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August 14, 2024

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Organization marks decade of two cornerstone initiatives

Thanks to Disability:IN, disability advocates around the world have new tools and programs to advance disability inclusion and equality in business.

Disability:IN is a global organization driving disability inclusion and equality in business. It has best-in-class conferences and programs, expert counsel and engagement, public policy leadership and the world’s most comprehensive disability inclusion benchmarking and reporting tool — Disability Equality Index.

This year marks the 10th edition of the Disability Equality Index, a milestone marked with the debut of scored benchmarks in seven countries outside of the United States. The expansion comes in direct response to a growing demand for culturally competent tools to comprehensively measure disability inclusion efforts in multinational corporations.

Following a two-year global pilot program in which 98 companies across 66 countries participated, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, the Philippines and the United Kingdom were selected for the expanded program. The countries were chosen based on demand demonstrated during the pilot, as well as to ensure adequate global representation across geographic regions and at varying stages of economic and social development. 

Also celebrating 10 years of success is Inclusion Works, the organization’s disability inclusion consulting service. Its team of disability inclusion experts offers unlimited, bespoke virtual and on-site consulting to help corporations create an inclusive culture, while simultaneously developing a sustainable recruitment strategy.

According to Disability:IN data, companies consulting with Inclusion Works increased their new hires of individuals with disabilities from 339 new hires in 2015 to 383,000 new hires as of December 2023. In addition, they improved their Disability Equality Index scores from an average of 68% in 2015 to an average of 91.3% in 2022.

We asked Disability:IN President and CEO Jill Houghton to reflect on a decade of growth, as well as trends for the future of disability inclusion.

Q: Inclusion Works is celebrating 10 successful years. How has this initiative evolved? What trends are you seeing in terms of challenges companies face with disability inclusion?

A: Disability:IN’s Inclusion Works program began with six companies committed to advancing their disability inclusion journey and has grown to more than 135+ major brands representing over 10 million employees and more than $5.5 trillion dollars in revenue. There are no competitors, only collaborators in the Inclusion Works Corporate Community of Progress and at the core of everything we are focused on engaging with talent with lived experience so that we can collectively work together to advance disability inclusion and accessibility.

One of the most impactful outcomes of Inclusion Works is that the new hires of talent with disabilities has grown from 339 new hires in 2015 to 383,000 new hires as of December 2023. Participating companies receive an assigned disability inclusion expert with 10+ years of corporate experience. This expert and our team provide a concierge service customized to the company’s needs. While all companies are at different stages of their journey our team is focused on developing and delivering innovative resources, exclusive semi-annual meetings, facilitated connections and approaches to help accelerate disability inclusion and accessibility.

Disability:IN has identified five actions that companies take:

• Encourage employee self-identification: Implement a confidential and voluntary process for employees to self-identify as individuals with disabilities, enabling accurate tracking and improved workforce support.

• Leverage disability-focused ERGs: Utilize the cross-functional expertise and lived experiences of ERGs to gain valuable insights and enhance inclusivity strategies.

• Conduct accessibility audits: Audit for compliance under the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 AA to guarantee that digital content is accessible to all users.

• Modernize corporate governance: Revise charters to include prospective directors with disabilities in the definition of board diversity as most already do with gender, race and ethnicity.

• Accelerate Spending with Disability-Owned Business Enterprises®: Include disability in supplier diversity/inclusive procurement efforts.

Q: Artificial intelligence, or AI, continues to be a hot topic in every sector. As companies explore and/or embrace AI, what should they keep in mind in terms of accessibility and inclusion?

A: As companies and organizations begin to incorporate AI into their workflows, the first step is to include individuals with disabilities in every phase of ideation, design, development, implementation and iteration. The second step is not to let perfection get in the way of good. And of course, through every phase, ensure the data set is accurate and diverse perspectives are represented.

Q: As Disability:IN celebrates the 10th anniversary of two cornerstone initiatives, what progress do you see in the area of disability inclusion over the past decade? 

A: When looking at this year’s Disability Equality Index — which has seen nearly 10 times the growth in participation since 2015 — we see select places where inclusion has transformed radically over the past 10 years, in contrast to the majority of growth which has been incremental.

This is the area of progress we’re most excited about — around 25% growth in adoption across participants — because we see a really comprehensive mix of practices that improve employee experience such as:

• Growth of employee resource groups.

• Increased access to digital and web-based products vis-à-vis policy requirements for digital accessibility.

• Stronger pipelines for disabled applicants through policies like accessible accommodations.

• Wider availability of such accommodations because of more centralized funds to pay for them.

• More distributed resources throughout the business ecosystem by supporting disability-owned business enterprises.

These practices roughly align with the categories that we parse the benchmark into, so we’re excited to see transformative and holistic growth across categories that improve the workplace for employees and entrepreneurs with disabilities.

Growing global portfolio of programming

To meet accelerated corporate demand for a global focus on disability inclusion, Disability:IN is building its portfolio of programming to support expected results from the Disability Equality Index expansion. This programming includes:

• Convening a global roundtable and regional councils in [the Asia Pacific] APAC, [Europe, Middle East and Africa] EMEA and [Latin America] LATAM to unite corporate leaders around disability inclusion in their regions.

• Securing international consultants in Brazil, France, Taiwan and the United Kingdom to support the councils.

In November 2023, Disability:IN hosted a first-of-its-kind business disability inclusion, convening in Japan with support from Google LLC and other corporations.

Piloting efforts to connect global partner companies with disabled talent in their countries, including a virtual recruiting showcase that brought together 22 companies and more than 250 candidates from France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Early international expansion has led to disability-owned business enterprise (DOBE) certifications issued in Canada, Germany, India and the United Kingdom. Additionally, Disability:IN will launch quarterly meetings for corporate inclusive procurement professionals in APAC, EMEA and LATAM in 2024.

To learn more about Disability:IN, visit disabilityin.org.