Ready, Willing and Able creates partnerships that benefit both the employee and the business. We believe that the success of the individual on our programme will lead to the success of the wider organisation.

The value of inclusivity

Many businesses fully recognise that employing people with different abilities through truly inclusive employment practices is ‘doing the right thing’.

However, too often they are deterred from ‘doing the right thing’ through a false perception that the cost is too great.

We want businesses to recognise the huge commercial value that tapping into a wider pool of talent will bring. We believe that the cost of NOT embracing an inclusive workplace is too great a risk to take in the tough economic backdrop we currently face.

CSR reputation

The reputational benefits for an organisation that is actually seen to ‘walk the walk’ rather than just ‘talk the talk’ from a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) perspective are huge.

In a marketplace driven more and more by the younger generations, consumers in all sectors are basing spending decisions around ethics and how an organisation conducts its business. Consumers want to feel good about where they are purchasing their products and services from.

True inclusivity in the workforce is a key indicator of the social conscience of a business and a visible and living reflection of its CSR reputation.

Commercial value

Reputational value is an enormous benefit of inclusive work practices, but there is a very definitive commercial benefit of employing individuals with different abilities.

The ‘Purple Pound’ is the spending power of disabled people and their families. The potential of the Purple Pound is enormous. It is thought that 1 in 5 people in the UK have some form of disability – over 12 million people! The value of this ‘Purple Pound’ is thought to be around £250 billion.

In spite of the huge incentive the ‘Purple Pound’ offers, relatively few organisations have a strategy to target the disability market, so much of this spending power remains untapped.

Through employing a workforce more reflective of its potential customer base, an organisation will organically increase the accessibility of its products and services to a wider market. Customers want to spend their money with organisations that reflect themselves and their values. A disability inclusive workforce appeals to the hearts and minds of consumers of the Purple Pound.

Efficiency and productivity benefits

Alongside the reputational and obvious commercial benefits of tapping into a larger market, employing people with disabilities will reap substantial gains in productivity and efficiency.

Successful organisations are those that think smarter and innovatively. A truly inclusive workforce will lead to greater diversity of thought and far greater innovation by recognising the different perspectives that people of different backgrounds and lived experiences will have.

Numerous research has shown that organisations with inclusive workforces have better staff morale. Welcoming and supportive workplaces make people feel better, leading to clear benefits in productivity, reduced absence and reduced turnover.

Research for Mencap (2017) has shown more specifically that employing people with learning disabilities leads to better staff reliability, improved morale, increased customer loyalty, reduced levels of absence and better staff morale.

No two individuals are the same, but people with disabilities have a variety of exceptional skills that enable them to excel in many workplaces. The lived experience of many people with disabilities will naturally mean they have real life evidence of resilience, which should be attractive to any business.

Ready, Willing and Able will help your business take advantage of all these benefits that so many are organisations are missing by not being truly inclusive.