Last week the UK celebrated the wonderful work of people who freely give their time to good causes with Volunteering Week 2017. It got us thinking about the efforts of our volunteers all around the country who change the lives of disabled and older people everyday.

We currently have 230 volunteers for our free home support service ITCanHelp. Some, like David Brew, have been volunteering for 20 years.

Each of them makes regular visits to people who might need help to do things like online shopping, Skyping their family or getting the most out of technology which could help them, such as speech-to-text or screenreading equipment.

AbilityNet volunteers will also help with smartphones, TVs and often go above and beyond the call of duty. One particular volunteer who stands out is Allan, who helped 80-year-old Ruth trace her long lost brother. Or Pankaj, who helped Jannette synchronise all her IT to work efficiently for her 30 years after having a stroke. It truly changed her life. 

Brian, from Lancashire recently made a home video for us about how his AbilityNet volunteer has changed his world. 

This year, to date, our volunteers have clocked up 1,500 hours of volunteering between them, the equivalent of over 200 working days, all for free.

They have scored a customer satisfaction rating of 95% and received the following comments:

“excellent service and support”
“so understanding”
“a pleasure to work with”
“very patient”
“very kind, very thoughtful, very skilled”

For some of our very vunerable clients, their computer truly is a lifeline.

To join our group of volunteers, click here. 

To get help at home from one of our AbilityNet ITCanHelp volunteers, click here. 

Barclays has said its new bPay method of payment, which sees customers using contactless wristbands and keyfobs on purchases under £30, is the latest of its tools that will make life easier for disabled customers.

It handed out 100 wristbands last week at the Assistive Technology Exhibition and Conference, which is supported by the Barclays and held at ILEC conference centre in London.

The bank says that people with dexterity and mobility requirements, sight loss and dyslexia have found bPay has made making a payment easier.

Paul Smyth, head of IT accessibility for Barclays, said the business was aiming to be “the most accessible company in the FTSE 100”.

Customers can buy one of the contactless watches, wristbands, fobs or stickers for between £14.99 and £19.99 and activate it for payments.

"The fact you can wear it on your wrist and don't have to fumble around in your bag looking for your purse to get out your card made it much easier to use. I will carry on using it especially as I am disabled and have problems with both my hands,” says Sarah, a Barclays customer.

June, a blind customer of the bank, is quoted by Barclays as saying: "I love the freedom the wristband gives me because I don't have to worry about sorting out money in shops."

Speaking at the event, Adi Latif (right in photo with Paul Smyth of Barclays), accessibility consultant at AbilityNet said it was “fantastic that AbilityNet has been able to work closely with Barclays throughout all stages of the development life cycle to ensure their banking app is one of the most accessible in the world.”

He also discussed the innovations Barclays is making, such as the bPay and the new contactless cash feature which will allow a person to use their smartphone to withdraw money at Barclays cash machines without physically using a cash card.

ATEC, which was held on 6 June, showcases excellence in assistive technology that removes barriers to learning and work. It saw presentations from Lord Chris Holmes of Richmond MBE and former Paralympian and Molly Watt, Ambassador and advocate of Molly Watt Trust and Sense.

More on accessibility

• Making sure Smart Cities mean inclusive cities for the world's one billion disabled people
• Latest version of Smart Specs is sleeker with a focus on users who have tunnel vision
• Two easy ways to make sure you're not blocking visitors to your website

For help with making your website more accessible, click on our accessibility services page. 

Making sure that websites, apps and devices are accessible and inclusive for everyone is imperative to a successful digital economy and vital for its disabled citizens. But who cares more about an inclusive digital future - commercial companies like Apple or the UK government itself?

The importance of digital inclusion

This week, containing both a general election and the week-long Apple World-Wide Developers’ Conference (WWDC), is the perfect time to consider the importance of accessibility (probably more usefully thought of as ‘inclusive design’ as it benefits everyone and not just those users with disabilities or impairments) and how much importance it is afforded by these two organisations.

I wanted to use the word ‘parties’ here but that’s probably not the best choice when we’re mentioning a general election – and in fact whichever political party is in power for the coming few years is irrelevant here. What is going to be significant is the emphasis they give to this vital element of a digitally-driven society.

