Business Disability Forum – Driving Workplace Inclusion

Business Disability Forum is a business membership organisation in disability inclusion. It was founded in 1991 to be the link between businesses, government, and disabled people. We work with businesses, government and disabled people to improve the life experiences of disabled people by removing barriers to inclusion. We do this by working with businesses to improve their practices, products, services and policies to positively impact the life experiences of disabled people. We are currently working with over 600 organisations, employing over 5 million people in the UK and a further 16 million worldwide.

“We see network leaders as a way in to understanding the lived experience of disabled people.”

Angela Matthews – Business Disability Forum

Many of our members have a number of staff networks. These might be based on protected characteristic groups or they might be based on situation or issue (such as a network for women in leadership roles, parents and carers). Often, these are “grassroots” networks that are there to informally support other disabled people who work in the organisation – though many are increasingly “filling the gap” in disability related knowledge and expertise on barriers and adjustments, particularly as DEI and HR teams shrink in size.

A Vital Resource

Staff networks are a vital resource for disabled people. The experience of work, getting to work, being at work and being mentally available to work when you are managing a disability 24/7 can be incredibly hard. Being able to locate a group of people who are the closest to understanding a similar experience can be enough to motivate someone who may feel “this is too much”, “can I keep going?”

At BDF, as a member organisation, we see network leaders as a “way in” to understanding the lived experience of disabled people working in our member organisations. As a result, we have a Disabled Employee Network Leaders Forum which is our lived experience forum of disabled people. This is essentially a forum for those who lead the disability or neurodiversity networks in their organisations. This forum is the lived experience voice of disabled people who are at the centre of how BDF makes policy and develops research projects about the experience of disabled people. Five years after it was founded, the group is at 170 people, who inform almost every policy and research project that BDF works on.

Lived Experience

The lived experience provided by staff disability network leaders is pivotal to BDF’s policy work. This forum of network leaders helps us “get it right” in terms of accurately representing disabled people’s experience of the workplace when we speak to the government. As a result, this group’s views have informed our policy and research outputs on disability pay gap reporting, carers’ leave, flexible working, eco-ableism, assistive technology and AI, the Access to Work scheme, the UK Government’s Keep Britain Working review, career progression and work-related stress and burnout. Our flagship survey, The Great Big Workplace Adjustments Survey, is primarily their and their networks’ voice on the experience of having a disability or long-term condition in today’s UK workforce. This group is directly informing the development of disability-related Government policy in the UK.

Network Investment

The level of investment in staff networks varies across our member organisations, often meaning that these networks become the most stable “team” or function within organisations that are otherwise constantly evolving. This can be both good and bad for a network: on one hand, they are the constant, the reliable, foundation and source of support for employees; on the other hand, it means the network is not “taken with” the organisation as it changes, which sometimes means the network can be left out of strategy, resourcing, and financial support. We have not seen organisations disband staff networks per se, but many staff disability networks have not seen increased investment either, which is a shame. 

Staff network leaders are often volunteers and for many, the issue of burnout is very real – particularly as organisations are increasingly turning to networks for help with a wide range of functions, as People or Diversity teams shrink. We have seen some network leaders take this to the point that they resign their job with one organisation and go to work in workplace health or diversity teams as their full-time job. When we ask disability network leaders why they wanted to start their network, the most common response is “Because I don’t want other disabled people to struggle in the way that I have”. When you have that inner drive to make things better for others on top of the additional demand and load put on you from the organisation, burnout is often inevitable.

To prevent this, organisations need to ensure the business is resourced to do what it needs to do – such as making workplace adjustments – without network involvement. They should also ringfence time for network leaders and provide adequate resourcing.

The Future of Networks

Our Disabled Employee Network Leaders Forum often discusses what the future of staff networks looks like. Some network leaders feel that the networks “by protected characteristic” model is already way outdated. Some employees have said that when staff networks separate us into what one network leader called “label-based” categories, other people do too.

The best thing networks often do in their organisations is make things – issues, people, causes – visible. It puts an experience, a topic, a voice “on the map” for others to see and learn from – whether from afar or by actively being involved. Networks are usually a constant in every organisation. Some of the best staff networks do not have flashy marketing, huge event, or financial resources. They are instead the small support systems of colleagues who “back each other up” every day, beneath and within everything else that the business is focusing on. It’s in the group chat of “who’s onsite today and fancies a coffee?” that doesn’t cost much but to an individual “on the ground” it can mean everything.

“Their voice has become pivotal, central even, to how we do policy with Government and how we shape our advice for businesses.”

Angela Matthews – Business Disability Forum

For BDF, our Network Leaders Forum is our lived experience forum whose voice pushes us, challenges us, guides us, and makes us reflect on the topics that we invest our time in and the issues we focus on. Their voice has become pivotal, central even, to how we do policy with Government and how we shape our advice for businesses.

businessdisabilityforum.org.uk

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