Table 4.

Themes arising when workers communicate about their episodic disability: Subjective perceptions and the inherent complexity of disability support

Subjective perceptions matter: It’s human nature to wonder and people impact the process
“People get curious. It becomes the puzzle of the week…They said that they have difficulty with focus, and they said that they have difficulty with this. I’m thinking it must be this. Oh, no, it must be this… What is it? What is it?”	(Resp 02, labour lawyer, workers)
“I can’t tell you how terrible it feels not to know what it is. Not because we’re nosy people, but from a support perspective.”	(Resp 20, DM, consultancy business owner)
“There’s some workers who just—they have a way about them, and they explain themselves, and you hear them. Then there’s other workers that are just more aggressive or demanding, and it doesn’t mean that their issue has less merit, but…people just sometimes start to shut those people down because they can’t see past…their personality, and [that] there’s a real issue here.”	(Resp 10, worker advocate)
“[It matters] whether you start from a position of, ‘I’m going to trust until I have reason not to trust’, or if you start from, ‘I’m not going to trust until you give me reason to trust.’”	(Resp 12, HR, healthcare)
The inherent complexity of the response process
“The paradigm of an intermittent episodic illness is completely different because you don’t know when conditions are going to flare-up and for how long. It is virtually impossible then, to plan around it, unless you’ve got, essentially, extra resources in the workplace…but most employers now are running very, very lean.”	(Resp 4, lawyer, employer)
“The major thing you’ll hear from the operations side is they need to know when someone is going to be here doing their work…. They always want us to try and quantify when someone has a condition exactly how many days a week that means or exactly how many times a month or year it’s going to be affected. And that’s not possible.”	(Resp 16, DM, education)
[Are people supportive?] “Yes, for the most part. But you know, it depends on how long it goes. And I’ll be honest about that because everybody has a lot on their plate. Everybody wants to be supportive, but we have to make sure that’s not creating stress and anxiety for the people who are left behind at the office.”	(Resp 18, HR, not-for-profit)
“It’s fatigue, I think. Employers will [cite] those multiple efforts and the fact of unsuccessful efforts to slowly build a case for undue hardship.”	(Resp 3, lawyer, union)
“We have problems with…any invisible conditions. People say, well, there’s nothing wrong with them. Why do they need accommodation? Look at them. They look fine…The person is milking the system. They just want it easy.”	(Resp 23, union representative, multiple sectors)
“I think we all wait until it becomes a problem…People don’t want to admit that there is a weak link or a weakness because they’re afraid that their senior manager is going to say, ‘just get rid of them, just fire them’”	(Resp 14, HR, professional services)