A superannuation lawyer has revealed accommodating client disability within a financial advice firm can be advantageous for the operation of the business beyond any service proposition benefits.
“The statistics show if you embrace working with client disability, people work better with you. If you embrace it, staff actually feel better about it. So in other words, from a professional business perspective if you’re seen as someone who is looking after people, other individuals will want to work with you,” consultant lawyer Peter Bobbin told delegates at the recent Super Playbook 2025 event co-hosted in Sydney by the Auditors Institute and Institute of Financial Professionals Australia.
“So it can be good for business. That’s my point.”
Bobbin pointed out accommodating clients with a disability does not have to encompass a significant change to business practices.
“It can involve little things. Believe it or not, one of the little things involves changing the font size [used on documents and correspondence]. I don’t know about you, but the older I get, the smaller the print [used] seems to be,” he noted.
“I now use Arial because it seems clearer in terms of fonts and I actually use font size 12. So I’ve already started, because of myself, to be disability prepared.
“That’s just a tiny example of where you can be increasing your disability awareness.”
According to Bobbin, preparing to service clients with a disability is not only prudent for business operations, but also a legal requirement.
“Legally you are actually obliged to do something about it. This is because Australia is a signatory to the UN convention that proactively requires businesses to accommodate disability,” he explained.
To this end, he suggested advisers perform a disability audit on their practices to determine whether any changes are needed to ensure they satisfy their legal obligation regarding this issue.
