Access and Inclusion Index Benchmark Report2017-18

May 2018

Acknowledgement

The development and implementation of the Access and Inclusion Index was made possible by the funding and in-kind support of the NSW Department of Family and Community Services (NSW FACS), the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), the Department of Defence, IBM and Westpac Group. We sincerely thank the Development Partner Working Group for their time and valuable feedback in contributing to the design and implementation of the Access and Inclusion Index.

Table of Contents

Message from CEO

Introduction

About the Access and Inclusion Index (the Index)

Methodology

Advancing careers to build workforce capability

2017-18 Key Findings

Key Areas

Maturity levels

Realising inclusion through adjustments

Cross section of results

Framework, Implementation and Review

Accessibility and inclusion – more than talking

Innovation

What’s Next

How to connect with us

Message from CEO

I’m pleased to present the 2017-18 Benchmark Report that provides valuable insight into accessibility and inclusion practices of Australian Network on Disability members.

I sincerely thank the 28 organisations that used the Access and Inclusion Index to build understanding, check progress and benchmark performance.

Many organisations are committed to improving accessibility and inclusion for people with disability but are unsure how to start, how to set their priorities and how to measure their progress.

The Australian Network on Disability’s Access and Inclusion Index builds understanding, checks progress and benchmarks performance across 10 Key Areas or business domains.

The Benchmark Report announces the three top performers annually. I’m pleased to announce that this years’ leading organisations are the Federal Department of Human Services,the Australian Taxation Officeand ANZ .

These three organisations have demonstrated their long-term commitment, and investment, in access and inclusion for people with disability as customers, employees and stakeholders.

I sincerely commend their employees with disability, diversity and inclusion teams, executive sponsors and the leadership of these three leading organisations.

Of the 28 organisations contributing to the Benchmark Report this year, eight completed for a second time and on average and increased their maturity scores by almost 20%.

Six out of seven of the top scorers were organisations that completed the Index for the second time. They systematically followed the roadmap provided in their previous Evaluation Reports and leveraged engagement with colleagues to make further progress inclusion of people with disability in their organisations.

I encourage you to read the Good Practice case studies in this report and I thank ANZ, the Federal Department of Human Services and Medibank for sharing their initiatives.

This year’s Benchmark Report shows that many organisations see value in using the Index as a snapshot of current performance and a great way to measure their progress over time. The Index is an equally powerful tool for organisations starting out as it is for organisations that have been investing in inclusion of people with disability for a decade or more.

I strongly encourage you embrace the tool and participate in the Benchmarking process and show Australians with disability that we're committed to access and inclusion and to building a disability confident Australia.

Regards

Suzanne Colbert AM

CEO

Introduction

The Access and Inclusion Index Benchmark Report assists organisations in understanding the current level of maturity for access and inclusion practices across businesses. This year, 28 Australian Network on Disability members embarked on the journey and showed their commitment to assessing their disability confidence and using the Index to gain a roadmap to make further progress within their organisations. This commitment is a bold step towards a systematic way to measure and monitor progress and provides an opportunity to influence tangible change to advancethe equitable inclusion of people with disability in business.

Members that took part in the Evaluation and Benchmarking processare from public, private and for-purpose sectors and in a wide range of industries, such as finance, insurance, technology, healthcare, education, transport and government.

The size of these organisations ranges from multinational to smaller Australian enterprises and combined, they employ approximately 470,000 people across all States and Territories.

Eight Members completed the index for a second year time, providing them with their own year on year progress as well as the Evaluation and benchmark data for 2017-18.

About the Access and Inclusion Index (the Index)

The Access and Inclusion Index is an online tool for Australian organisations to use to understand, assess, benchmark and improve their disability confidence to meet the needs of their customers and employees with disability.

The Index helps organisations review their policies, procedures and practices and establishes their progress on accessibility and inclusion for people with disability. It increases understanding of access and inclusion and provides opportunities to receive guidance on welcoming to people with disability across their businesses.

The ten Key Areas assessed by the tool are:

  1. Commitment
  2. Premises
  3. Workplace Adjustments
  4. Communication and Marketing
  5. Products and Services
  6. Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
  7. Recruitment and Selection
  8. Career Development
  9. Suppliers and Partners
  10. Innovation

Methodology

Questions within each of the Key Areas of the Index are in three sections:

  • Framework: relates to organisational commitment, policies, procedures and guidelines.
  • Implementation: relates to actions, programs and initiatives that the organisation has taken to deliver on commitments.
  • Review: relates to monitoring and reviewing progress and using data to improve processes and outcomes.

Responses to all questions are assessed at four levels of maturity:

  • Level 1: Not participating – this is the level where an organisation may not have yet considered its position and is still planning their path.
  • Level 2: Basic – the organisation is operating in a way which reflects a compliance focus or is reactive to issues.
  • Level 3: Programmatic – the organisation has developed tactics, programs, policies or procedures to address some issues, or focuses only on some parts of its business or operations.
  • Level 4: Strategic – business process and practices are designed to deliver a consistently accessible and inclusive experience for employees, customers and stakeholders. Access and inclusion activities are across the organisation and are sustainable.

