Collecting insight to meet your outcomes

 

Thinking about the benefits of disability monitoring can help you decide what you want to achieve.

You need to be clear about your goals. This will help you:

• create your statement of intention
• design your survey
• collect the right data for your purposes
• justify why you are asking certain questions

Let’s have a look at some information you can ask. And how this information can help you. For each category, we will look at:

• data: examples of data you could collect
• analysis and report: what this data could help you find out
• outcomes: what outcomes you could meet using this data

Statistics on disabled employees

Data

Here are examples of data you could collect for your statistics:

• How many employees consider themselves disabled.
• How many disabled employees have shared through HR.
• If they have shared through HR, when they did it.
• Whether they were disabled when they started or became disabled during their employment.
• Whether they have shared with other groups: line manager, team.
• How long they have worked for your organisation.
• What type of contract they are on.
• If they work full time or part time.
• If they work part-time, whether this is to help them manage their conditions.
• If you have staff networks, are they a part of it.
• If there are no staff networks, do they feel it would help.
• Information about specific conditions.

Collecting data about specific conditions can be helpful. You can find out how diverse your workforce is, for example.

But it’s important to remember you shouldn’t use this data to generalise. Your focus should continue to be on removing barriers for individuals. And you still need to continue anticipating possible access needs.

Analysis and report

Statistics on disabled employees would help you analyse and report on:

• basic statistics about your workforce
• differences in information shared between HR and anonymous survey
• the systems you have in place to help people share
• your workplace culture
• your retention of disabled people
• the support you offer disabled people
• the experiences of people who became disabled during their employment

Outcomes

The data you collect would depend on the goals you decided at the start. There’s a variety of outcomes this data would be useful for:

• being an open employer
• attracting more disabled employees
• reviewing disclosure processes
• offering additional support options
• understanding your workplace culture better

Reasonable adjustments

Under the Equality Act 2010, disabled employees can get reasonable adjustments. It’s your legal duty as an employer to put them in place. Depending on the adjustments an employee needs, they might apply for Access to Work.

Access to Work (GOV.UK)

We also use the term ‘workplace adjustments’. Workplace adjustments are slightly different from reasonable adjustments. They are adjustments that go above your legal responsibility. And they are part of your organisation’s policies. At Scope, we always encourage employers to go above your legal obligations.

Data on reasonable adjustments

Here are examples of data you could collect on reasonable adjustments:

• If employees know what reasonable adjustments are.
• If they know they can ask for reasonable adjustments.
• If they know how to ask for reasonable adjustments.
• How many employees have reasonable adjustments in place.
• What types of reasonable adjustments your workforce has in place.
• How often their reasonable adjustments get reviewed.
• How long it took to put reasonable adjustments in place.
• If any adjustments were declined.
• How many people think they need reasonable adjustments but didn’t ask for them.
• Why people felt able to ask for reasonable adjustments or not.
• How well employees feel their reasonable adjustments are being respected.
• How employees feel it would go if they had a new line manager.

Data on Access to Work

Here are examples of data you could collect on Access to Work:

• If employees know about Access to Work.
• How many employees have applied for Access to Work.
• If they felt supported in the process of applying.
• If employees had a workplace assessment, how quickly recommendations were actioned.
• If they got a grant for equipment, how quickly was it bought.
• If their grant involved interpreters or support workers, how easy it was to put in place.
• How many Access to Work users have filled in their Access to Work passport.

Data on workplace adjustments

There is also data you could collect on workplace adjustments. This will depend on what you have in place. Examples of workplace adjustments are:

• A flexible working policy.
• A sickness leave policy. Sickness due to a condition can be recorded separately from other sickness.
• A disability support leave policy. This is for specific time off needed related to a condition or impairment.

If you have any of these policies in place, you could collect information about how well they are working. If you don’t have these policies in place, you could collect data about:

• How flexibly your employees can work.
• How many employees have met a review threshold due to sickness.
• If their condition or impairment caused them to meet the threshold.
• If employees have had to use annual leave for things relating to their condition or impairment.

Analysis and report

These would help you analyse and report on:

• how much knowledge your staff has about their rights
• the kind of reasonable adjustments people need
• what barriers your workforce faces
• how well reasonable adjustments are working
• your workplace culture about reasonable adjustments
• how solid your processes are
• gaps in knowledge about Access to Work

Outcomes

The data you collect would depend on the goals you decided at the start. There’s a variety of outcomes this data would be useful for:

• Reviewing your current processes.
• Making a training plan to increase your staff’s knowledge.
• Evaluating how inclusive you are and measuring progress.
• Setting budgets for the costs of reasonable adjustments.

Staff satisfaction

Data

Here are examples of data you could collect on staff satisfaction:

• How satisfied employees are with their role.
• If they feel valued in the organisation.
• If they feel supported at an organisational level.
• If they feel their line manager is supportive.
• If they feel their team and colleagues are supportive.
• Whether their work has impacted their impairment or condition.
• How likely they would be to recommend your workplace to other disabled people.
• What they think your organisation is doing well for inclusion.
• What they think your organisation could improve to be more inclusive.

Analysis and report

These would help you analyse and report on:

• the satisfaction of disabled employees
• your workplace culture at different levels
• staff’s opinion and suggestions about your level of inclusion

Outcomes

The data you collect would depend on the goals you decided at the start. There’s a variety of outcomes this data would be useful for:

• Improving workplace culture.
• Finding ways to improve the experience of disabled people in your organisation.
• Creating an Equality Diversity and Inclusion action plan.
• Attracting more disabled employees.

Progression of disabled staff

Data

Here are examples of data you could collect on disabled staff progression:

• If disabled employees have been able to progress in their role.
• If yes, what the circumstances were. For example: promotion, new role created.
• If not, why do they think that is. For example: a lack of opportunities in the organisation as a whole.
• If they feel their condition or impairment has limited their ability to progress. For example: because they can only work part-time and there is a lack of part-time senior roles.
• If they have leadership responsibilities.
• What their pay range is.
• If they have disabled role models at a more senior level.
• If they think that as a disabled employee there is additional support they need to progress.

Analysis and report

These would help you analyse and report on:

• the diversity of your workforce at different levels
• the opportunities for progression available in your organisation
• your disability pay gap

Outcomes

The data you collect would depend on the goals you decided at the start. There’s a variety of outcomes this data would be useful for:

• Creating initiatives to diversify your workforce at all levels.
• Tackling the disability pay gap.

Non-disabled employees

This toolkit aims to help you improve the data you collect on disabled employees. The categories above focus on this goal. The questions centre disabled employees and their own experiences.

When it comes to reporting on disability inclusion, there is other data that can help. There are questions you can ask your non-disabled employees. For example, you could ask:

• what they know about disability
• how confident they feel talking about this topic
• if they know about the barriers disabled employees face
• if they know about adjustments in the workplace
• what their attitude is towards disabled people

Information from your non-disabled employees can give you more context. It can help you understand the experiences of your disabled employees. It can also give you more information about your workplace culture. It might highlight gaps between how inclusive disabled and non-disabled employees think you are.

We will talk about insight from non-disabled colleagues in more detail in chapter 8.

Scope carried out research on attitudes towards disabled people in 2022. 72% of disabled people have experienced negative attitudes or behaviour in the last 5 years.

Disabled people who have been employed reported negative attitudes in the workplace. 42% reported negative attitudes from management, and 41% reported negative attitudes from colleagues. These affect disabled people and it can even keep them from trying to find a job.

Attitudes towards disabled people report (Scope)