Podcast Transcripts

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00:05

Welcome the Hivecast  and our Disability Confident series. I'm Zoe Hanson, the podcast lady,  and I'm joined in this episode by Ben Stickuch, Disability Employment Advisor Leader for Buckinghamshire Job Centres.  Let's start then, Ben,  with understanding the scheme.  What is Disability Confident?  Disability Confident is a DWP initiation that's been around for a few years now.

00:35

kind of led on from something called the two tick symbol that we used to have when I started in DWP,  scary about 25 years ago now.  And the idea for Disability Confident is  to simplify what was the two tick symbol to make it more accessible for employers  and for them to really understand what the commitments are to being involved in Disability Confident.  The focus really is twofold. It's about trying to encourage employers to take on more individuals with

01:03

health conditions and health restrictions in employment,  but also in how you retain your staff as well. it's understanding what support needs, what things like reasonable adjustments might be.  Disability Commitment is based in three different levels. level one is just a very  simplified version,  but it requires individual employers to sign up to  five essential commitments. The first is about ensuring that the recruitment process is accessible and fair.

01:31

So that would be just like making sure that you allow  extra time, you make adaptations for interviews and so on. So  if people might need a bit more time to discuss things,  they might want questions in advance, for example, just how we can make it as inclusive as you possibly can. How we communicate those vacancies.  It used to be when I started, used to have all this sending my application form into  the premises I want to work for.  Nowadays, everyone has a CV.  So...

01:59

can I just send my CV to the employer?  A lot of vacancies now online, I imagine that Fair High will have a website where people can go look at vacancies.  DWP itself has a find a job website where people can look for things. But not everyone is fully computer literate. They might not necessarily live in an environment where there is good Wi-Fi connections. Might live in a village somewhere where there's a bit of a black spot  in terms of what is available.  So can you still make those?

02:26

Vacancies accessible, can people still fill an application  or send a CV and a covering letter?  How do we make those vacancies  reachable to everybody? uh A basic idea, I used to think of it like a computer game. How do we level up?  So it's just about making it equal for everyone else. Then it'll be like offering an interview to disabled people.  But you still have to meet the minimum criteria for the role.  So we're not saying you have to take everyone on with a health condition. They still have to be able to do the job that is being asked of them.

02:56

Yes. So that's  a step we asked to try and do.  And then anticipate and provide reasonable adjustments as and when required.  That can be one of the things that scares people a fair bit. The idea of reasonable adjustments. What is reasonable?  And it's basically what is reasonable in your employees circumstances. So give me  an example of that one. A very simple one. For like we're talking now, you have a headset on. Yeah. So to help block out sound.

03:23

that might be all that's needed for an individual because they might be sitting at a desk where there's lots of noise  and that noise might affect them.  So you could just have some noise cancelling headphones. Perfect. A simple reason adjustment. A lot of it is just common sense and not necessarily going to cost an awful lot of money to do so. Another example might be just can we move a desk somewhere else? Can you work out a slightly different location?  Is it a case if you need slight  adaptations to the software? Do know how to put the subtitles on?

03:52

when you're doing the team's call. Yes. Just simple things like that, but what can be work for that individual to support them?  Gotcha. And then the last one, connecting with that with those  five core principles  about supporting individuals.  Not everyone  is disabled from the beginning.  You may get your disability during your working life. You might have an accident, you might have that hole you always wanted and had a fall, uh for example.

04:18

mental health as we are aware, one in four people go through a mental health episode during their lifetime. So it's being aware of what support might be available to support them.  You may not necessarily have the answers,  but being able to go, I don't know,  let's go and ask. So that's the key principles that a person, an employer signs up  for. And then there's a second one where you basically agree to at least one of the following, which could be paid employment,  could be traineeships, could be volunteering.

04:47

supported internships, et cetera, et cetera. But again, that will depend on what the employer can offer. If you have a big company, say for example, your Tesco's, you'd have quite a lot of turnover in staff. might have quite a lot of intake, you'd be in a of recruitment. If you're a smaller company, you're the food van on the motorway, you might need to hire one person every now and again. What can you offer in that particular time scale?