In several earlier posts I have spelt out the importance of inclusive design and how, in this mobile-first world, we’re all temporarily disabled by our environment on a daily basis. I won’t go over all the arguments here, suffice to say that assuming that accessibility is only for disabled people is short-sighted in the extreme (being blind I’m allowed to make puns like that) and I’d point you at a recent LinkedIn Pulse article of mine for a good summing up – it's called Extreme computing calls for inclusive design for us all.

So let’s get down to brass tacks: which of these two notable institutions care more about this critical consideration that is so fundamental a factor in our digital future? Let’s take a brief look at each in turn.

Apple – a long history of championing accessibility

The importance that Apple has placed on accessibility, on making their products and services useable for the broadest possible audience, is legendary – most particularly (but certainly not exclusively) amongst the disabled community. Just glancing at this week’s WWDC schedule we see no fewer than eighteen separate sessions on accessibility. This is absolutely no surprise to me whatsoever. It reflects the huge and on-going efforts that Apple lavish on accessibility across all their products.

In an interview for Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) last month a blind blogger, James Rath, interviewed the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, about accessibility and why Apple gives it such a high priority. It’ll leave you in no doubt as to Apple’s passion and commitment to inclusive design. It’ll be 12 minutes and 33 seconds of your life very well spent.



In the above interview Tim Cook speaks of how, in the past, people have questioned why Apple spend so much on accessibility. He may well have been recalling the occasion when an investor on a quarterly Apple earnings call very pointedly asked why Apple was spending all this money on accessibility (in other words on these poor disabled people who surely aren’t worth it) and Tim very calmly but with obvious vehemence responded that if he (the investor) felt that money spent on accessibility was money not well-spent then he’s in the wrong stock – basically sell your Apple shares if you don’t share our passion for inclusion.

As a blind person, there isn’t a single Apple product that I can think of that I can’t use to the full. Answers on a post card if you can think of one that perhaps I can’t. The same goes for people with the broadest range of other disabilities. Accessibility is in Apple’s DNA and they don’t just talk the talk, Apple walks the walk in everything they do.

Other manufacturers are similarly passionate about accessibility – I must of course add this here in case I’m accused of singling out Apple alone for such high praise. While many manufacturers are also on this journey, none in my opinion are so far along this road with all their various products and services and none so thorough in taking what is so evidently a ‘Rolls-Royce’ approach to implementing accessibility. Moreover, Apple were without doubt the trail-blazer in this area which encouraged others to join in, put their foot on the gas and shift into top-gear.

UK government – spearheading inclusion but is there ‘wood behind the arrowhead’?

Now let’s look at the venerable institution that is the UK government. With the advent of the general election, the government is also very much in the news this week (some might even say hitting the headlines even more than WWDC, but I’m not sure I’d personally go that far, winky face) and so I’d like to look at their score-card when it comes to making accessibility a reality for the 12.8 million people with disabilities in the UK today – a number which is set to rise to 15 million by 2050.

The UK government was relatively early in enshrining in law the protection from discrimination for disabled people. In October 1999 the Disability Discrimination Act DDA came into effect and stipulated that companies (and government) should “Make reasonable adjustments so that it is not impossible or unreasonably difficult for a person with a disability to use a service”.

Then, in 2003, an accompanying code of practice Rights of Access Goods, Facilities, Services and premises made it completely clear that this includes digital services – giving the example: "An airline company provides a flight reservation and booking service to the public on its website. This is a provision of a service and is subject to the act."

In 2010 the Equality Act added further weight to the legal requirement and should have left no one in any doubt as to their obligations.

So the law has been very clear since at least 2003. And yet, nearly a decade and a half later, we still have Fewer than a third of UK council websites accessible to disabled people and, even more significantly, fewer than a tenth of all websites more generally meet even a base-level of accessibility in our experience.

Why is this the case? One reason might be that, while being in the vanguard of governments across the globe that have put in place the valuable legislation that protects people with disabilities from discrimination in an ever more digitally-focused world, the UK government has never (not once) felt it part of the remit of government to add their weight behind the legislation - to add the wood behind the arrowhead. They've never enforced the legislation or fined organisations that do not comply. The result is the woeful lack of progress outlined above.

