In this podcast episode MannionDaniels, Fund Manager for UK Aid Match, share how they have been supporting disability inclusion at an organisational level. Listen in for practical advice on inclusive recruitment, accessible communications and how to manage reasonable adjustments.
Chin 0:06:
Hello, and welcome to The Learning Post, a podcast dedicated to sharing insights and learnings from UK Aid Match.
My name is Chin Okonkwo, and I'm the Performance and Risk Manager for UK Aid Match, as well as your host for this episode.
In this episode, we speak to Micaila Vivier, HR Manager at MannionDaniels. We will hear from Micaila about some of the work that MannionDaniels have been doing to review approaches to disability inclusion at the organisational level – for example we’ll discuss inclusive recruitment, accessible communication, and reasonable adjustments.
Good afternoon, Micaila and thank you for joining me.
Micaila 00:42
Hi, Good afternoon Chin, thank you for having me.
Chin 00:45
Could you start by sharing some background as to why MannionDaniels decided to review approaches to disability inclusion and progress to date?
Micaila 00:52
Firstly, thank you Chin for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today on such a really important topic.
MannionDaniels has always been an inclusive organisation, yet it’s been through more of an organic approach. So by that, we hadn’t appreciated that this could be preventing potential applicants from applying for roles within the organisation. And we became increasingly aware of this through the context of interviews, and if you are a person looking from the outside in, people would not necessarily be aware of just how inclusive we are.
So with this in mind, we have set about different ways in which to make ourselves more visible as an inclusive organisation.
One of which has been our approach to recruitment with more visibility on our inclusiveness. In addition to this, we have also been working in partnership with the charity Leonard Cheshire and we’ve had the privilege of being able to recruit an intern who met the criteria of the programme Change 100. To provide a bit of background information on the Change 100 programme, this is the flagship programme run by Leonard Chesire, where they match talented university students or recent graduates who have a disability or long-term condition, and they match them to opportunities with progressive employers.
So, our fund director, Sarah Donachie, took the initiative to make the contact and put in an application to be considered as a partner in their programme. And, thankfully, we met the standard criteria they were seeking so in summer 2023, we were delighted to welcome our first student from the programme.
Chin 02:30:
It’s great to see the steps being taken to become more inclusive. Could we look at recruitment in more detail?
Micaila 02:36:
Absolutely, from that we look at the first and easy picking we have gone for and that was revising the wording on our job description template and in highlighting that we are an inclusive organisation so that stands out.
We have also been reviewing where we advertise the roles as we are aware of different charities who might have direct communications channels to tap into and those who would not necessarily actually be looking on the usual platforms we advertise on.
And then from the recruitment side, once an offer has actually been made to an employee, they are asked to complete a medical questionnaire and encouraged to provide us as much information as possible so that we can prepare and actually provide them with the right support before they walk through the door on the very first day of employment.
Chin 03:21:
Okay great. And in terms of communications, how are MannionDaniels ensuring that our communications (so that’s both internally and externally) are accessible to all?
Micaila 03:30
Ah good question. This is an area where we have leant heavily on our communications team and where necessary our digital team.
So the comms team they have assessed our branding, in particular the colour palette to ensure the branded colours are used in an accessible way.
And where possible, from a website perspective, we’ve conducted WAVE checks. And a WAVE check is a Web Accessibility Evaluation tool, so this checks for accessibility errors and gives suggestions for improvements.
The comms teams have also taken part in accessibility training with the Digital Accessibility Centre, which is a fantastic advancement. And that focuses specifically on content and design, to help ensure that all communications across our digital platforms actually pass the accessibility check. So when new content is created for the website, the developers are also provided with a checklist to help produce that accessible material. These steps then also under-go an user-testing as and where possible.
So with the social media we also follow a digital accessibility checklist, such as ensuring we use alt text for photographs and subtitles for videos. We are also considering alternative platforms for our newsletters.
One other area I can think of is regular staff training. And this is conducted in two ways: firstly is the annual compliance training and there’s also a series of line manager training which covers areas such as supporting neurodivergent employees or how to support an employee with mental health concerns.
Chin 05:14:
Thanks Micaila, that sounds really interesting. There’s a lot of useful tips there for other organisations who are looking to improve the accessibility of their comms.
Could you also tell us what ‘reasonable adjustment’ means to MannionDaniels? And how are we supporting employees?
Micaila 05:28:
Absolutely, we take this from the very beginning, from the interview and we are very open to making those reasonable adjustments to ensure workers with disabilities, or physical or mental health conditions, are not substantially disadvantaged when they are applying for the job. And part of this has been to send the proposed interview questions ahead of the actual interview. And this gives everybody the opportunity to properly prepare for the interview and hopefully reduce any undue stress or anxiety that interviews can cause.
Once an actual offer has been made, as I mentioned earlier, we then work with the employee to establish what reasonable adjustment they may require in order for them to be able to carry out their role. And the scope for this can actually be so vast and has included instances of, by example, a more flexible working approach or additional IT equipment or gaining an understanding of how best each individual responds in team meetings or the format of the meetings and just ensuring overall inclusiveness.
Line managers are really encouraged to have those regular and ongoing discussions with their team members to make sure they have everything they need in terms of reasonable adjustments.
Chin 06:44:
That’s really interesting Micaila, so thank you so much for that. Before we close, is there anything else you’d like to highlight, your top three learnings from reviewing the organizational approach to disability inclusion?
Micaila 06:55:
First of all, we are all still learning, and if anyone feels that we can do more, then I would encourage you to speak to either HR, Comms or digital department to highlight your observations and see what further changes or enhancements we could incorporate to make us more inclusive.
Secondly, although this might seem obvious, but no two people are the same. So, even if technically they have been diagnosed with a particular disability or long-term condition, always listen and be open to what that individual is saying and what their particular needs are, because 9 times out of 10 they are not going to be identical.
I suppose lastly, I think whilst I believe we are doing all we can within our capabilities to be more inclusive, we are still learning and will always be learning. So you can’t take for granted that just because you have dealt with one situation, you will be well-placed to deal with the next situation. So be prepared to learn as everyone is unique.
Chin 07:57:
Thank you for your time today Micaila. There are some really interesting points there, and hopefully some of these will be useful for others looking to strength their disability inclusion within their organisations.
If you haven’t already, do listen to our disability inclusion podcast episode with grant holder CBM UK. And to find out more about the UK Aid Match projects, head over to the appeals and grants section of the UK Aid Match website at ukaidmatch.org/grants.
Don't forget to subscribe to The Learning Post so you don't miss any future episodes.
Thank you for listening.