05:16

and stuff on now. you think that every employer  is  able to do this? I would like to think they could. Yes. Whether they are able to do so again will depend on circumstances. But I would like to think that  all employers should be able to make  some commitment to supporting people. Yes. Because otherwise you're missing out on a talent pool  that is really advantageous to people.  You look through the background, lots of things like Purple Tuesday, for example, the spending.

05:45

of the disabled community is quite high. But also, people want to work. you usually find that people with a health condition or a disability are the most loyal employees because you've given them an opportunity. So give those people those chances and the support that they need, that leveling up I'd mentioned earlier, and then you will find you'll get a good loyal supportive workforce as a consequence. And then so that's level one.

06:14

Level two, it's a bit more. They were asking from you, so it's more about how we develop your staff. So do you have practices in place to develop them? So do you have your one-to-ones, your regular reviews with your staffing? You've managed to have people that necessarily have those. But also it's how then do people want to get promotion? How do people progress within the company? Is there a mechanism to support people from doing that? Now it might be that those

06:43

individuals don't want to get promotion, they're happy doing the roles they do, but how do we then just develop them in their skill set to make them better  employees?  So what mechanisms do we have? Do you have a HR department to engage with that person who's sick  and needs a bit more support?  Do we know where to go to to turn? So it's just about developing yourself  as an employer to be a better employer to develop the staff that you have.

07:08

And then if you're feeling really adventurous,  we have level three, which is the leader status, which Fairhive are one of our leaders here in Buckinghamshire.  And that is again about promoting disability confidence, being an advocate  for disability confidence, to be that  shining example, I suppose, would be the best phrase to try and use.  So we'll go out and promote it to other organizations. If you're doing presentations, for example,  you may share it with your network.

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uh It might be that you have your stationery from a certain organisation. You might go, oh, by the way, we have this scheme that might be really useful for you.  So that is the kind of general levels you want to do.  Level one and level two, the basic levels,  are self-assessment.  For level three, you will need  outside assessments.  And we have a system within DDP to support with that, if necessary.

07:57

We recently did a level 3 progression session for employers who were interested to learn how to do it  and we have several other level 3 employers that are willing to support if necessary  to help them with those signups and you might need a  local charity just to help you with that.  But  again, that's part what we're here to help support people with. So if people want to take those steps on the journey, you take them when  you're ready.  where would you start then? What is step one?

08:26

Step one is simply going onto the gov.uk website, typing in disability confident, and it brings you up the application process.  And all you're basically agreeing are those commitments that I mentioned earlier. You're saying what area you're in, whether you're in the Southeast, whether you're in the Northwest.  Also, you'll detail how many employees you might have, what the nature of your role is  with your administration, your office-based retail, et cetera.  And then you submit it. It takes about five minutes to do the application.

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And then  once that's through, that goes to our central team nationally that looks after it.  And they will then send you out notification.  And you get a certificate for three years.  And then the option to renew. We usually ask for two contact  names. So whoever's going to be your main contact for Disability Confident  and Alternative Person, just in case people move on. Yeah, yeah, of course.  So who does this help?  This might sound obvious to us, but actually...

09:22

Disability Confident, I think is twofold.  You mentioned earlier, you might be missing out on a big pool of talent.  So who does Disability Confident help?  It helps both the employees and the employers. It would help the employees because  if you have people looking for work,  you kind of got them in this pool of employers to potentially contact and reach out to if they're offering those vacancies.  And also then it just reassures  the...

09:50

individual, if they're applying for that company, if they've ticked that box to say that it's with a confident,  that they will listen. They will support the individual in what  steps they need  to  get the job, also to stay in work.  The flip side also is it helps the employers.  A, because it allows them to become more inclusive,  to take on a wider talent pool of resource,  but also for them to learn more about what steps are needed in supporting individuals.

10:20

For example, we have been running in Buckinghamshire for the last four years, a Disability Confident Employer Forum,  which is open to  anyone that is signed up to Disability Confident. And we bring in guest speakers  each time we do this,  and they've talked to a variety of subjects. So  we've had neurodiversity presentations.  We have had  a session on long COVID back a few years ago because people were finding that quite challenging.

10:48

And we asked employers, what would help you? What would you like to learn about?  suppose  it's taking down the barriers to understanding, isn't it? Exactly, breaking down those barriers. So a classic example is we asked employers about  carers.  We have individuals that have caring responsibilities.  And do you have such a thing as a carer's passport? And it was quite surprising to find that lot of employers didn't.  So we did a whole session on that to talk employers through  how then you can have a carer's passport.

