Section 4: Engaging colleagues, champions and allies

Everyone within an organisation contributes to its culture, so it is vital to engage colleagues in decisions to  help underpin cultural change.  

Employee disability networks  

Engaging colleagues in employee disability networks can be very helpful in creating an inclusive culture.  Engaging colleagues from all levels of your workforce is important. These networks typically are only possible in medium to large organisations simply due to scale.  

An effective network is one that is structured, organised, and works to assist the delivery of your overall equality and/or disability-related objectives.  

Consider the following:  

• Who will sponsor the network? Ideally this should be someone in the senior management team. In smaller organisations this role can be taken by the owner of the business.
• Who will lead the network, and what will their role be (i.e. what do you want/expect them to do?).  
• Make sure networks understand what their objectives are and have a clear remit on what they are there to do (and review this).
• Make sure that colleagues who take part are released from their day job to do so. Encourage and support people joining/attending.  
• Don’t assume that all people with disabilities or long-term conditions in your organisation will be, or want to be, active members of any network you develop.   
• Continue to communicate with all colleagues on disability-related issues and don’t rely solely on the group or network-base. This free toolkit to help SMEs become disability smart may be helpful. 
• Consider having groups, champions or allies which focus on areas that are not necessarily  disabilities but do have an impact on people. For example, menopause  or menstrual health.  
• Train colleagues to act as Mental Health First Aiders in the same way you may have trained people to provide physical first aid.
• Encourage and train champions and allies within your organisation. They can then assist by offering additional training and support to colleagues who require it.  
• Having ‘passports’ for disabled colleagues setting out any adjustments agreed with them is helpful for colleagues moving between different departments. Make sure that these are reviewed with the colleague regularly and that they know who will have access to it. Passports could be made available for everyone in your organisation whether they are disabled or not, or any colleagues who will be moving around different departments for example, trainees. The TUC has published advice about adjustment passports and have a template you can use.