'Disability Confidence' is a new concept which has been developed by the Employers' Forum on Disability to explain how successful organisations get it right on disability.

A disability confident organisation will redefine success in regard to its relationships with all customers, employees and partners.

'Disability confidence' is increasingly used by leading businesses to describe their vision, to shape their corporate strategy and to set goals.

Our values are central to meeting the needs and expectations of our customers. We embrace diversity, which enables us to have a wide variety of approaches and perspectives, enhancing performance and creating value for customers. We aim to be confident in meeting all our customers' needs. To this end, all our employees receive 'disability confidence' training.' The 3 F's (Flexible, Friendly, Facilitating) philosophy is central to everything we do at Motability Operations.

Motability Operations

Why Disability Confidence?

‘Realising potential’ for the first time presents the multifaceted business case for ‘disability confidence.’

Traditional cost-benefit analysis focuses unduly on the assumed costs of accommodating individuals. By contrast the disability confidence business case includes aspects such as the enhanced management capacity and organisational performance, which are usually overlooked.

Disability confident organisations anticipate the needs of groups of people with different impairments, and enable a much wider range of individuals to contribute to business success.

Rather than asking: "Will this disabled person cost more to employ than they will bring to the business?" companies need to ask, "What are the business benefits and competitive advantage we will achieve through creating a disability confident organisation?"

It is impossible to generalise about the millions of disabled people who live in the UK and around the world: Some individuals will be right for your business, others will not.

However the benefits of working with disabled people to systematically identify and address barriers in the business and look for opportunities for business growth and innovation, far outweigh the costs involved in enabling inclusion.

Disability confidence improves organisational performance

Through the process of designing systems, policies, products and cultures which work better for disabled people, the disability confident company creates a more efficient, responsive and innovative organisation which works better for everyone.

For example, through looking at their recruitment processes from the perspective of disabled applicants, disability confident employers will improve the way the recruit everyone, ensuring that they are genuinely employers of choice, not just employers of convenience. 60% of the ideas identified by employer focus groups to make recruitment processes more accessible to disabled people were changes which would benefit everyone. [i]

How far are companies demonstrating disability confidence?

Disability is now an established element of good HR management. [ii]

However, most companies have yet to develop real disability confidence; most have little understanding of the implications of disability for all areas of the business, including in the marketplace and are not yet acting to improve the way in which they interact with all disabled people.

The experience of 80 UK employers with a combined workforce of nearly two million employees, undertaking the UK's 2005 Employers Forum Disability Standard benchmarking, shows that disability confident companies:

• Have shared commitment and accountability for disability
• Develop strong policy foundations
• Focus on inclusive behaviours and cultures
• Talk to disabled people directly
• Provide accessible products and services [iii][iv]

More information on the Disability Standard

The benefits of Disability Confidence: the building blocks

• Strategic benefits
• Commercial benefits
• Legal benefits
• Societal benefits
• Ethical benefits
• Professional benefits

Sources

1. [i] TRIPOD report I, Engaging Employers to enable more disabled people to find work, Employers' Forum on Disability, Commissioned by the DWP
2. [ii] 95.3% of organisations surveyed as part of the 2005 IES Employment Review have a formal policy on disability. 8 in 10 allow absence for rehabilitation and treatment.
   IES, Employment Review, November 2005.
3. [iii] The Disability Standard
4. [iv] What's different about the top scorers?, Employers' Forum on Disability, Disability Standard 2005

'Research from the Netherlands reveals that the most conspicuous feature of the approach of companies which are good at disability management, is that they are...: professional and fair.

• All employees are of equal value to the company
• An employee's potential is more important than his or her limitations
• They have a personal approach geared towards and promoting employee wellbeing
• The atmosphere between supervisors and employees is one of openness and trust
• Health is an essential and self-evident component of company social policy
• There is a less strict dividing line between work and private life
• The company thinks in terms of social responsibility
• The company has strong self-regulating powers: it is looking to take on absence and return to work management itself
• To achieve this, the company is prepared to allocate time, money and human resources'

Source, SZW (The Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs & Employment): Disability Management, 2004, p46