Disability Inclusive Business - Why it is good for everyone

I was recently scrolling my LinkedIn feed and saw a post from The Valuable 500. It is great to see an organisation that is working with many businesses to get disability on the boardroom agenda. It is surprising that business leaders are not already putting disability on the agenda though given the many benefits inclusion brings to business and society. The size of the business opportunity for providing services and products that are disability inclusive is one of the biggest growth markets available to any organisation.

Disability inclusiveness is important for many reasons. Research from CIPD's People Management Magazine and Stanford University shows that companies who hire those with diverse backgrounds or disability are likely to have more innovation and make better decisions.

According to the World Health Organisation and World Bank there are over two billion people with disabilities in the world that is before family and friends who are closely connected to those with disabilities are considered.

• 1.3 billion people have blindness or a visual impairment - 17% of the worlds population.
• 466 million people have hearing loss or deafness - 6% of the worlds population.
• 200 million people have learning differences, learning disabilities, or neurodiversity - 2.6% of the worlds population.
• 75 million people use a wheelchair on a daily basis - 1% of the worlds population.

Disability inclusive businesses have a huge market opportunity and a huge opportunity to recruit diverse talent who can help with inclusive design and products and services innovation.

In the UK 300,000 people with disabilities are unemployed. Details from the ONS show that the employment rate for those without disabilities is 81.8% but for those with disabilities it is 53.2%.

However, when many HR initiatives or business initiatives are implemented they often focus on one form of diversity e.g. gender or ethnicity. Disability is often overlooked. How often do you hear HR teams or businesses say we are focusing on diversity and the strand we will focus on will be disability? What we need more of is truly inclusive "inclusion" which focuses on multiple diversity strands as one at once not a pick and mix of one at a time. After all people are more than one trait as they have many traits e.g. female, disabled.

However, true inclusion must go beyond a list of strands and see people as people, a whole person, not solely defined by their traits but as a person who is unique and who may have accessibility requirements.

It is important that HR and business leaders work together to consider the accessibility of their employee experience, offices, IT procurement, products and services but also use disabled employees to implement into products and services. After all employees and consumers are your brands biggest advocates.

As someone who has multiple disabilities both visible and non visible I thought I would share some of my experiences with businesses featured in the Valuable 500 to demonstrate why focusing on disability inclusion brings value through repeat business.

Aer Lings - Accessible flights with aisle chair onboard and my wheelchair folded overhead in the locker.

AIG - Accessible life insurance policy forms online and simple to follow questionnaires. Disability inclusive questions.

ANA - Excellent service when travelling in Japan for business and tennis. Onboard wheelchair for accessing toilets and aircraft seat. Tennis wheelchair bagged free of charge at the aircraft door for the hold into a complimentary protective bag.

AVIVA - Accessible home insurance. Provide a range of communication methods to enable contact for different disability types e.g. online chat and phone. Policies allow insurance of wheelchairs as standard. Others only insure bikes of the same value or more as standard. Simple adjustment but a big impact.

Barclays - Ability to add flags to a customers account so contact center teams know someone may need more time with numbers etc. A big help. Paperwork is all online including mortgages. This enables many to use screen readers who would otherwise not be able to access services if letters were instead posted in standard font. You'll be amazed at how many banks and building societies still insist on paper inaccessible documents even in 2020! Think of the trees let alone the access challenges. The online format also helps those with physical disabilities who may struggle to get to a branch.

Channel 4 - Paralympics broadcaster. Has also worked to introduce accessible advert breaks which have seen advertisers using audio description and signing in their adverts. Many programs and documentaries take place on an ongoing basis highlighting the disability accessibility challenges many still face.

GSK - A leader in disability inclusive employment. I had a fantastic internship year at GSK. GSK provided international HR opportunities and the wheelchair access was barrier free. The facilities teams and diversity team were always on hand to share any insights and feedback and employee networks were also available to share insights to senior managers. The most rewarding part of working at GSK was its commitment to "enable people to do more, feel better, live longer" it is the only company to date making reference to enabling people. This is a powerful message for inclusion and disability inclusion and it was led by the CEO at the time Sir Andrew Witty. One of the best HR projects I have worked on to date was setting up Project SEARCH which still runs to this day. Project SEARCH is enabling many youths with disabilities who sadly would otherwise be overlooked by many employers to gain employment and training opportunities. Project SEARCH also enables integration into employment with employees across GSK. It has also created talent pipelines for GSK and service providers and businesses in the local communities.

McLaren - Helped me to continue my university degree when the NHS was unable to provide a replacement for a broken wheelchair.

Microsoft - Accessibility at its core. Launched live closed captions on Teams for live text relay in video meetings. These help those with hearing disabilities or neurodiversity. I have found the Microsoft Surface invaluable throughout my HR Masters degree and working life as its lightweight making it easy to transport with a wheelchair but also as the (old style surface) keyboard is entirely flatbed. The keys all together with no gaps and it has a small surface area which helps with dexterity. There is also a team dedicated to an accessibility standard for Microsoft's campus buildings. Microsoft also have accessibility tech and inclusion teams and passionate employees about disability inclusion who are always innovating to support the customer and employee experience such as Hector Minto and Jennie Lay-Flurrie.

• P&G - A Paralympics sponsor and have used audio description and signed adverts during the Paralympics. P&G also has a disability steering group within the organisation spanning many countries and a PWD network to enable employees with disabilities to connect and share insights to leaders.

The case for change has never been clearer especially during the current market downturn innovation and inclusion of all is required now more than ever.

#Inclusion #Disability #HR #Businessleadership