A call to action for the CEO of UK Plc

In an open letter to government I published over a year ago for GAAD 2016, I outlined at length why the government should take the simple and obvious step of enforcing the law and encouraging companies to prioritise the accessibility of their websites and apps. The argument is beyond compelling and is quite obvious.

I’d invite you to read the post to get the full picture but, in a nutshell, it calls the government to take enforcement into their own hands much as they already do in a broad range of areas from taxation to parking. Where are the ‘traffic wardens of the internet’ that will champion the cause of the disabled user? Widespread government enforcement would see a seismic shift in the stubbornly immovable status quo. There has been no response to date.

By the time you read this article you might already know who won the election – who the resident of Number 10 and ‘CEO of UK Plc’ is. Whoever that person is, we call upon them to take their lead from the CEO of Apple.

I’m sure that our new PM will care as much about being inclusive as Apple’s Tim Cook so clearly does. They just now need to show it. They should take that most obvious of actions towards enforcing accessibility – a simple step that will forever change the digital landscape beyond recognition.

We call upon the CEO of UK Plc to act swiftly – perhaps even soon after taking that first step into Number 10.

 

As we've previously reported, making our cities smarter and more inclusive will become increasingly important in the next decades. 

“Current projections are that two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050, and with an ageing population comes higher levels of ill-health, impairment and disability.

“Futurists, tech visionaries and urban stakeholders have been talking about 'smart cities' for a number of years ...and they could transform the lives of those with disabilities,” said Robin Christopherson, AbilityNet's head of digital inclusion.

But, at a Smart Cities NYC conference in New York last month, there was concern that mobile apps, government services and other smart city tools aren't properly incorporating the needs of disabled people.

The event saw the launch of the Smart Cities for All toolkit to help city leaders be more inclusive in planning urban technology.

The toolkit, created by not-for-profits G3ict and World Enabled and backed by Microsoft, surveyed hundreds of world leaders from the public and private sectors, advocacy organisations, civil society and academia over the last year and less than half could identify a smart-city project that had any focus on accessibility.

Victor Pineda, president of World Enabled and an urban planner, called for Radical Inclusion of disabled people in Smart Cities plans (see video). He said: “Sustainable Development Goal Number 11 — inclusive and resilient cities — we are not going to meet that goal if we don’t think about people with disabilities in this digital urban infrastructure.”

The toolkit contains a huge database of more than 350 apps, websites, software and other technologies that demonstrate different ways of addressing the digital divide for people with disabilities. This is intended to inspire city leaders, as well as software developers, to come up with ideas for products.

In November 2016, AbilityNet hosted an event designed to gather information to feed into the guide as part of a global round table programme.

The guide also lays out the various international standards that have already been established for digital inclusion and features a model procurement policy for government officers, which draws on global accessibility standards.

Pineda warned that as things stood, cities we’re not going to meet the objective of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities or the New Urban Agenda.

It is hoped the guide will support cities to have smarter and inclusive offerings around emergency response, employment, public safety, justice and financial services for all citizens - including the one billion people worldwide with a disability.

Fewer than a third of council websites in the UK is currently accessible for disabled people, according to new research on web accessibility.

A total of 134 of the 416 council websites in the UK passed the Socitm (society for IT practitioners in the public sector) Better Connected stage two accessibility test, carried out in December 2016 with the Digital Accessibility Centre.

The test takes a full range of disabled users into account, including those who have keyboard only access and those who are blind or have low vision and are working with assistive technologies like screen readers.

A lower level stage one test, designed to identify websites that would fail the full test, was done first. Overall, 275 sites passed this. Next, Socitm Insight member councils - a higher performing group than all councils – if successful at the first stage, were selected for testing at stage two. This saw 195 council sites tested with a pass rate of 69%. The previous year, that figure was 77%.

A statement by Soctim suggested the result was not as negative as it first appeared. “These results should not be read as a deterioration, however, because different, and arguably more difficult tasks were tested this year. In particular, to pass ‘order a bulky waste collection’ which was a test conducted on a mobile device, sites had to offer an online order form (not a pdf) and further, that order form and its associated payment module (as well as the site overall) had to be responsive.” It added that improvements had been made in other areas of council websites.

