Royal Mail: Delivering easier ways to work for disabled people (UK)

Royal Mail Group has formed a new partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions as part of the Jobcentre Plus Access to Work programme, which aims to make it easier to bring more of the 6.8 million disabled men and women of working age into employment.

Access to Work currently helps thousands of workers and their employers to overcome barriers resulting from disability by offering practical advice and funding.

Royal Mail will build on the successful scheme by creating a dedicated national team which will respond to managers’ questions relating to the recruitment or the ongoing needs of disabled employees.

Working within a new ‘one-stop-shop’ Accessibility Resource Centre, advisors will support individual team leaders with the application process. Royal Mail will also pay all claims under GBP 1,000 incurred under the scheme, including premises adaptation, travel and ongoing support workers, and will share any costs in excess of this with Access to Work.

In the past, some employers have struggled to take advantage of the benefits of the scheme, but it is hoped that Royal Mail’s pilot will streamline the process considerably, galvanizing other business leaders to invest in similar, simplified arrangements.

Kay Allen, Head of Social Policy and Inclusion at Royal Mail Group, said: “Facilitating the employment of disabled workers is a key priority for us as a diversity-aware business. The best way to do this is to make it as easy as possible for our people to become “disability confident”.

“We’re aiming to use this pilot to demonstrate new ways in which large employers can take advantage of the Access to Work scheme: helping to ease some of the country’s 3.3 million economically inactive disabled people into work.”

Royal Mail Group has formed a new partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions as part of the Jobcentre Plus Access to Work programme, which aims to make it easier to bring more of the 6.8 million disabled men and women of working age into employment.

Access to Work currently helps thousands of workers and their employers to overcome barriers resulting from disability by offering practical advice and funding.

Royal Mail will build on the successful scheme by creating a dedicated national team which will respond to managers’ questions relating to the recruitment or the ongoing needs of disabled employees.

Working within a new ‘one-stop-shop’ Accessibility Resource Centre, advisors will support individual team leaders with the application process. Royal Mail will also pay all claims under GBP 1,000 incurred under the scheme, including premises adaptation, travel and ongoing support workers, and will share any costs in excess of this with Access to Work.

In the past, some employers have struggled to take advantage of the benefits of the scheme, but it is hoped that Royal Mail’s pilot will streamline the process considerably, galvanizing other business leaders to invest in similar, simplified arrangements.

Kay Allen, Head of Social Policy and Inclusion at Royal Mail Group, said: “Facilitating the employment of disabled workers is a key priority for us as a diversity-aware business. The best way to do this is to make it as easy as possible for our people to become “disability confident”.

“We’re aiming to use this pilot to demonstrate new ways in which large employers can take advantage of the Access to Work scheme: helping to ease some of the country’s 3.3 million economically inactive disabled people into work.”

Royal Mail hopes this initiative will add to its efforts to improve employment opportunities for disabled people – both internally and across the UK. The programme’s champions range from Royal Mail Group Chief Executive Adam Crozier – also chairman of the national Employer Forum on Disablity – to those Royal Mail employees already benefiting from Access to Work.