Creating disability equality in the workplace

Today, in partnership with Virgin Media, we are launching Work With Me, a major campaign aimed at encouraging employers to build more inclusive workplaces for disabled people.

Work With Me

We are asking businesses to sign up to the Work With Me pledge and commit to:

• Appointing a senior leader who is accountable for disability inclusion.
• Reviewing an organisation’s support for disabled employees - from recruitment to the policies and procedures in the workplace – and implementing a disability action plan.
• Helping line managers be more confident when supporting disabled people, such as implementing reasonable adjustments.
• Recording progress, such as measuring the number of disabled people employed and tracking disabled employees’ experiences of how well the organisation is doing in creating an inclusive workplace.
• Sharing best practice with other organisations

Employing disabled people

We are launching this pledge because disabled people are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as non-disabled people. Government figures show that there are one million disabled people in the UK who want to work, but are being shut out of the workplace due to the barriers that they face.

The disability employment gap

The disability employment gap is the difference in the employment rate of disabled people and non-disabled people. It is currently at 31 per cent and hasn't improved in more than 10 years.

Closing the employment gap

We want to get more disable people into, staying in and progressing at work, so that disabled people can be financially secure.

In addition to working directly with businesses as part of Work With Me, we are also working with disabled people and the Government.

Employment services

We provide national and local employment services to support disabled people to get in, stay in and progress in work.

Volunteering opportunities

We offer volunteering opportunities across the organisation, helping to improve employment skills.

Working with the Government

We are working with government to help shape legislation and the rules employers have to follow. Only by working with both Government and businesses can we help to deliver equality in the workplace for disabled people.

Together, as Disability Gamechangers, we can make disability equality in the workplace a reality. You can sign up to become a Disability Gamechanger and help make this change.