The Access and Inclusion Index weights the Key Areas and the questions according to their relative importance and impact on access and inclusion for people with disability and produces a total Index score out of 100.

This scoring methodology is applied consistently across all organisations that have submitted for Evaluation. The assessment, maturity model, scoring and weighting have been validated by the Centre for Workplace Leadership at theUniversity of Melbourne.

Advancing careers to build workforce capability

All employeesare entitled to be considered for and participate in learning and career development opportunities. Career development improves engagement and encourages thought leadership. It can be an effective retention strategy and helps build workforce capability.

In this case study, Meg Dalling, ANZ’s Accessibility and Inclusion Plan Lead, discusses some of the initiatives that underpin their approach to career development.

According to Ms Dalling, ANZ is actively making sure that career development opportunities are inclusive of people with disability. “All of our mentoring, secondments and training opportunities are accessible. Adjustments might be as simple as supplying materials in an individual’s preferred format or checking that training venues are accessible,” she said.

“We also request evidence from external training providers to ensure they provide equal access for people with disability. Our procurement team and individual business units work closely to make sure ourtechnology accessibility standards are met by the vendor,” said Ms Dalling.To support future progress, ANZ recognises that having accurate and meaningful data will help it to better track retention, engagement and career progression and identify areas for improvement.

“Understanding the diversity of our workforce helps us to make informed decisions, to more effectively support our employees to develop their careers, and to address barriers. It presents a real opportunity for ANZ,” said Ms Dalling.

The bank’s Abilities Network, a collection of volunteer employees with or interested in disability, can support employees with disability with their career development and other issues related to their employment. They aim to foster inclusiveness and diversity, raise awareness of disability and accessibility and represent employees on issues relating to disability. They also run the annual Star Awards, a grass roots program that recognises and celebrates employees for their outstanding contribution to making ANZ more accessible.

Hosted by the CEO, the Star Awards event is high profile and helps to increase awareness of inclusive work practices across the whole of the business.

“Our 10th anniversary was a particularly big event with the launch of a report that we commissioned from RMIT University that looked at MoneyMinded, ANZ’s flagship financial literacy program, within a disability context,” said Ms Dalling.

This is the first year that ANZ has participated in the Australian Network on Disability’s Access and Inclusion Index. They wanted to take part to check their progress, learn where there are gaps and identify areas where they are performing well.

“It was a comprehensive and worthwhile exercise that required us to find hard evidence to support all the things we thought we were doing. It raised awareness in our Accessibility and Inclusion Plan (AIP) steering committee about what is being done across the whole-of-business, and it has provided concrete suggestions for progress,” said Ms Dalling.

“Overall it is an excellent vehicle for internal engagement. It helps raise awareness of access and inclusion at the highest level of the organisation. It celebrates what we are doing well and highlights where we should be focusing effort. It is independent and comes from a credible organisation. I’d definitely encourage other organisations to participate. While it takes a lot of work, there is a lot to be gained regardless of where you are on the maturity scale,” said Ms Dalling.

2017-18 Key Findings

Leading organisations

Australian Network on Disability is pleased to announce the 2017-18 leading organisations are:

  1. Federal Department of Human Services
  2. Australian Taxation Office
  3. ANZ

Congratulations to the top three organisations who scored over 80% and demonstratedtheir clear commitment to accessible and inclusive practicesacross their organisations.

2017-18 results

The wide range of scores in the 2017-18 Index demonstratesthat members that are relatively new on their journey towards disability confidence will benefit from being able to systematically measure their progress. Members that have had a sustained approach over several years are benefiting from the comprehensive information in the Evaluation Report while developing leading practices that can be shared with others.

The average score across the 28 members was 38/100 with seven organisations scoring over 61 and 14 organisations using the tool as a roadmap and scoring between seven and 30. The Australian Network on Disability considers the distribution of scores and the varying levels of maturity, shown in Table 1, as a good representation of the current access and inclusion practices in Australia.

  • Nineorganisations fromgovernment, banking, education and for-purpose consistently scored highly in the top three in different Key Areas of the Access and Inclusion Index and represented:
  • 14 different organisations were represented in the top fivescores across Key Areas.
  • Commitment was the strongest area in the Index, with members demonstrating this by having written access and inclusion strategies and plans in place and senior leadership engagement.
  • Suppliers and Partners and Career Development were the lowest scoring Key Areas.

Year on year progress

There were eight organisations that completed the Index for a second time.All of them improved their score, with the average improvement of 18 points - almost 20% increase in maturity. Of the top seven scorers in the 2017-18 Index, six were organisations that took part in the 2016-17 Evaluation and Benchmark process. Thisshows significant benefits and outcomesfrom measuring policies and practices and using the Evaluation Report to plan and make further progress.

