5th March 2007
Leading disability insurer, UnumProvident, has joined forces with the Employers' Forum on Disability (EFD) to sponsor its groundbreaking publication, the ‘Line manager guide – a best practice approach to working with disabled colleagues’.
The term ‘disability’ covers a wide range of impairments and people with disabilities are protected against discrimination at work under the Disability Discrimination Act. It is therefore vital that members of organisations at every level are making reasonable adjustments to ensure they can both recruit talented disabled people and ensure they can keep working.
The guide is particularly useful to employers as it provides line managers with best-practice answers to their everyday questions about disability. Key areas that the guide covers are:
- How to recognise when someone might have a disability
- What potential barriers are faced by disabled people
- How to ensure disabled colleagues are treated in a fair manner
- Where to make reasonable adjustments to maximize the potential of disabled staff and which adjustments are reasonable
- How to understand laws around disability and discrimination
- Where to go to find out more advice on disability
Joanne Hindle, Corporate Services Director of UnumProvident, says of the guide:
Talented disabled people form a valuable part of the UK’s workforce. For instance, 6 per cent of first class honours degrees are gained by students known to have a disability.
In order to ensure that organisations comply with disability and discrimination laws and have access to this talent pool; it is essential that they provide an environment where disabled colleagues can carry out their role effectively.
This has obvious benefits for both disabled individuals who are given independence through self-sufficiency and the economy as whole. UnumProvident were proud to work with EFD and to sponsor the ‘Line manager guide’ as we feel the target group sits in a critical position in most companies’ hierarchy in terms of the putting into practice good disability management policies that despite the best of intentions may just be sitting at board level.
The line manager is the nearest thing you will find to the SME proprietor/director in a large company, so much of the guide content will also be applicable in that environment. If managers get better at learning how to retain disabled people, especially those with mental health issues, in the workplace then that workplace, and the people within it, will become more amenable and welcoming to the recruitment of disabled people.
Employers' Forum on Disability chief executive Susan Scott-Parker says:
We're extremely pleased that UnumProvident have made it possible for us to research and publish our 'Line manager guide', which is already proving to be one of the Employers' Forum on Disability's most popular - and most important - publications.
Disability confidence has never mattered to more to an employer as we see 3.4 million disabled people already in work - and 33% of people aged 50-64 disabled.
We all know line managers play a crucial role in helping their organisations to recruit and retain people with disabilities who then contribute to business success. This guide is a very practical first step towards equipping every line manager in the UK to get it right.
ENDS