The Better Connected process tests sites against 14 criteria that are in line with the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.

Most common reasons council websites fail accessibility tests - desktop

Unclear labels for form fields and/or associated controls

No visible working skip links – these were either not visible when tabbed to, or did not having the correct markup in order to skip a user to the main content within the page

Illogical heading structure – for those using screen reading software, jumping from heading to heading enables them to get an overall impression of a page’s content. This is problematic if headings have not been created with this in mind

Moving content without a means to pause or stop

No visible link focus on tab - This was an issue with desktop and mobile versions of sites. When keyboard-only users tab through a page they often become lost, making tasks difficult to complete. The issue seems to appear on websites designed to work more effectively in Internet Explorer 9 and above. It caused several sites to score no more than one on some or all tasks.

Most common reasons council websites fail mobile accessibility test

No online form available – this means some users with disabilities cannot complete the task because they cannot use the phone or email.

Sometimes forms were available but were themselves not responsive, or there was a non-responsive payment module.

Where forms presented as non-HTML documents, users with disabilities often that they are not able to access them. Soctim said that councils should try to: use HTML pages as an alternative; if they are used, ensure that non-HTML documents are accessible; on any page where such a non-HTML page is used, include a link to the appropriate reader plug-in page

The site was not responsive or otherwise purposed for mobile access. When sites are purposed for mobile, there is usually more limited content, which is then easier to find on a small screen. The content will also be larger so that users with low vision do not have to magnify as much of the screen as would be necessary if they had a full desktop screen presented to them in a limited space.

‘Bleedthrough’ - where content not present on the screen was picked up and read out by screenreaders, this prevents content being reached in sequence, confusing the user’s progress through the task

How councils can improve the accessibility of their websites

Councils were advised to offer forms for reporting, applying, booking, and contacting the council, since some users with disabilities will be unable to communicate by phone or use email because of its unstructured format. Forms themselves must be responsive so that they are usable from mobile devices.

Mandatory fields were problematic if notified to users via an asterisk or notified in text. Notification also needs to be within the <label> so that screen reader users are also aware of the need to complete the field.

Visible labels that are easy to identify benefit all web users who are able to see them. Screen reader users also need to be able to identify and use form inputs. Most modern screen readers will automatically switch to ‘forms’ mode when focus is shifted to a form element, and back to ‘virtual cursor’ mode when focus shift to non-form elements. It is important that descriptive Labels or instructions are provided when content requires user input, sais the report. 

Need help with making your website accessible? Try our Digital Accessibility Services.

Our top related blogs

• Homepages for the Daily Mail, Huffington Post, Twitter, Match.com and Amazon less accessible than six years ago. 
• WCAG2.1 - is the web about to become more accessible?
• How to avoid losing one million website customers with inclusive digital design.

A diverse workforce is a healthy workforce, ripe to innovate and produce goods and services fit for the consumer of tomorrow. Employers, however, need to know what to do to ensure their valuable employees with a disability are allowed to shine. In this, the unofficial third part to our ‘To disclose or not to disclose’ series, we’ll look at the secret to a truly best-practice approach to diversity in the workplace.

Think the job market is tough?

If you don't have a disability and think that today’s climate is a tough one when it comes to finding the right job (or even any work at all) then spare a thought for someone with a disability. In my last post we looked at the difficulties disabled people face when trying to get work. If you tell recruiters about your disability then the response is often no response at all. You don’t even get a chance.

This is of course illegal. If you’re qualified for the job then, according to the Equality Act 2010, you aren’t allowed to be discriminated against on the grounds of disability, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, marital status or maternity. It’s the law to look at what reasonable adjustments can be put in place that could help in these areas but, while many very able candidates are still marked down on factors other than their qualifications and experience, it’s disability that is so often the most common area where rank discrimination still festers.

