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Disability Confident is a UK Government scheme that helps organisations in all industries and sectors become inclusive workplaces that can recruit and retain disabled talent.
Roughly 20% of the UK workforce identifies as disabled, and with this on the rise year-on-year, there’s never been a better time to ensure that your organisation is accessible.
In addition to the strong moral aspect and ESG reporting, improving your workplace for disabled staff allows you to more easily tap into the disabled talent pool, which makes up 20% of the UK work force. Increased diversity in your organisation is proven to drive innovation and success. The best practice your organisation implements through the Disability Confident scheme may also improve the physical and mental wellbeing of all staff. Further, the scheme gives your organisation strong validation that you’re doing right by your team and are set to grow sustainably.
Given it’s designed by the Government, the scheme is clunky, unclear, and hard to follow. We’re here as veterans of the scheme to cut the fat, and guide your organisation to Disability Confident Leader status in an affordable and streamlined way that works for you.
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Disability Confident Committed is an agreement to follow the principles of the scheme to recruit and retain disabled talent in your organisation. Many of these principles align with the Equality Act 2010, so your organisation should already be on-board with these.
You will also need to implement a Guaranteed Interview scheme in your organisation, which means that applicants who opt-in will be offered an interview as long as they meet the minimum requirements for the role (which you outline in the job listing). You must also have at least one role in your organisation that could be filled by a disabled person, and it should be explicitly advertised as such on the job listing (such as in an equality statement).
Cost: Free
Timescale: Organisations can typically achieve Committed very quickly as there is often little to implement (typically just Guaranteed Interview).
Disability Confident Employer is much more involved than the Committed level, as this is where you will make the bulk of changes to your workplace practices. You’ll need to complete a self-assessment of your organisation’s internal practices against the Disability Confident framework, and make changes throughout your operations were necessary to meet it. You don’t need to hit every aspect of the framework, but you are expected to achieve what you reasonably can, and commit to improving in the future where you can’t meet it.