How can we help you?
Our experienced disabled advisors have been providing support to organisations and businesses for many years. Many of them run their own businesses too! As a result, we have been able to assist numerous organisations to gain a competitive advantage, by ensuring that the barriers to participation for disabled people are removed.
Due to our extensive knowledge of business requirements, along with our expertise in supporting disabled people in work, we are therefore ideally placed to provide your business with practical, common sense support that will allow your business to capitalise on the benefits of an inclusive workforce.
What are the benefits of employing disabled people?
There are many benefits of an inclusive workforce. Indeed, it has been shown that disabled employees are just as productive as their non-disabled colleagues, they have less time off sick, have fewer accidents and they stay in their jobs longer. However, as well as the substantial savings made by having reliable, long term staff, there are additional advantages of a diverse workforce including in the areas of recruitment, retention and increasing revenue.
Staff recruitment
Having an inclusive recruitment policy enables your business to tap into a wider range of job applicants for vacancies. It will also widen your choices with regard to filling vacancies that require specific skills. Additionally, having a wider pool of talent will also ensure that you are more likely to gain a valuable employee.
Staff retention
BT estimates that employers can save more than £80,000 per employee by improving retention of staff who develop impairments or long term health conditions. And as more than 70% of disabled people develop their impairment during their working life, there are huge financial and competitive benefits to keeping your valued, experienced staff. Additionally, when you consider that BT, Poundland and the Post Office have all reported that disabled staff are more likely to remain with your company for longer, the economic benefits speak for themselves.
Customer understanding and engagement
Ensuring that your business is accessible to disabled employees will, in turn, enhance your understanding of your customer base. It will give you the opportunity to increase take-up of your products and services, as well as to retain valuable clients as they become older. This could have a massive impact on your income generation as the benefits of attracting and retaining disabled people and their families is estimated to be worth £249 billion!
Who do we support?
We can provide you with support whether you are a large employer, or whether you only have one employee. You may just be starting to think about employing disabled people and want information about ways in which you can make the recruitment process more accessible. Or you may have an experienced employee who has developed an impairment or long term health condition and you need advice and guidance about workplace support you can provide. Either way, we can usually help you to resolve any difficulties you may be having with health or impairment related issues in your workplace. We can also help if you are struggling to manage your duties under the Equality Act or need assistance with accessing or implementing available workplace support for disabled people (such as the Access to Work Scheme).
Whatever your situation, if you are an employer and the issue is about work, health or disability, we can probably help! And if we are unable to give you an immediate answer, one of our advisors will research the topic and contact you or we will signpost you to an organisation that can provide the advice and information you need.
What sorts of issues do we cover?
We know that each individual situation needs appropriate, relevant and solution focussed information and support. We have provided support to employers by giving:
- guidance on accessible recruitment policies and practices;
- advice on how you can remove the barriers that disabled people face, whilst in your employment;
- guidance and advice on supporting employees who have been off sick to return to work effectively;
- information and advice about the Access to Work Scheme and workplace assessments;
- information and training on how to promote disability equality amongst line managers and colleagues;
- information and support with managing disclosures of impairment and reasonable adjustments; and
- ongoing monitoring services to ensure strategic development of inclusion policies
So, if you need our support, or would like to know more about Work Helpline UK, please contact us.
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