A clear path to inclusive recruitment

Not to worry, though. Step forward ClearTalents. In my last blog, we looked at this straightforward solution to the challenge of knowing what reasonable adjustments to apply for candidates across all these categories – a challenge faced by recruiters every day. With ClearTalents in place, every employer can get the diverse workforce they deserve. The next challenge is keeping that valuable level of diversity, making sure the right processes are in place to meet their needs, and frankly not making any dumb mistakes. We’ll look at both of those below.

Creating a clear path to diversity

We’ve discussed using ClearTalents during recruitment to ensure that the right accommodations are in place for every candidate throughout the application process. In the workplace the exact same legal requirement to make reasonable adjustments applies.

Luckily there is an in-work version of the solution, called ClearTalents At Work, that is specifically tailored to help employees get the (often very simple) adjustments to their workstation, tasks and working environment to help them perform their best at work.

Free to employees, this in-work solution takes a very similar approach to the recruitment version (again covering not just disability but all other protected characteristics mentioned above). It provides just the right guidance to line managers or wellbeing teams to help - as well as including a full Disply Screen Equipment (DSE) evaluation (which is also a crucial legal health and safety requirement).

Thus, when an individual has successfully progressed through the recruitment process and been on-boarded (with the help of their ClearTalents diversity profile) they can then create a similar profile using the in-work solution as a standard part of their induction process. By this time they’ll have been in post for a few weeks and know the ins and outs of work, including their workstation setup, working environment, the premises and daily tasks etc – all the things that they weren’t aware of before they began work.

This new profile will be tailor-made to help them shine at work, providing specific reasonable adjustments for line managers from the very beginning of their new role.

Every employee creates one, because everyone potentially has something they may want to disclose across such a broad area. In reality, we find that very consistently, across all organisations using the ClearTalents in-work solution, around 65% of employees have something they disclose – even if it’s just that they need the double-click speed of their mouse to be slightly reduced. Such a level of disclosure, and an empowered line management equipped with the specific reasonable adjustments they need to implement changes without escalation or overhead, has a massive impact upon an organisation.

So now, rather than employees having to ‘put their hand up’ as having a ‘problem’, every colleague in every office is completing the same regular diversity profile and everyone gets the adjustments they need. Nice for the employees, and nice and compliant for the employer.

Top tip for employers: Sickness shouldn’t go in one big bucket

OK – on reflection that probably isn’t the most delicate of subheadings, but the message is an important one. At this point I want to briefly draw your attention to a big mistake that employers can often make in evaluating the efficiency and productivity of employees with disabilities.

We know that, with the right adjustments in place, disabled employees can be as productive as their able-bodied colleagues. Recent research by the TUC, however, highlights that employers often make a fundamental miscalculation in this area. The critical point is that employers must ensure that absence for reasons associated with disability is counted separately from sickness absence. This is often not the case and hence people with disabilities are identified as being less productive. This is discrimination. Beware not to fall into this trap.

Reaping the on-going rewards of diversity best-practice

Speaking of sickness, having a process that carefully explores the needs of every employee leads to much more wide-reaching benefits than one solely focused on disability and totally reliant on self-disclosure.

Organisations using ClearTalents experience an average fall in sickness across the entire organisation (not just those with disabilities) of between 0.75 and 2.3 days. I’ll leave you to do the calculations for your organisation but, assuming a typical figure of £150 for the daily cost of an employee, an organisation of any size is suddenly enjoying thousands, tens of thousands or even millions of pounds benefit each year.

These same organisations also experience a considerable reduction in compromise agreements and industrial tribunals (cases where employees have legal grievances against their employer), typically seeing a reduction of between 75 and 100% in this area. This too can save a company tens of thousands of pounds and often much, much more.

Way beyond being disability confident

Such a solution applied to diversity in the workplace goes far beyond a best-practice approach to disability. However, becoming Disability Confident is a goal that many organisations have in their sights. The Clear Company, which co-developed the ClearTalents solutions, also co-authored the Disability Confident scheme. 

The logo for the scheme includes two ticks which (as pictured right), ironically, might seem to bring us back to where we started with the dreaded ‘I have a disability’ tickbox on an application form. Adopting the guidance and processes in the Disability Confident scheme is, however, far more than twice as good - it’s infinitely better than a simple tickbox approach. ClearTalents can catapult an organisation into the vanguard of best practice organisations who are on their Disability Confident journey.

