On Thursday 14/12/2023, we had the pleasure of welcoming a group of Disability Coaches from the University of Liverpool to our office for an EDI focus group. The Disability Coaches are all current students at the university, whilst working part-time for the Disability Advice & Guidance team to provide a peer-to-peer drop-in service for disabled students seeking support with their studies. As a group of young people who will enter the workforce in the coming years, and who all have lived experience of a disability, we thought they would be the ideal group to help evaluate our EDI practices.
After some sandwiches and cakes, we begun the focus group by running through the lifecycle of an employee, starting with our job listings all the way to on-boarding and beyond. At each stage, we explained the EDI practices that we have put into place, and asked the coaches to comment on what they liked, what they didn’t like, and asked for suggestions for improvement. Broadly, the coaches liked our considerations, particularly our revamped interview practice and our disability disclosure process. Throughout the session, we received a lot of useful feedback on how to improve our equality statement on job listings, and staff EDI training materials, that we’ve already taken on-board.
We’d like to thank the Disability Coaches for a productive session, and we wish them the best with their studies!
Thanks to this focus group, Jamescape has met the requirements of Disability Confident Leader, the highest level of accreditation for the scheme. We’re proud to have taken the time to ensure best practice in our operations, so that we can have a more welcoming environment for disabled people. Furthermore, it will be exciting to see the long-term impacts of the project now that we can more easily tap into the disabled talent pool, which is important as the company enters a period of growth.
Whilst this marks the end of our scoped Project EDI, we will continue to review and update our practices in the future. In addition, as a Disability Confident Leader, we will act as advocates for the scheme encouraging all businesses in our network to engage with it. In the coming months we hope to reach out to some of our partners to offer guidance with the scheme. If you’re interested in having a chat about the scheme and its benefits, please drop us an email.