Launches News: New software addresses disability employment gap

At a time when employers report they are lacking guidance around disability inclusion, the Recruitment Industry Disability Initiative (RIDI) has unveiled a new online tool which enables HR leaders to calculate how many disabled people they should be employing to succeed in creating a truly representational workforce.

Ideally every workforce should include around twenty per cent of disabled people, yet there continues to be a significant disparity between the employment rate of disabled people and the rest of the population. According to the Office for National Statistics, just 49% of disabled people of working age are in employment representing an ‘employment gap’ between disabled and non-disabled people of just over two million people. The UK Government aims to get over one million disabled people into work by 2020 to halve the gap.

RIDI’s Disability Inclusion Calculator works by computing an individual organisation’s ‘disability employment gap’ based on the number of existing employees who have disclosed a disability coupled with overall headcount. It then advises how many more disabled people would need to be employed for the workforce to be representative of wider society.

Following the launch, Kate Headley, Director at the Clear Company and spokesperson for RIDI, commented:

“While the majority of employers we engage with are acutely aware of the value of tapping into disabled talent pools, many have noted a lack of guidance around what best practice actually looks like.

“We hope the introduction of this tool will enable an increasing number of organisations to take the crucial first step of determining their starting position, so that they can measure progress as they work towards becoming more inclusive.

“While the intention of halving the UK’s disability employment gap was first introduced by Government, it is the responsibility of every employer, across every sector, to overcome. While it may seem like a daunting task to help over a million disabled people into work – we can do it, but we have to work together.

“The UK is home to over four million private sector businesses, not to mention public and third sector organisations. If each of these hires just one disabled person in the next four years, we’d smash through our target. From an HR perspective, disabled talent is a highly skilled under-represented talent group. Tapping into this pool doesn’t just have a positive impact on your company’s bottom line – it also genuinely changes lives.”

Take a look at the calculator here

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