Employees – want to make your talents clear at work?

Using ClearTalents is free to employees. If you would like to create a diversity profile and share it with your line manager or wellbeing team, simply go to cleartalents.info and get started today.

Resources:

ClearTalents On Demand
ClearTalents At Work
TUC guidance on sickness and discrimination
 

It's excellent when technology makes your life easier, right?  With this in mind, we've put together 13 time saving tips together to make it easier for you to use your devices, including tips on text-to-speech and speech-to-text options. These are game changers!

1.  Let your virtual assistant, such as Siri/ Google do all the work: All smartphones and computers now come with a virtual assistant. By speaking into your device you can get help with tasks such as navigation, making notes, writing texts and finding out where local businesses are.

2. Here's a brill list of Google voice commands you can use to get your virtual assistant to do stuff. Here's some ideas for Siri commands.

3.  You're sitting in front of an open document, due to write a report or essay, but are unable to type or would like to give your eyes a break. Use Nuance or your built-in voice recognition options  such as Apple's Dictation or Windows Speech Recognition to speak your words and you'll be amazed at the results.

4. If you are completely unable to use your hands and arms because of a disability or injury, you can try something like Nuance Naturally Speaking Premium edition which has more advanced features than some of the in-built versions, such as the ability to get your computer to put text into bold or italics. This is available on mobile phones too. 

5.  Out of the box, your device's virtual assistant will require you to tap a button to get it to start listening. You can remove this feature and talk handsfree to your phone using the 'Hey Siri', 'Ok Google, or 'Hey Cortana' commands. Have a look in your settings. Here's how to open Siri handsfree.

6.  Your virtual assistant can even set reminders for you. Click the link to see how to do it with Cortana. You never have to forget that important event ever again!

7.  Got Windows and want to have texts, emails or articles read out to you? Have a look at Natural Readers or TextAloud.

8. Apple types can have texts, articles and documents read aloud either using the in-built options like VoiceOver or try software like Ghostreader.  You can even have your electronic ibooks read out to you. This, like a lot of the tips here could be useful if you are dyslexic and would like a break from reading and writing sometimes. 

9. If you're a Android user, you can have emails, webpages and all sorts of other things read to you. Perhaps a bedtime story? Try Google Text-to-Speech.

10. If you are visually impaired you can use your computer quite effectively with an in-build screenreader (though we would like to see more work going into making sure webpages are optimised for screenreaders). In-built ones include Windows Narrator and Apple Voice Over and free open source ones include NVDA.

11. Have Norwegian, Arabic or even Canadian French as your mother tongue? The good news is that text-to-speech comes in lots of languages. This could be very useful if you work as a translator.

12. Text to speech can be fun too! You can have a chat with your own personal assistant.

13. Youtube has some really good clips of how to set up text to speech on an Iphone and Android devices and will likely have videos for everything mentioned above.

Find out more

• Need more help? Call our free helpline on 0800 269 545 and Ask Alex (me!) about how tech can change your life

• Use My Computer My Way to discover all the accessibility features in every mainstream phone, laptop and computer

For almost twenty years it’s been a legal requirement not to discriminate against disabled people, but only now do we have a viable solution to the disabled candidate's conundrum – to disclose or not to disclose? In this second blog of a two-part post, we’re looking at the solution to this intractable dilemma faced by disabled job-seekers everywhere.

The disclosure catch-22

Last time we looked at some startling research undertaken by an organisation trying to help disabled people into work. They applied for twenty jobs with CVs and covering letters that clearly demonstrated the applicants' ability to perform the role, and they ticked the box - common to many application forms - that asks if you have a disability. The result was that they didn’t get a single response from any of the different organisations they applied to. Oh and by the way, when they didn’t tick the box while applying for those same jobs, they got a response in every case!

For the full horror of the scenario to fully sink in I’d recommend reading last week’s article.

If, however, a disabled candidate chooses not to tick the box, then they usually find themselves unable to fully participate in the application, assessment or interview process as (often quite simple) changes haven’t been put in place – changes so vital to help them perform at their best. It’s a classic catch-22.

