Making the case for the Global Assessment

Why you need a business case

Completing Business Disability Forum’s Global Assessment provides valuable insights that can significantly enhance your organisation’s disability inclusion strategy. To effectively complete the assessment, you need buy-in from key internal stakeholders and senior leadership. A well-structured business case is crucial to securing the necessary resources and support.

This page provides a guide to help you create a compelling case to gain the commitment you need to make the most of the Global Assessment.

What to include in your business case

You should tailor your business case to the specific stakeholders whose support you need. Consider what different people are motivated by, and highlight how completing the Assessment will support their aims. The key points you should include in your business case are:

• Improving disability inclusion – Highlight how completing the assessment will provide valuable insights to drive improvements in your disability inclusion strategy, fostering a more inclusive workplace and business environment.
• Legal and regulatory compliance – Emphasise that completing the assessment will support your organisation to identify and manage areas of risk.
• Reputation and brand – Explain how completing the Global Assessment can enhance your organisation’s reputation, showing commitment to disability inclusion, which can positively influence customers, employees and other stakeholders.

Providing these arguments along with clear information about resources, outcomes and credibility will make the strongest case.

Cost and resource requirements

Completing the Global Assessment requires both time and resources. Here’s what you need to consider:

Cost

Email us at globalassessment@businessdisability.org.uk, or speak to your Business Partner or Senior Business Partner, for information about pricing.

Resourcing

Completing the Global Assessment involves answering approximately 100 questions per question set. These are split across 10 business areas, which can be allocated to the most suitable colleagues throughout your organisation. For example, the Workplace Adjustments questions could be assigned to someone in HR who leads on accessibility or accommodations.

You must complete the Headquarters question set, and you can choose how many of the 8 country-level question sets you complete alongside it.

If you opt for verification, you will need to provide evidence for approximately 50% of the questions in the Headquarters question set.

The time required will vary based on your organisation’s complexity, the stakeholders’ familiarity with their area, and the effort needed to gather evidence. The Global Assessment window runs from 5th January to 27th March, giving teams a clear timeframe in which to contribute.

For more information, see our resource on What completing the Global Assessment involves.

The benefits of completing the Global Assessment

Completing the Global Assessment will provide significant benefits, both in the short term and for the long term development of your organisation’s disability inclusion strategy. Key benefits include:

• Gain detailed insights into your organisation’s disability inclusion maturity and identify areas that need improvement.
• Understand the performance of disability inclusion practices across different countries where your organisation operates.
• Receive detailed reports that highlight strengths, weaknesses and practical recommendations for improvement in key business areas.
• Understand potential legal and regulatory risks related to disability inclusion in different regions.
• Access the our best practice toolkit, offering specific guidance for each business area to help develop your organisation’s disability inclusion maturity.
• Improve your brand reputation by demonstrating your organisation’s commitment to becoming more disability inclusive, if you choose to publicise your participation or the actions you take as a result.

Addressing potential concerns

Some stakeholders may have concerns about reputational risks, internal rivalries, or other challenges. Here are ways to address these concerns.

Reputational risk

You can reassure stakeholders the results of the assessment are confidential. Results and reports are only shared with your organisation’s designated Superuser, who can decide who else sees them. Your participation in the Global Assessment will not be publicised unless you choose to do so.

Managing inter-country comparisons

Some stakeholders may worry that completing the Global Assessment in multiple countries could lead to internal comparisons or rivalries, particularly if scores vary across regions.

You can reassure then that the country-level question sets are designed specifically to reflect that legal, cultural and operational context of each country. Because of these differences, scores are not directly comparable between countries and should not be treated as rankings.

The Global Assessment is designed as a tool for internal learning and growth, not for competition between regions. It provides each country operation with a framework to understand its own progress, identify areas for development, and contribute to a more inclusive global organisation overall. Results should be views as opportunities for learning and improvement, not as judgments or measures of relative success.

The experts behind the Global Assessment

Business Disability Forum developed the Global Assessment in collaboration with a steering committee of experts in disability inclusion and responsible business. This ensures that the Assessment is grounded in real-world experience and is designed to meet the needs of complex, multinational organisations.

Partner organisations involved in shaping the Global Assessment include Shell, Schneider Electric, GSK, Amazon and HSBC. Their expertise helped shape the content, structure, and practical focus of the Assessment, ensuring it reflects both strategic and operational realities for global businesses.

Some key facts about Business Disability Forum:

• We work with over 600 Members, employing nearly 20 per cent of the UK workforce and an estimated 8 million people worldwide. 
• We advise, support and encourage businesses (many of them global) to become more disability-smart.   
• We influence policymakers by representing the voice of employers and disabled employees.   
• We provide evidence-based thought leadership on how business affects the lives of disabled people.   
• We help effect changes in business practices, products, services and policies that positively impact the life experiences of disabled people, and also benefit business.

Further information

If you need additional information or specific resources to help build your business case, please free free to contact us at globalassessment@businessdisabilityforum.org.uk. We are here to support you in making completing the Global Assessment a success for your organisation.