11:17

how you can have reasonable adjustments on there to support them. What's a carer's passport? Let's just touch on that. A carer's passport is if someone might need  time off at short notice due to a caring responsibility.  But also, if you are a carer, you have a lot of responsibilities at home. Yes. You might bring them into work. You don't want to, but there might be times when you might be bit stressed, you might be overwhelmed.  So if you've got the carer's passport, people are aware that you are also caring. Yes. It just allows people to make a slight adjustment.  Yeah.

11:45

99 times out of you might not necessarily need it. But if it's there, it's there to support that individual. So they know they can still do their jobs, they can still get assistance and just helps them feel more reassured. And that people know without them having to point it out. Exactly. And it's usually a conversation between your manager and you. So doesn't need to be shared with everybody, et cetera, but your immediate manager should be aware of it. So they're able to put that support in place. Yes.

12:14

It's just again that little extra layer of reassurance and support that  keeps that person in work.  Because if they're having an issue at home,  they might be calling in sick, they might have a lot of health concerns as a consequence, might be really tired when they come in.  Their behaviour might not necessarily be  as appropriate, might be a more techy and stuff on there.  But if they're aware of it, that support can be input and then...

12:36

that person stays in employment, you haven't got the cost factor involved with recruiting a new member of staff.  You retain the individual and their skill set and their experience.  And they're again,  more likely to feel  valued and supported and more likely to stay with the company. When you talk about the forum,  what kinds of businesses and industries do you get coming to these?  We have all sorts because we've opened it up to anyone that has signed up disability confidence. So anyone at level one,

13:06

a level two or level three employer  can come along. So for example, you have Fairhive, we'll have the council.  I've had TalkBack,  a charity that supports people with health conditions.  We've had the NHS are now getting involved.  I've had a really good company called Harrison's Catering that have been involved with us for about four years because we've been doing it across Bucks, Berkshire and Oxfordshire.  We've had AbilityNet, we support people with  IT situations.  have had...

13:34

Santander, Network Rail, they are sign up to Disability Confident. It's a whole spectrum of employers. Whoever has taken that chance and taken those steps, we've offered it to them as almost like a reward. look, we're offering something back for you. You have taken that step to sign up to Disability Confident. Here is the form for you. What support do you need? We will help talk you through retention support, we'll talk you through conversations with difficult situations. What support do you need? So, we're trying to help.

14:02

develop them as well as we're going along. Actually, just saying that, can you give me a couple of examples of where Disability Confident has worked? Certainly. So our very first forum, we had TalkBack come along and they said, could I possibly have a chat for five minutes to promote the services of one of our cohort we're working with, a young individual with a learning disability that had struggled to secure gainful employment. They would get jobs, but they would not last very long. And that was because they had sometimes trouble with

14:32

presentation skills.  So they've got the skills but doesn't necessarily come out of them in the way they want to do.  And Harrison's Catering offered to take them on  because they had some really good admin skills to work in the finance department.  So it took them on on a short term contract.  Very impressed. So then offered them one day a week and consequently from working at Harrison's Catering that person is then moved to Fairhive. without that

14:57

network of being able to speak to the employers, this individual would not have profound gainful employment.  And so  they've been working out for at least,  as I said, this event, this first one was about four years ago. So that tells you  the  time in which they've been back in employment  and it is helping them develop each time they're going into work. That's fantastic. Any others that you can just give me right now? Yeah, I'll give you a good and a bad example. Okay. I think would be quite useful to you. At the moment we have our

15:26

CFCD exercise going on in the job centres. Now this is working  best way to like counter for  investigation department and we're doing a two week  movement to work work experience placement. And my DEA has been working individual for quite some time.  Very strong social anxiety would  struggle to leave the house,  struggle to go anywhere independently.  And they've got them to  the stage where they were getting the bus to travel into the job centre to meet the DEA.

15:53

And they found this work placement  and said, look, you'd be working here. Why didn't you come work here? You kind of know the route coming into the job centre. you know where you know where you're going, et cetera. And so they've just, believe today, it's the last of their first week.  And I've arranged my DEA to go in and have a chat with them, just to say how proud we are of them for taking that step to look where they were  when they started seeing the DEA and they couldn't even travel in.