The recruiters' story

Recruiters aren’t necessarily discriminating in this way because they want to consciously avoid disabled candidates.  Imagine that you are a busy recruiter with dozens (and sometimes hundreds) of applications for a given post. You have lots to choose from. When you see one that has the box ticked the immediate response is to panic. The fear of not being able to adequately accommodate the needs of that individual means that, consciously or otherwise, they look for some rationale to put them to one side. There are, after all, all these other candidates to choose from - and getting it wrong might lead to all kinds of consequences.

That, of course, is not fair and disabled people deserve better. Quite apart from it being illegal to do this in those cases where the candidate is more qualified than those not being discarded, disabled employees are very valuable members of a workforce.

A diverse workforce is a stronger workforce

Research by The Health and Safety Executive has demonstrated that, when compared to non-disabled colleagues, disabled employees:

• Are as productive when they have the right reasonable adjustments in place
• Take less sick-leave
• Stay longer in their jobs (more loyal)

I was once told of another striking example of the power of a diverse workforce. NASA, at the time of the space shuttle missions, tried to ensure that wherever possible one of the seven crew members had dyslexia. This was because the special connections forged in the brains of people with dyslexia make them excellent lateral-thinkers and thus invaluable to have around in a tight spot.

Knowing what disabled workers bring, who wouldn’t want to employ as diverse a workforce as possible?

A new British Standard encouraging recruiters to ‘Do the right thing’

A new code of practice: Valuing people through diversity and inclusion was launched on 4 May. The code of practice requires that recruiters make all parts of the process, such as filling in forms or completing online assessments, accessible to disabled candidates.

Check out our recent post for more information on what this new standard covers, as well as what it means for employers.

So the law is clear and the moral and business case is compelling, but the question of just how to do it right is, and always has been, a challenge. Enter ClearTalents, cape a-flapping, to save the day!

ClearTalents

The challenge of asking all the right questions up-front and in a way that encouraged disclosure resulted, after several years of expert development, in ClearTalents. Put simply, ClearTalents is an online application that enables candidates to quickly create a profile that results in a tailored report for recruiters to know what actions they need to take. Turning an intractable challenge into a simple solution has won ClearTalents several awards.

Quick and simple, powerful and compliant

You might think that a process that explores all aspects of a candidate’s needs (not just disability and impairment but also any specific requirements they might have relating to race, religion, age, sex and sexual orientation and pregnancy etc) would be a lengthy one. In reality creating a profile take minutes for someone to complete as they are first asked high-level questions and only drill down into great detail in areas that apply to them. Whether they need a prayer room to be available during an on-site assessment, a wheelchair accessible venue, or information by text or email instead of by phone, the report tells the recruiter everything they need to know to put reasonable, timely adjustments in place.

One subtle but significant feature of ClearTalents is that recruiters ‘unlock’ each stage of the report as the candidate progresses through the application process. An audit trail in the system confirms what was viewed by who and when and in this way the recruiter isn’t able to look ahead to see what disabilities or other needs might show up later on.

Let’s use a practical example to illustrate how this might work in practice. For someone like myself, my blindness would not necessarily show up in my report until I had been shortlisted and called in for interview. This is because I don’t need any adjustments until that point. I am able to fill out online forms and have a nice chat with HR on the phone. But, when coming in for an interview I’d need to ensure that the building had a conventional entrance as well as a revolving door, for example, as my guide dog Archie is so big he’d almost certainly be chopped in half. Moreover, springing a disability on an employer at the last moment like that will often put them on the back foot, which doesn’t make for a relaxed and successful interview.

If a candidate’s needs do show up at an earlier stage, the fact that the recruiter has unlocked the report and accessed its tailored reasonable adjustment info means that they are then unable to dismiss that candidate without basing their decision solely upon merit, experience and qualifications. They have, after all, just been given the reasonable adjustments that candidate needs so what excuses do they have? Accountability encourages compliance and the recruiter just gets on with following the report’s advice and the candidate gets the adjustments they need.

