FIT & AHEAD have teamed up to enhance employment access and promote workplace inclusivity through Tech Apprenticeships for individuals with disabilities. Discover how to be disability inclusive in your organization with the following tip sheet “Top Tips on Being an Inclusive Employer”.
Irish employers believe that hiring people with a disability is both a benefit to the organisation and that it can help their businesses to innovate.
Tip Number 2: Build an Inclusive Culture
It’s important to ensure your workplace and work practices create an environment where people with disabilities can feel comfortable being themselves and telling others about their disability if they wish. If you want to get the most from your employees, then creating an environment where they feel valued for who they are is vital.
Inclusion is the Norm:
It’s important to send the message that people with disabilites are part of the fabric of the organisation. Small steps like always hosting event in accessible spaces, turning caption on in company webinars and videos as standard, and using stock imagery featuring diverse range of employees across your communications all give employees small signals that you are serious about inclusion.
Peer Support Structures:
It is useful to encourage and support the development of a staff network or Employee Resource Group (ERG) focussed on disability. This enables community building and meaningful reflection about accessibility and inclusion in your organisation. Create avenues for these networks to raise accessibility issues arising from the group discussions to senior management – a great way to enhance company development.
Celebrate Diversity:
When people feel it’s okay to be different, then they bring more of themselves to work. A fantastic way to show that your organisation welcomes all kinds of difference is to host visible celebrations of diversity, such as recognising International Day of People with Disabilities, or disability pride.
Provide disability awareness and basic accessibility training for all staff.
By ensuring all staff have a basic level of training in these areas, you will support the building of a culture where different ways of working and communicating are respected and embedded. Disability Awareness Training is particularly important for staff involved in recruitment.
By following these steps, employers can enhance inclusivity and remove barriers in their recruitment process, promoting equal opportunities for all candidates.
Fastrack into Information Technology (FIT) is a representative organisation of the technology sector committed to growing Ireland’s tech talent pipeline. Working in close collaboration with national education and training provision, national and regional development agencies and community organisations, FIT’s mission is to promote an inclusive Smart & Sustainable Economy by creating routes to marketable technical skills for job seekers and career changers wishing to pursue quality professions in Ireland’s thriving digital economy.
AHEAD is an independent non-profit organisation working to create inclusive environments in education and employment for people with disabilities. The focus of their work is further education and training, higher education, and graduate employment.
Purpose of Collaboration:
The main objective is to increase access & inclusion for apprentices with a disability by increasing employer knowledge & awareness around all aspects of best practice.
To increase the number of individuals with a disability to apply for apprenticeships in Ireland, specifically the tech apprenticeships with FIT.
If you are an employer and are interested in discovering guidelines and best practices to strive towards a more inclusive workplace, more information is linked here
