fully participate in our community, help is available.
The University is committed to providing an inclusive work environment for staff and equitable opportunities to ensure staff can fulfil their potential and make their contribution.
The University encourages diversity as a distinctive and positive aspect of its community. The University also endeavours to develop a culture that is supportive, free from discrimination, harassment and bullying, and be a fulfilling place to work and learn.
University services and support
As a staff member seeking disability support, talk to your manager in the first instance. Your manager needs to take reasonable measures to meet your disability related needs. If you and your manager would like any advice to identify what is reasonable, your human resources manager or adviser is able to assist you both.
Further information about reasonable measures is available on the Employment New Zealand website.
Te Amaru—Disability Services
Te Amaru—Disability Services is resourced to only provide support for students with disabilities. In support of Human Resources and managers, at times, we do provide specialist advice for staff on aspects such as adaptive technology.
We produce guides on avoiding miscommunication with disabled people, and running accessible events, which may be useful for managers.
Health and wellbeing services
For information on health and wellbeing services for staff at Victoria University of Wellington, including mobility parking for staff with disabilities, see the staff intranet's rehabilitation section.
The University has a staff wellness manager, who can be contacted at staff-wellbeing@vuw.ac.nz.
External resources
There are many helpful government and community organisations, and resources that can be accessed, including:
- Disability organisations and service providers
- Resources for disabled employees and job seekers
- Resources to assist managers and employers grow more disability confident
Help improve our disability data
Currently 2.4% of our staff self-report a disability. The New Zealand Disability Survey (Statistics New Zealand, 2013), established that 16.7% of adults 15-64 reported a disability, which is not reflected to the same extent in our workforce.
Our aim is to have more of our staff feeling confident to self-identify a disability and having confidence in the systems in place to support them effectively.
Currently Human Resources are working to improve the information the University has about staff with disabilities in order to improve and enhance the support available. At any time, you can indicate a disability in Tumu.