500 global firms put disability inclusion on boardroom agendas
Business leaders from 500 of the world’s biggest companies have agreed to publish quarterly reports into disability representation, amid evidence of a lack of progress tackling diversity among multinational firms.
The Valuable 500 global disability network said it had reached its target to get 500 major companies to put disability inclusion on their boardroom agenda, including companies such as Microsoft, Unilever, Google and CocaCola.
Launched at the annual Davos gathering of business leaders hosted by the World Economic Forum in 2019, the organisation represents firms with annual revenue worth more than $8tn (£5.7tn), and employing more than 19 million employees across 36 countries.
It said its members would be held accountable to raising disability representation through quarterly updates and reporting on their progress, aiming to tackle the “shocking state” of disability representation in business.
According to research published by the Valuable 500, there are no executives or senior managers who have disclosed a disability at any of the UK’s biggest firms in the FTSE 100, while only 12% report on the total number of employees who are disclosed as disabled.
The findings show the average representation of people with disabilities among employees is only 3.2%, compared with the percentage of the wider population with a disability, which is 18%.
As few as five FTSE 100 companies have issued board-level statements about disability, while only 10 have set goals related to inclusion, and almost one in three fail to meet government website accessibility requirements.
However, Valuable 500 said there were hopes for the future, as 17 FTSE 100 firms had issued public commitments to advancing disability inclusion, while big UK businesses were among the members joining the organisation.
After securing 500 members, the organisation said 13 of the companies would undertake further work to improve disability inclusion by working with other firms in the network as part of the second phase of its campaign, including the insurance firm Allianz, the BBC, Sony, Sky and the accounting firms EY and Deloitte.
Caroline Casey, the founder of the Valuable 500, said the “leadership si
lence” among business leaders on disability was being broken.
She said: “There is much further to go to achieve true inclusion in the workplace. However, I am confident that as we enter phase two of the campaign, the brilliant businesses on board will continue to have an important and global impact on driving forward disability inclusion worldwide.”