Our sustainability strategy sets out how we aim to lead by example in Diversity & Inclusion and outlines our commitment to being Disability Confident Leader. Here are some of our achievements to date.
Disability Confident Leader Status
We successfully renewed our Disability Confident Leader status in October 2023. Our participation in the scheme makes us an employer of choice for people with disabilities who might otherwise be struggling to find employment.
Employees by Disability
As of 31 March 2024, 108 (24.5%) of our employees identify themselves as having either a disability or a long-term health condition. Employees are asked to complete these questions on our HR System.
Engagement Survey
We’re pleased that 79% would recommend our organisation to friends or family as a great place to work. This increases to 82% for employees with a disability or long-term health condition.
- Eighty-two percent of those with a disability or long-term health condition believe our workplace culture allows them to be themselves.
- Eighty-six percent of those with a disability or long-term health condition believe there are good opportunities for people to learn and grow at the PPF.
- Eighty-nine percent of those with a disability or long-term health condition feel able to speak up on new ideas, provide feedback or raise concerns.
- Seventy-seven percent of those with a disability or long-term health condition can see the difference that we’re making within Diversity and Inclusion. This is an increase on last year’s result of 74% and 71% the year before.
- Ninety-one percent of those with a disability or long-term health condition agreed that we actively encourage diversity in all aspects.
Recruitment
We continued to promote our Disability Confident Leader status including on our corporate website, intranet and on all our job vacancy advertisement. In addition, our recruitment banner made for careers events displays the Disability Confident scheme logo.
We are attracting a more diverse candidate pool for our vacancies, and we have seen an increase in applicants who disclosed a disability or health condition during the recruitment process. At least two people supports each selection process, and a scoring matrix is used to eliminate bias.
We have been fulfilling our commitment to guarantee an interview to all who met the essential criteria of the role they applied for.
We have a continued arrangement direct with Scope for all our external vacancies to be advertised on their job board.
All our hiring managers or interview participants have gone through inclusive recruitment mandatory e-learning before they conducted recruitment activities. We have also provided managers with reasonable adjustment guidelines to ensure all adjustments are in place from the interview process through to joining.
We continued our adapted recruitment process for apprentices whereby applicants answer questions about their understanding of the apprenticeship programme and their motivation. This is instead of providing a CV. This approach enables the candidate to talk about why this apprenticeship appeals to them and supports those with a disability.
We have previously partnered with external organisations to support people with disabilities within the local community through recruitment workshops, work experience or mentoring opportunities. This year, we are excited to partner with the 10,000 Interns Foundation to welcome interns as part of their ‘Able Interns’ and ‘Black Interns’ programmes, designed to create opportunities for underrepresented groups.
Mental Health First Aid
Understanding mental health issues and promoting openness within our organisation is crucial to supporting our workforce. We ran a refresher course for our existing Mental Health First Aiders (MHFAs) and offered accredited mental health training for an additional 5 people. We currently have 15 fully trained colleagues across the organisation who are on-hand to support our employees when they are struggling or in need of advice and support.
MHFAs also meet on a quarterly basis to discuss upcoming initiatives that can be implemented, any learnings taken, but also check in with one another to ensure all feel supported in their role.
Mental health awareness campaigns have been promoted internally and supported with events – such as a Time to Talk Day breakfast for all colleagues and a guided meditation session for Stress Awareness Month.
The group are also proactively exploring ways to recruit more MHFAs, to get more representation across directorates to make sure all colleagues have a line into a MHFA that they are familiar with, should that be their preference.
We also offer Mental Health at Work training for all People Managers. All our managers go through mental health training within their first six months of joining, providing tools and guidance to effective communication with their team members.
Health, Wellbeing and Support
As well as our funded Private Medical health benefit, our employees have access to other health benefits that they can choose to take up, colleagues have access to support from organisations such as Able Futures, Access to Work, Appa Me Ltd, or our Occupational Health provider and a 24-hour employee assistance programme.
In our February 2024 employee survey 90% of our employees and 93% for employees with disability or long-term health condition agreed that they knew how to access wellbeing support provided by the organisation.
With the support of our internal employee-led Diverse Ability Action & Awareness Group, we host regular activities and events, and share internal communications to raise awareness of disability and long-term health conditions. This includes our employee lunch & learns, coaching opportunities, webinars and employee spotlights. This year we have signed up for an annual membership with the Business Disability Forum which gives us access to expert advice and resources, including toolkits, a disability-smart assessment framework, webinars and networking events.
The community function of Connect Online, our company intranet, also provides additional opportunities to share stories and helpful recourses, and to engage with a wider group of people within the organisation. From our last employee survey in February 2024, those employees who identified as having a disability or long-term health condition, 98% believe their manager is genuinely interested in their wellbeing.
In addition, we have seen a year-on-year increase with 79% of colleagues in this category feeling comfortable discussing their mental health with their line manager (up by 5 points compared to last year, and 10 points compared the year before that). 98% also said they can usually rely on their manager to give them the support they need to do a good job, an increase by 2 points from last year.
We asked our employees with disabilities and long-term health conditions other questions to measure their wellbeing. 89% felt positive about working here (an increase by 4 points from last year), and 88% said they were happy with their work-life balance (an increase by 7 points from last year). 96% agreed that they understood how their individual role contributed to the wider PPF purpose.
We continue to focus on removing barriers and providing practical adjustments to the office, workstations, role and IT software to support those with disabilities so they can work efficiently.