Recruiters and employers must work in synergy to increase the inclusion of disabled talent. That was the conclusion of a debate hosted at the House of Commons that was attended by senior figures from the staffing sector and UK businesses.
According to official figures, there is currently a 30% employment gap between disabled and non-disabled people. Attendees discussed the motion that if we are to halve the disability employment gap โ by assisting 1.2 million more disabled people into work โ the recruitment industry needs to drive radical change from within.
The event, which was sponsored by Eversheds and hosted by theย Recruitment Industry Disability Initiative (RIDI) with the support of Carolyn Harris, MP for Swansea East, closed with 75% of attendees pledging to hire at least one disabled candidate in the next 12 months โ positioning them as โOne in a Millionโ.
Guest speakers on the day included Inga Beale, CEO of Lloydโs, and Naeema Choudry, Partner at Eversheds, who proposed the motion. Tom Hadley, Director of Policy at the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, and Melanie Forbes, CEO of Guidant Group, opposed it โ stating that lasting change would only be possible through collaboration. Representatives from organisations including the Co-op Group, Novartis, Fujitsu, EON and the Government Department for Work and Pensions were in attendance, as well as delegates from recruitment firms.
Speaking of the eventโs outcome, Kate Headley, Director of Consulting at the Clear Company and debate moderator commented: โWhile it may seem like a daunting task to help more than a million disabled people into work โ it is achievable if we work together.
โWhat became crystal clear during this debate is that getting more disabled people into work is most definitely a shared responsibility. Employers must share their knowledge and resources to build confidence and ensure it is at the forefront of their procurement and education process with talent providers. Equally, itโs a cop-out for recruiters to claim โemployers make the hiring decisionโ. Good recruiters are persuasive โ they can push good candidates and if they are confident on disability this will impact the chances for disabled job seekers. What is very clear from the audience responses around the numbers of disabled people applying to them โ just 19% said they regularly receive applications from disabled people โ is that there is trust to be built and skills developed to encourage disabled job seekers to disclose their status so that the right adjustments can be made to support them.โ
According to the House of Commons Library, there are around 5.4 million private sector businesses in the UK โ not to mention the numerous public sector organisations that account for almost 20% of the entire workforce. If just a quarter of these employers committed to hiring at least one disabled candidate, weโd smash our target of halving the disability employment gap.
โOrganisations that are already engaging with disabled talent are reaping the benefits and I am delighted that a majority of attendees on the day pledged to hire โone in a millionโ. This marks another step towards achieving the goal which RIDI shares with UK Government โ getting 1.2 million disabled people into work.โ
Inga Beale, CEO of Lloydโs commented: โWe cannot afford to ignore the untapped potential talent that exists within the disabled community โ and we need help from the recruitment industry to do it. We will know we have achieved our objectives when recruiters come to us to demand that we do better when it comes to recruiting people with disabilities. Until that time, I issue a challenge to recruiters: come and work with us and, together in partnership, let us sort out disability confidence once and for all.โ
Melanie Forbes, CEO of Guidant commented: โHaving been in the recruitment industry for more than 25 years and outsourcing for the past 15 years, I have become familiar with clients telling me that supply partners do not put forward disabled talent. When I speak to our supply partners they tell me that even if they did, our clients would not hire them. Somewhere in the middle of this I believe lies the truth.
โWe cannot create a chain of change alone. This is about collaboration, confidence and commitment. This is not solely the recruitment industryโs problem to fix. It is every employer, across every sector, across the countryโs challenge to overcome. Disabled talent is a highly skilled, under-represented talent pool. We can do this but it has to be together. We can change peoplesโ lives.โ
Tom Hadley, Director of Policy at the REC commented: โLasting, genuine and fundamental change will only come if we achieve a genuine step-change in the way employers โ our clients โ approach the hiring of people with disabilities. Recruitment that is fully inclusive, fully objective and provides opportunities for all is just good recruitment.
โLetโs march under that banner; letโs get employers of all sizes and across all sectors to think about how they currently hire and about how they might do things differently. Letโs also use this to think about what kind of employer we want to be.
โRadical change cannot come only from within. We need to reach out to the wider business community and to society as a whole to create this brave new world where the focus is on peopleโs abilities not disabilities.โ