16:19

to the point where they're now coming into the building to go and do a work experience placement that potentially can lead to an interview for the job.  DWP is a disability confident leader.  So that is a really good example. How do you feel when something like that happens? Because it must make you feel proud, but it must feel like it's a real lift for the whole place, isn't it? It's not just for that individual. It's for the whole company, I suppose. It's for the whole industry. It's why we do this.  The roles that we do,

16:47

It is difficult trying to overturn people's perceptions and the challenges that we face doing that. So take the wins when we can. Yeah. And so it is a wonderful moment when you see someone progress to that stage. My DA was just so happy when they were there and they'd started. They got through the first week. So go and have a chat with them. Let them know that you feel so proud them because I said that will reassure them that they're doing a good job. Yeah. And then hopefully that will help us move forward with those. And actually.

17:15

That's a great point as well, isn't it? It seems that in this world where we are now, that people are very quick to point out the problems, but actually not to commend somebody that's done something great. And we all need that, right? Absolutely. The world has completely changed over the years. So I said I'm going give you a good and a bad example. So I will go back to when I was looking for work. So this is about 20 odd years ago. I'm not going to reveal my age on this particular podcast. And I had been looking for work. was at university at the time doing my degree.

17:46

And so my mum went to the job centre to ask about jobs because I was going to be looking at work  at some point shortly afterwards.  And they asked the question, oh, does your son have any health conditions? And my mum mistakenly said, I'm deaf.  I'm actually partially deaf in both ears.  And they went, oh, there's a job pushing trolleys.  Do think he can manage that?  And I thought, OK. How does that make you feel though, when you think about that now?

18:13

Well, it is one of the reasons why I do what I do.  But at the time I just thought, really? And it's that perception  again, comes all the way back to disability common is changing perceptions.  And so it made me kind of like, I'm going to prove you wrong uh kind of thing. And I never found out who it was, I never asked, et cetera. But  two months later I was working for DWP and I've been there ever since. u

18:40

Yes, I have a hearing aid, home, which I don't need to do. It's actually one of my great superpowers. I can not hear things  when it comes along.  But it is an immense frustration because that is just a perception about  having met me. Yes. A person has made that perception about him. Yes. And I thought that's one of the things you want to sort of change over people's perceptions. When you hear  words,  people forget they have such an impact. So when you hear about mental health or  neurodiversity or autism,

19:08

People have an association in their heads, an unconscious bias sometimes, about what that might be. So I kind of want to get that removed if possible. What do you think it is that employers are hesitant or frightened to get involved in disability confidence? Why do you think that there might be that? Language. Okay. Very simple, comes down to language and...

19:35

If you look at the idea of disability confident in the commitments, we're talking about offering guaranteed interviews. What does that mean? What does that actually mean? If you just read that on the surface layer, what does that actually mean? But when we explain it is they have to meet the minimum criteria for the roles, but there's that perception again, oh, we're to get all these people coming along with complicated issues that might have difficulties in their job roles.

20:02

because they tick the box that you have the guaranteed interviews. We're that's not the case.  They still have to be able to do the role.  Reasonable adjustments.  Again, language. What does a reasonable adjustment mean? Now that can be all sorts of things.  It could be, as we mentioned earlier in this conversation,  we were talking about maybe just  a headset,  but it might be adaptations to premises, et cetera. But not every reasonable adjustment is an expensive cost. Yeah. Also,

20:32

some reason adjustments you can't necessarily always do because of the actual location of the premises.  If you have an old listed building, for example, you're not necessarily easy to go and  make adaptations to it because  obviously of its  status.  But it is the fear of the unknown.  What you don't know can confuse, it can cause concern. And I wonder if  there might be a bit of a thought as to what if I get it wrong?

20:59

But actually, when you're talking about Level 3  and people like Fairhive and DWP and  all of these big organisations getting involved,  actually they're there to support you as well, aren't they? Well, that's where myself and my team come in as Disability Employment Advisors. So we are there to help people through  the journey with Disability Confident. And it was another reason why we wanted to set the forum up because

21:24

actually, if you don't know the answer, it'd nice to know there's someone else I can speak to or someone else has gone through the same experience.  Because if you are  a HR person on your own or you're a small company, it is quite a scary thing. I don't know what to do.  And  it's okay to say I don't know.  But the worst thing possible is to do something, do it wrong  and  go, oh, I didn't know. Well, actually, just ask. We'll happily talk it through.  So we've done...

