What can we learn from the best?

They have developed a shared commitment and accountability The senior management in the top 18 organisations have clearly stated their commitment to valuing disabled people as employees and their boards take overall responsibility for becoming disability confident.

Top performers also build disability into every manager’s performance goals and appraisal process and have set action plans with assigned resources across every business area.

They build strong policy and procedure foundations The top performers are putting reasonable adjustment policies in place and ensure that their recruitment and selection as well as their development processes do not discriminate against disabled employees. They also have procedures to retain employees who become disabled.

Top tips

• Set policy and guidance for meeting employee requests for reasonable adjustments. Set a standard which explicitly addresses how quickly you will respond to requests for adjustments and how efficiently the process will be managed.
• Put written policies in place that set out how disability equality will be achieved in employment.
• Introduce disability monitoring to your feedback systems e.g. your recruitment and selection process, employee  training, appraisals and applications for promotion.

Image: Partnership: West Midlands Police works closely with Shaw Trust