Global Disability Inclusion Strategy – Top tips

Global Disability Inclusion Strategy

Top tips

• Secure a senior sponsor / champion early. Having a passionate believer facilitate and promote the development and implementation will be crucial to the long term success of a global disability strategy. A senior sponsor should be Board, C-Suite, ExCo or equivalent level of seniority to ensure that they have the authority, oversight and resources to embed the strategy in the organisation’s operations.
• Understand where you are starting from. Your organisation must understand the specific challenges it faces and its areas of strength and risk relating to disability inclusion. This will allow you to develop targeted actions that are more likely to succeed.
• Pick a quick win as a starting point. If people can see the benefit early, they will be more likely to be keen to participate in the process for their region or sector. 
• Communicate. Keep everyone informed about the strategy, progress, and successes regularly. Use a variety of methods in addition to formal reporting, such as newsletters, town hall and team meetings. Involving your senior sponsor with this can be very helpful. 
• Involve representatives from each region and all levels and sectors as much as possible. Each region will have it’s own culture, local rules and legislation and processes. Some of these will be potential barriers and others may work well globally. 
• Be flexible. One size will not fit all and so being adaptable is key for success in a global disability inclusion strategy. The goals and outcomes may be the same but the methods to achieve this may need to be different. 
• Learn from other organisations and share your experiences. Share successes as well as lessons learned through networking, conferences and external communications.

Business Disability Forum’s Global Assessment

A great first step in developing a Global Disability Inclusion Strategy is to complete our Global Assessment. Participating organisations complete one question set for their Global Headquarters, and may also complete additional sets for country-level operations in up to eight countries. Each question set contains around 100 questions across 10 key business areas.

This is a tool designed for multinational organisations to assess their areas of strength and risk relating to disability inclusion. It addresses ten key business areas:

• Leadership,
• Recruitment,
• Learning and development,
• Retention,
• Marketing and communication,
• Workplace accommodations,
• Customers,
• Procurement,
• Built environment,
• Technology.

After completing the Global Assessment, you will receive:

• Detailed assessment scores. Individual scores for each of the question sets that will give you a clear view of your organisation’s performance across regions.
• Personalised assessment report. A comprehensive, auto-tailored report that breaks down your results by section, identifies areas of strength and risk, and offers actionable insights to inform your global disability inclusion strategy.
• Expert feedback session. When you complete the verified assessment, you have the option of having a feedback session with one of our expert Senior Business Partners. This session will offer a deeper analysis of your results, highlighting priority areas for improvement, and providing tailored recommendations to help move your strategy forward.

The Global Assessment is available to Member and Partner organisations. If your organisation is not already a Member or Partner, consider joining for access to the Global Assessment and many other benefits.

Further information

Resources

For more support developing a Global Disability Inclusion Strategy, browse some of the resources in this Toolkit:

• Towards a Disability-Smart World: Global Disability Inclusion Strategy report
• A ‘roadmap’ for developing a global disability inclusion strategy
• Developing a Global Disability Inclusion Strategy – Key challenges.

Advice Service

Member and Partner organisations can contact our Advice Service for guidance on specific questions about disability inclusion.

Consultancy

Members and Partners can also receive specialist support on disability inclusion through our Consultancy Service.

Our best-practice consultancy service is based on more than 25 years’ experience of working with a broad range of public and private sector organisations, meaning we are well-equipped to provide authoritative and practical results.  

Our team of specialists has unrivalled experience in the fields of disability, diversity and equality and a proven track record of delivering disability-smart solutions.