Bradford & Bingley
Doing the right thing in the workplace – Diversity & accessibility
Bradford & Bingley believe that their workforce should reflect the communities in which they live and work, and their employment practices help them to deliver on this goal. The company promotes diversity and equality across all aspects of working life and believes it is important to share best practice and success. It also provides the opportunity for all staff to develop their skills and knowledge and to enjoy fulfilling careers. Bradford & Bingley is a member of Employers' Forum on Disability and the Employers' Forum on Age. These organisations amongst others look at ways to promote awareness of disability, age, race and gender within the workplace.
The Flexible Working Policy is available to all staff, not just to those with children under six or disabled children under eighteen, which is the legal requirement. For Bradford & Bingley, flexible working incorporates a wide variety of working practices and can be any working pattern other than the normal working pattern.
The laws on Age Discrimination changed on 1 October 2006 and during the year Bradford & Bingley carried out a Group wide training programme to educate staff about the new legislation. Teams from the Human Resources department briefed all senior managers directly.
Recruitment procedures at Bradford & Bingley have been reviewed to ensure that age is not a criteria and to ensure that job advertisements, job descriptions and interview questions are still relevant. The standard retirement age remains at 65 for employees but consideration will given to requests from staff to work beyond that age.
Bradford & Bingley was awarded the 'two ticks' symbol by the Employment Service in June 1995. This publicises their commitment to people with disabilities. Using the 'two ticks' symbol means the company is working towards the guidelines in the Employment Service Code of Good Practice on the Employment of Disabled People. The symbol is used in job advertisements and on the company job application form to make it clear to potential applicants with a disability that their application is welcome on the basis of their abilities and all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the role, will be interviewed.
The symbol also demonstrates to all employees that Bradford & Bingley are serious about good employment opportunities for people with disabilities and signals to the business community and the general public that the Group puts a priority on making the most of its people. However, it is also important to back up this commitment by ensuring products and services are accessible across all parts of the business.
Induction loops have been installed in all branches and wheelchair access has been improved. Power assisted doors have been introduced across the branch network. RNID provide interpretation services for customers and Bradford & Bingley provide sign language, lip speaking, deaf blind manual interpretation, speech to text interpretation and a note taking service. In addition, customers can access company products via RNID's Typetalk service.
Bradford & Bingley uses the Employers' Forum on Disability online training programme entitled “Welcoming Disabled Customers” to ensure all staff understand the needs of every disabled customer.
Bradford & Bingley is also committed to ensuring accessibility across their product range and continues to provide customers with literature in different formats, such as Braille, audio and large print. The corporate and customer facing websites have been audited by the Royal National Institute for the Blind ('RNIB') to ensure the websites are as user friendly as possible.
In support of their accessibility Bradford & Bingley have extended sponsorship for the RNIB Braille version of Money Matters, RNIB's money advice magazine, for a further year.[i]
Doing the right thing in the community – Supporting charities and organisations throughout West Yorkshire
A partnership exists between Yorkshire County Cricket Club and Bradford & Bingley that aims to highlight minority cricket and places particular emphasis on disabled, black, ethnic, and women's cricket.[ii]
Bradford & Bingley 2006 CSR report