Not just disability – inclusive recruitment is so much more

As ClearTalents is not just about disability, we both encourage all job-seekers to create a profile and recommend that all employers consider including it as standard. There are eight other areas (or ‘protected characteristics’) that are covered by the Equality Act – we’ve mentioned a few above – and candidates can easily be inadvertently discriminated against in these areas too.

Thus we find that, in reality, the majority of candidates have something they are able to disclose in these areas that, with the right adjustments in place, will help them perform at their best. For this reason, many organisations are indeed including ClearTalents as a step in their standard application process. 

Goodbye dreaded tickbox

Unlike the dreaded tickbox approach, recruiters using ClearTalents now don’t need to be made aware whether a candidate has needs, large or small, before it is time for them to know. When they do find out, the combination of audit trail and tailored adjustments at their fingertips means that they have no option but to consider that candidate on his or her merits.

Goodbye tickbox. Goodbye discrimination. Welcome to a world of compliance, opportunity and diversity.

If you’d like to find out more about how ClearTalents can help your organisation become a true leader in inclusive recruitment please do drop me a line.

Candidates - want to help make your talents clear to recruiters?

A message to everyone out there who is seeking work is to consider creating a free profile on ClearTalents. You might use your computer in a certain way, find steps or lifting difficult, or perhaps you have allergies or anxieties. You might need to make special travel arrangements, have print of a certain size, or require something specific in place for face to face meetings. Whatever makes you you, ClearTalents can provide the recruiter with the reasonable adjustment advice they need to help.

So if you’re someone whose looking for work and want to know a bit more about how ClearTalents can help, then check out this handy summary for candidates as it will help answer a lot of your questions.

It’s free. To get cracking today go to www.cleartalents.com, create your profile and then start sharing it with companies you apply to. You may never need to tick that box again – instead just give them the link to your secure and confidential profile which contains the reasonable adjustments you need to perform at your best.

Resources:
ClearTalents in Recruitment
ClearTalents At Work
 

Global Accessibility Awarness Day (GAAD) on 18 May offers a chance to dip into some fantastic virtual (and real life) accessibilty events from lots of different organisations, including a full day of live streaming from the BBC and top speakers from Microsoft at the Atos London event. Many of these are free.

Here's our pick of seven events that we think stand out - check the official #GAAD2017 website for a complete guide to GAAD events.

#GAAD2017 live streaming from the BBC on digital access and inclusion 

• Our accessibilty team picked out the BBC's main GAAD event as a favourite.
• It runs all day on 18 May, streaming from London and Salford in the UK.

ATOS Global Accessibility Awareness day 2017

• Adi Latif, usability and accessibility consultant at AbilityNet, picked out this event as an option for those who want to go to an event in person, rather than be involved online. 
• Adi says: "The main London GAAD event looks good as it will have Microsoft talking about how they are imbedding accessibility into their platform. It also looks good as it will be discussing mental health. So many people are affected by it but its very rarely covered."

Digital inclusion

• ISTE Inclusive Learning Network online mini-conference on digital inclusion
• From 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM (Eastern time). See the schedule and sign-up to participate.

Future of Accessible Work

• Join W4A (Web For All) Conference Chair Vivienne Conway to hear the highlights and top trends emerging from the global conference Web For All 2017: The Future of Accessible Work. 4pm. 
• More info about the PEAT W4A Webinar.

Accessibility and Gaming

• Blind gamers unite on Twitch to show you a way of gaming you've never seen before. Live Stream
• Head to BlindNewWorld on Twitch May 18th at 12PM ET Featuring BlindGamerDK and BlindGamerMisadventures.

Accessibility for older adults

• On 18 May Test Partners Ltd is raising awareness of the challenges that the over-55s experience in understanding and using websites. Find out more about the accessibility for older adults event.

Higher education 

• Free webinar discussing 10 Challenges and Solutions for web accessibility implementation in higher education. Topics include: Accessible Textbooks, Administrative Buy-in, Captioning Requirements and Funding Options, Disability Service Providers, Procurement of Accessible Goods and Services, and more.
• May 18 11:00am - 12:00pm (EDT). To participate, request the login link, please email wag@amac.gatech.edu

Check the official #GAAD2017 website for a complete guide to GAAD events.