Free webinar: Featuring BT Group plc - employee support and adjustments in the age of Covid
Emma Wheeler | 12 Apr 2022On Tuesday 26th April 2022, BT Group plc and AbilityNet discussed the reasonable adjustments you can make to help your employees thrive at work.
Covid-19 has increased the complexity of issues for disabled employees or mental health conditions. This webinar showed ways you can respond to the on-going changes that are affecting your employees.
The speakers discussed:
- What best practice might look like.
- Examples of the assistive technologies that organisations are using.
- How HR professionals must consider what their employees expect, and what they can provide for them.
- Focus on ergonomic, musculoskeletal and display screen equipment adjustments since Covid
The panellists discussed these points relating to The Equality Act 2010, which requires you to make reasonable adjustments.
Did you know that The Equality Act 2010 states that employers and service providers must make reasonable adjustments to allow disabled people access to the same opportunities and services as non-disabled people?
This is a legal duty, and the adjustments must be effective, practical and significant.
Here are some examples of reasonable adjustments:
- Allowing absence for rehabilitation, absence or treatment
- Arranging or giving extra training
- Acquiring or modifying equipment
- Modifying instructions or reference manuals
- Providing a reader or interpreter
- Providing supervision
In the webinar, our pannelists discussed reasonable adjustments particularly in the light of Covid-19 and the effects on disabled employees.
About the webinar
This webinar included two panellists from AbilityNet, Mairead Comerford, Head of HR, and Adam Tweed, Innovation Consultant for Education and Workplace. Mairead spoke about her experiences in HR and discussed the resources available to you and how to build accessible processes. Adam went through the adjustment options and discussed how they don’t have to be expensive to make and impact. Plus, he brought to life the idea that assistive technology can empower employees.
Our third panellist, Lina Chauhan from BT, who is an Ergonomic, Musculoskeletal and Wellbeing (MSK) Specialist focused on MSK set up and approach to Display Screen Equipment (DSE) adjustments was amplified to support health and wellbeing and working from home at the start of the pandemic in 2020.
The webinar also gave an opportunity to ask questions to the panellists.
AbilityNet's website has several free expert resources about reasonable adjustments. Find free blogs and factsheets on our website.
Get 10 training courses for the price of 8
If you are looking to book individual courses, get 10% off any upcoming 2022 AbilityNet online training course before the end of April using the discount code AbilityNetTraining10.
Further resources
- Keep up to date with accessibility issues with the AbilityNet newsletter
- Find out more about AbilityNet's free live webinar events
- Unsure where to start with digital accessibility? Speak to our experts for help.
- Other HR and workplace-related courses running soon that you might be interested in:
- How to Develop Accessible, Inclusive Recruitment
- How to Develop Accessible, Inclusive Onboarding
- How to develop inclusive, accessible customer services
- How to run accessible, inclusive meetings and events on Zoom, Microsoft Teams and more
AbilityNet provides a range of free services to help disabled people and older people. If you can afford it, please donate to help us support older and disabled people through technology.
