The majority of businesses have some level of commitment to diversity and disability increasingly features on the list of 'attributes' addressed by companies as part of their diversity management. However, it is easy for disability to get lost, put off 'until next year' and for complex practical culture change and practical adjustments to receive too little attention.

There are real benefits to addressing disability as part of a sophisticated understanding of the benefits which a diversity of personal characteristics, experiences and ways of doing things brings to a business.

Taking a disability confident approach of first understanding disability as it affects all stakeholders; then removing barriers affecting disabled people with similar needs and finally making adjustments for individuals, will help ensure that disability is not sidelined as diversity is mainstreamed.

The benefits of diversity

83% of 495 European companies surveyed recently agreed that diversity had a positive impact on their business. [i]

Diversity also matters to employees: overall satisfaction is closely correlated to satisfaction with a company's performance on diversity.

• 61% of employees who rate their company's diversity efforts in the top third of companies, say they are extremely satisfied with their company. But among employees, who rate their company's diversity efforts in the middle third or lower third, only 34% and 21%, respectively, are extremely satisfied with their company.
• Employees in companies that ranked highly on diversity are much more likely to stay with their companies, and to recommend their companies to others. [ii]

Disability is 'Diversity Cinderella' – results from the Disability Standard reveal

Eighty UK employers took part in the 2005 Disability Standard and the Forum's unique comparison of key questions across three benchmark surveys on disability, race and gender reveals that disability is not a diversity priority.

Of the 80 organisations that participated in the Disability Standard Benchmark Survey, 26 also benchmarked their performance on race and gender over the past year. Thanks to information supplied by Race for Opportunity and Opportunity Now, the Forum has been able to compare organisational performance on disability with that on race and gender.

It is clear that organisations invest significantly less in disability, compared to race or gender. This pattern even holds true for those organisations that are outstanding in their commitment to self-improvement across all three diversity strands. The findings show that:

• 90% of organisations have an allocated budget to support race equality and 68% have a budget on gender equality compared to just 48 per cent on disability equality.
• 89% have policies to support race equality, 74% have policies to support gender equality yet just 43% have policies to support disability equality.
• 93% assess impact on race, 69% on gender but only 15% assess impact on disability.

It would seem disability and disability discrimination are still regarded as distinctly different to — and less important than — race and gender. The Forum will be launching an enquiry into this and stakeholders concerned with the various strands of diversity will be invited to consider the implications of these results on plans to create a single equality body.

Susan Scott-Parker,
Chief Executive, Employers' Forum on Disability

www.disabilitystandard.co.uk

Diversity - Inclusion rather than 'strand' management

A 2005 Employers' Forum on Disability survey of diversity managers found that disability is one issue amongst many.

• Over 80% of respondents spend less than 20% of their time on disability issues. Race is top priority for most organisations, although disability is the second highest priority.
• More companies taking an 'inclusive' approach to diversity rather than focusing on strands such as race, gender, disability etc. Only 3 out of 16 organisations use a strand management approach
• Evidence of senior management commitment to diversity but limited resources
• 80% + have board representation for diversity and all report to senior management but only 2 respondents had a diversity team working to them
• Diversity managers are often long-serving members of staff (50% have spent more than 12 years with their current employer) who have moved into diversity (8 have between 1 - 4 years experience; 3 between 4 - 7 years experience)
• The most significant barriers to action were felt to be other strategic priorities coming before diversity and secondly, the size of the organisation
• Building middle and line management commitment is the top priority for diversity managers; for disability their priority is raising awareness
• Majority of diversity managers are focused on employment issues, rather than other areas such as customer relations
• Most companies did not report specific diversity goals - However 5 organisations reported that their goal was increasing representation of under-represented groups
• 10 of the 16 surveyed reported that disabled people were underrepresented and 4 felt that limits on recruitment was a barrier to improving performance on disability. 50% had targeted recruitment aimed at increased representation of disabled people [iv]

Is disability moving up the agenda?

• 11 companies responding to a 2005 ORC survey have a disability employee network in place. This was the second most common type of employee network.
• 62% of respondents run some kind of positive action programme. The second most common programmes were positive action programmes for people with disabilities (31%).
• 82% of respondent organisations undertake workforce monitoring. Disability is the second most common category to be monitored (88%). [v]
• In a 2006 CiPD survey more organisations take disability into account than any other diversity issue, yet still 40 per cent fail to do so. [vi]

Addressing disability as a core element of diversity will help employers to develop a more sophisticated understanding of individual experience across working life.

Accommodating diverse working life patterns

Sources

1. [i] European Commission, 'The Business Case for Diversity: Good Practices in the Workplace', September 2005.
2. [ii] Gallup poll for the EEOC 40th anniversary.
3. [iii] Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development research results cited in article 'Fear is the main driver for workplace diversity' 03/07/2006.
4. [iv] Employers' Forum on Disability, 'Diversity and Disability in UK Business: Working together?', August 2005, The survey was undertaken by Jeffrey Garkinkel, an intern from Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Survey participants: Air Products; Bedfordshire Police; British Airways; Centrica; Cleveland Police; Corporation of London; Department of Health; Forestry Commission; Goldman Sachs; HSBC; Imperial University; Land Registry; Learning and Skills Council; Lloyds TSB; University of Birmingham; Welsh Development Agency
5. [v] ORC survey of Equality and Diversity in Member Organisations undertaken December 2005.
6. [vi] Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development research results cited in article 'Fear is the main driver for workplace diversity' 03/07/2006.