The ability to understand and meet the individual needs of customers, employees and other stakeholders, combined with the ability to profit from difference will underpin tomorrow's successful companies.

Through a more sophisticated understanding of diversity, the disability confident business will be better placed to capitalise on the global trend towards individualisation.

For more information choose from the key trends below.

Capitalising on individualisation: The disability dimension to 7 key trends

Technological innovation, global competition and increasingly sophisticated and informed customers are all driving a global trend towards increasingly individualised relationships between businesses and their numerous stakeholders. Understanding disability, which affects 1 in 3 people, and has a huge practical impact on the way in which people interact with companies, will help the confident business relate more skilfully and effectively with every individual.

• Trend 1: Increasingly diverse population and complex labour market
• Trend 2: Technology enhancing individual and organisational potential
• Trend 3: More flexible management of individuals
• Trend 4: Individualisation: The 'Segment of One'
• Trend 5: Growing stakeholder demand for corporate accountability
• Trend 6: Increasing role of business in individual and societal relationships
• Trend 7: Increasing legal obligations to individuals

Why disability?

Disabled people face practical barriers to work. One of the key functions of any business is to develop practical solutions to problems - That's what business is good at. Looking at the way we do business from the perspective of people with disabilities has helped Lehman Brothers Technology Division to upgrade its products and toolsets in order to make things easier for disabled colleagues to contribute.

Barry Caswell, Head of European IT Infrastructure, Lehman Brothers

An understanding of all the diverse elements of human identity and experience is important for businesses seeking to build effective relationships with individual employees, customers and stakeholders. However, understanding how different people experience disability brings unique advantages for companies seeking to understand all their stakeholders while implementing practical improvements to the way they do business.

• Disability is a complex and dynamic element of identity. A whole spectrum of impairments affects different people at different points in their lives. We are all potentially disabled, and as populations age, increasing numbers of people will experience disability at some point in their lives. An individual's experience of disability depends on the extent to which society adapts and accommodates their needs.
• Disability has a practical impact on how people interact with any organisation as customers and employees. It affects how people access websites, physical premises; how they use products; how they interact with customer services and with recruitment processes, as well as how they experience the work environment and company culture. It can exclude or it can drive innovation
• Disability confidence requires a company to equip itself with competencies across the whole organisation, including: Human resources, property services, marketing, product development, customer services, IT and website design, training and development, occupational health, procurement and outsourcing, and corporate responsibility

The Disability Confident business

Employers who gain a more sophisticated understanding of disability as an aspect of individual experience will get more from their disabled employees as well as other groups who are demanding more flexible employment.

They will have more responsive and efficient recruitment practices which will enable them to reach out beyond traditional talent pools in order to overcome skills shortages.

They will be better placed to take advantage of the potential of technological to enhance individual productivity and to put in place effective flexible management of individuals and working practices

Sources

1. [i] Government Actuary Department 2004, quoted in ‘Jobs for the Future', Accenture, 2005
2. [ii] Eurostat, Labour Market Trends April 2005
3. [iii] Eurostat, Employment of disabled people in Europe in 2002, European Commission, 2003.
4. [iv] Office of National Statistics Census 2001