How to build an accessible recruitment procedure with Disabled and neurodivergent people at the heart.
Whether you are recruiting staff or recruiting for an event, activity, or programme that your organisation is running, it is important to design your communications in a way that is as accessible and inclusive as possible. After an audit of our own communications by Diversity and Ability (D&A), a social enterprise led by and for Disabled people, we wanted to share their findings and recommendations in this practical guide in the hope it will be useful for all organisations working to become more inclusive.
The guidance document is made up of four major sections: the recruitment process, reasonable adjustments, information, advice and guidance, and programme design.
More detail on each section can be found in the full guide.
The Recruitment Process
The main recommendations to embed disability-inclusive recruitment processes:
• Use a broad range of channels, platforms and websites to be able to attract and reach as diverse a pool of people as you can.
• Be clear, open and honest about what inclusive practises you already have in place.
• Get unconscious bias and inclusion training for staff who are involved in recruitment, interviews and programme delivery.
• Build inclusivity and accessibility into a consistent recruitment process, e.g. having information in different formats or having the option to do any interviews by video call.
Reasonable Adjustments
Headline recommendations to embed robust reasonable adjustment processes:
• Develop a reasonable adjustment policy that’s easy to find, widely shared among the organisation and have a clear process on how to action any adjustments.
• Be proactive and explicit about what reasonable adjustments you offer across all stages (and keep reminding people of these) to take this burden off the individual from always having to ask. Sharing what has happened previously will help give someone the confidence to ask for the support they need.
• Make sure someone leads on this process, so others in your team know who to signpost any questions or queries to.
• Develop a centralised system for tracking and monitoring adjustment requests.
Information, Advice and Guidance
Headline recommendations to embed effective information, advice and guidance:
• Introduce disability and neurodiversity training for programme staff.
• As much as possible, make sure information about your programmes is accessible for all users, so not only easy to find and searchable on a website, but ideally in different formats too (e.g. braille).
Make sure your information, marketing and programme materials are inclusive and meet accessibility standards.
• Use a sans serif font (such as Ubuntu, or Roboto), with a minimum of size 12.
• Make sure your website is easy to navigate, and pages have a clear layout with clear headings, spacing and try to avoid black font on a white background.
• Make what you write on websites is accessible to screen readers, making sure images have descriptive alt text.
• Make sure you have the minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 when it comes to things like text on colour and the colour of hyperlinks.
• Use a balanced and diverse range of ‘real’ images of people that represents who your organisation works with or supports rather than stock images.
Programme Design
These are the main recommendations around disability-inclusive programmes that support people starting or running a business, but could easily apply to any kind of programmatic support to Disabled or
neurodivergent people:
• Roll out accessibility features such as captions, advance notes and recordings for everyone as a standard.
• Provide additional support during the onboarding process.
• Think about and consider the different approaches to business development taken by Disabled and neurodivergent people in the content used in your support programmes.
• Create Disability mentorship and networking opportunities.
Accessible Recruitment Guide
This report was made possible thanks to the Ares Charitable Foundation and is part of our partnership to democratise access to entrepreneurship for Disabled and neurodivergent people.
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