21:53

sessions on reasonable adjustments.  I've gone to the NHS, I've done uh some series of presentations through the GPPA or the General Practitioner Provider Alliance  talking about subjects like this.  So there are support organizations out there. There's things like access to work,  but there's also mental health support service via access to work that most people aren't aware of. So  we've arranged for employers to listen to them to talk about it.  So there's a lot of information.

22:23

I don't know all the answers, I'll freely admit I don't know everything. It's impossible for a human being to know, unless you're Stephen Fry, to know everything in its entirety. So I think it's very important to just people know the limitations and go, okay, I need to go and ask. But that's where we then we have the forum. We also have all the different support organizations that come and talk and leave their details. So people know there is that support in the community to reach out to.

22:49

Thank you so much for such a brilliant explanation of what Disability Confident is.  So if  any organisation,  any kind of employer wants to get involved in this,  they just need to go to gov.uk and put in Disability Confident, right? Exactly. Just go into gov.uk, type in Disability Confident and  or do Disability Confident and it should come up.

23:12

There you go, Chicken or egg. whichever comes first and stuff on there. Then that should be it. That's all they need to do. And then each month we get a list of people who have signed up. And what we will try to do is to reach out to these employers and go, we've just received Disability Confident. Let me introduce myself. I'm the Disability Employment Advisor Leader.

23:35

This is what we offer in terms of the forum. If you'd like a follow up conversation, please let me know. And one of me and myself and my team will be in contact. Perfect. We try to make sure that everyone's communicated to. Yeah. And then there's the forum. And actually that just sounds brilliant because it's just a resource, isn't it? It's just a hive of information. That's what we always wanted from it on there. And that's why we have our forum. So our next one will have presentations, a slightly different theme. We have access to work.

24:01

So tell people what that is, how they can refer to it, how they can get support from it.  But because we're also conscious on retention and keeping people in employment,  I've arranged for the Drugs and Alcohol Service to come and present about what they offer in support. But we've also got our ex-offender team coming in about  how to support people with criminal convictions if they come through because they may be an overlap  in terms of health.  But again, how do we keep the staff that we've got and develop them?

24:27

So we have three presentations lined up. There'll also be some updates on what we've been doing and the usual statistics and stuff on there so you can see how we've been helping people over the last few years. So just mentioning the statistics, can you give me a couple of those that will just promote disability confidence? There's a nice challenge for you. Absolutely. So I think the key thing for me in terms of promoting disability confidence is the disability employment gap. When you see the difference between the amount of people in employment

24:56

with a disability and those without, it becomes quite stark. So the disability employment gap is 28.5%. So this is at quarter to 2024, the latest statistics. so effectively we were finding, I have it written down just to help me with this one here, that 53.1 % of people with a disability were in employment. 53.1%. And 81.6 % of people

25:24

without a disability are in employment. So when you look at the difference, it's 28.5. And that's massive. That's huge. But the interesting statistic, when I looked it through, was for 50 to 64 year olds, it's actually 31.5%. So the older you get, it gets harder. For 18 to 24 year olds, it is 22.1. So one of things we're trying to encourage

25:52

particularly disability confident is to get people into work because as you get older it gets harder to find those jobs. And we know there is a perception again about health and older workers  also  close to retirement age whenever that might be, who keeps changing it seems and stuff on there.  But the more we're able to support people and get them into work at the earliest entrance. when I mentioned earlier about some disability confident, about traineeships, about apprenticeships,

26:19

about supported internships, the volunteering, giving people those opportunities at a younger age. So they've got those skills, they're in employment, and then that gives them better chance to have that career. Otherwise, you're looking at a situation where a person, as they get older, will find it more of a struggle. I am in absolutely no doubt that disability confident is changing lives and employment.

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If you want any more information and if you want to find out about Disability Confident  and becoming a Disability Confident employer,  just go to gov.ukor just search for Disability Confident. Thank you so, so much for listening.