There were year on year improvements across all ten areas, with five organisations improving in at least six of the tenKeyAreas. Premises, Recruitment and Selection, Products and Services and Workplace Adjustments had the most consistent progress across the eight organisations.

Improvements were also made across the three categories of Framework, Implementation and Review.

Distribution of Index Scores

Access and Inclusion Score Range / Number of Organisation
91-100 / 0
81-90 / 3
71-80 / 1
61-70 / 3
51-60 / 0
41-50 / 4
31-40 / 3
21-30 / 7
11-20 / 5
0-10 / 2
Total / 28

Table 1 Distribution of Access and Inclusion Index Scores (data)

Key Areas

The ten Key Areas in the Access and Inclusion Index represent the ‘whole-of-organisation’ approach to ensuring access and inclusion for all stakeholders with disability. Some of these areas, such as Commitment, Workplace Adjustments, Recruitment and Selection, and Premiseshave been the focus of organisations for many years as primary enablers of access and inclusion. Other areas, such as Products and Services, Marketing and Communications and ICT, have had more recent focus as organisations have developed a better understanding of the needs of people with disability as employees, customers and stakeholders. In addition, the opportunity to develop innovative solutionsis now receiving increased attention as leading organisations seek to be more universally accessible and inclusive.

Areas that have received less attention within organisations are Suppliers and Partners and Career Development. Theseare areasfor development for many organisations and will add to a more systematic approach with long term outcomes for both employees and customers. These areas also offer many potential business benefits.

Key areas andgoals

The ten Key Areas and goals are listed below.

  1. Commitment:We commit to best practice on access and inclusion for people with disability as employees, customers and stakeholders.
  2. Premises: Our premises are accessible to people with disability and whenever necessary we adjust for individuals.
  3. Workplace Adjustments: We anticipate the needs of people with disability and have a robust process for making any adjustments which might be needed by individuals.
  4. Communication and Marketing:Our communication and marketing channels are accessible to people with disability and whenever necessary we make reasonable adjustments for individuals
  5. Products and Services: We value people with disability as customers, clients and service users and address their needs when developing and delivering our products and services.
  6. ICT: Our ICT is accessible and usable by people with disability, and we also make reasonable adjustments for individuals.
  7. Recruitment and Selection: We attract and recruit people with disability, which gives us access to the widest talent pool at every level.
  8. Career Development: We value all our employees, including those who experience disability and are committed to their retention and development.
  9. Suppliers and Partners: We expect our suppliers and corporate partners to reflect and enable us to meet our commitment to best practice.
  10. Innovation: We pride ourselves on our innovative practices and continually strive to do better.

Maturity levels

Table 2 below shows the average maturity level across all Index participants for each Key Area. The maturity levels are:

  • Level 1(1.0) - Not participating
  • Level 2(2.0) - Basic
  • Level 3 (3.0) – Programmatic, and
  • Level 4 (4.0) - Strategic.

Overall Maturity by Key Area / Average Maturity Level – All orgs
Commitment / 3.0
Premises / 2.5
Workplace Adjustments / 2.5
Communication and Marketing / 2.0
Products and Services / 2.0
Information Communication Technology (ICT) / 2.0
Recruitment and Selection / 2.0
Career Development / 2.0
Suppliers and Partners / 2.0
Innovation / 2.0

Table 2 Index average maturity level by Key Areas (data)

Strategic

There was no Key Area in which the average maturity level of all participating organisations was at the Strategic level.

Programmatic to Strategic

The area of Commitment showed the highest level of maturity across the participating organisations with 61% achieving the Programmatic level. This level is demonstrated byhaving a Disability Champion and a written plan in place to address some issues or have a focus on some parts of their business or operations.

None of the organisations achieved a strategic maturity level in commitment however the Access and Inclusion Index provides guidance on how to make these practices systematic and truly embed the commitment across organisations to progress to the strategic level.

Basic to Programmatic

The average score across organisations for Workplace Adjustments and Premises was between the Basic and Programmatic level, demonstrating frameworks or practices in place to meet compliance or take a reactive approach to access and inclusion. There were a range in scores in both areas with three organisations achieving Strategic level in Workplace Adjustments and one in Premises, while ten organisations were ‘not participating’ in either area.

Not Participating to Basic

The average maturity level for Communication and Marketing, Products and Services, ICT, Recruitment and Selection, Career Development, Suppliers and Partners and Innovation was Basic.

A third of the participating organisations achieved Programmatic in Products and Services, ICT and Recruitment and Selection which is encouraging. As well as three organisations achieving Strategic level in Innovation.

Realising inclusion through adjustments

The Federal Department of Human Services (DHS) has a number of workplace accessibility policies, programs and initiatives which have been designed to realise the principles of access and inclusion and provide recruitment, retention and career development opportunities for people with disability. Workplace adjustments have been a key focus area and have been effective in supporting employees with disability in DHS and across the Australian Public Service via inter-agency shared service arrangements.