Gas firm is recognised for helping those with all abilities
EmployAbility scheme is run by the company at its town HQ
GAS distributor Cadent has been recognised for its efforts to be a welcoming workplace for disabled people.
The group runs an awardwinning internship scheme for local young people with learning needs and disabilities and has celebrated becoming a disability confident employer.
The group runs an awardwinning EmployAbility supported internship scheme, which provides work placements and qualifications for students from Hinckley’s Dorothy Goodman Academy.
Steve Fraser, chief executive of Cadent, said “We are committed to making Cadent a welcoming place for people with disabilities.
“At Cadent we focus on people’s abilities not their disabilities. We want to recruit the best people and by transforming the way we do things we can open the door to a pool of hugely talented people who are often not getting the opportunities they deserve.
“We are delighted to have achieved disability confident employer status and now need to go beyond that and ensure Cadent is the best workplace it can be for people with disabilities.”
More than 70 per cent of interns land a job at the end of the scheme, compared with less than seven per cent of people nationally with learning disabilities.
Current EmployAbility intern
Eliza, 18, of Dorothy Goodman School, has just completed her first work placement with Cadent.
She said: “EmployAbility is great because it includes people with disabilities and gives us fantastic experience in the workplace. It means that people with disabilities aren’t shut out.”
Emma Brown, an Investment Strategy Analyst at Cadent’s Hinckley site, was diagnosed as a teenager with Charcot-MarieTooth, an inherited neurological condition.
At 17, she was in a wheelchair and forced to give up her dream of being a chef.
Instead she studied information technology and has worked for Cadent for 15 years.
Cadent provided Emma with specialist voice recognition software to help her carry out some day-to-day tasks.
She said: “People often make assumptions when they see me, around my capabilities and intellect but I’ve had so much support over the last 15 years that I’ve been able to progress my career at a pace that I’m comfortable with and with the right support in place. “Everyone is so supportive and even when I’m finding things hard, I’m still able to achieve great things and I’m really proud of that.
“It’s really important to me that we break down perceptions and I’m really pleased to see initiatives like roundtables and commitments to diversity and inclusion that Cadent is making as a business.”