Accessibility Action Plan (Recruitment + Retention)

This document can be used to track readiness to employ a learning disabled management trainee, ensuring that the trainee has the best possible chance of success at Spectra.

Liam

Learning Disabled or Neurodivergent Manager Recruitment and Retention Accessibility Action Plan

Introduction

In the research conducted by Hazel Sealeaf titled Where Are The Managers?, a number of recommendations are made for organisations who intend to employ neurodivergent or learning disabled people in senior management roles.

Spectra intends to employ a learning disabled manager in the team in the next three years, preceded by a year-long training programme.

This document should be used to track our readiness to employ a learning disabled management trainee, ensuring that the trainee has the best possible chance of success at Spectra.

Last Updated: [DATE]

Who: (Staff Names/Job Titles)

Pre-Recruitment

Have up-to-date HR policies & procedures. These should include induction checklists, standards for probation lengths and probation meetings.
Have dedicated Access Staff. Consider appointing someone who can do the administration tasks of identifying, resourcing & meeting access needs. This will include supporting to write Access to Work applications and grant offer processes, reading access riders & chasing up actions with other staff members.
Have accessibility policies which include how staff can raise problems if their access needs aren’t being met. Plan how to resolve problems without more work for neurodivergent staff or staff with learning disabilities.
Have clearly defined, and ideally tested, practices for conflict resolution at senior-level positions.
Consider including options for external mediation.
Invest in facilitated coaching sessions for senior leadership teams which are expanding for the first time, or employing a neurodivergent person for the first time.

Deadline: (Month, Year)

Progress: (Achieved / In Progress / Not Started)

Who: (Staff Names/Job Titles)

Designing the Role

Offer the role as part-time or as a job share.
Offer flexible home-working as part of the role.
Try to define daily tasks. Rather than saying “manage external relationships”, try “co-chair virtual meetings with our sponsors”

Deadline: (Month, Year)

Progress: (Achieved / In Progress / Not Started)

Who: (Staff Names/Job Titles)

Recruitment Period

Accept applications in multiple formats – including video, audio, and text. Consider accepting applications via phone call, where applicants can ask clarifying questions as they go.
Write job adverts & job pack documents in plain language or Easy-Read formats.
Provide photos or videos of people who will be key relationships in the job pack.
Consider offering taster sessions / experiences of the roles being recruited for. Some roles – like trustees – are not well understood by people who haven’t worked in similar roles before. Offering taster sessions may help more people apply, and reduces the chances of people leaving roles early and needing to re-recruit.
Provide walkthrough sessions / sensory descriptions of major working locations. This can help people ask for changes at interview locations, and eventual working locations.

Deadline: (Month, Year)

Progress: (Achieved / In Progress / Not Started)

Who: (Staff Names/Job Titles)

Induction

One-to-one meetings with key working relationships.
Access Meetings. Have a dedicated meeting to talk about any access needs new starters have. Not everyone will know all their access needs right away, so agree check-in points later on. Always have an option for staff to ask for another meeting in case anything changes for them.
Flexible Observation Periods. Include a period of time where new starters are simply observing the key tasks involved in the job. Be flexible with how long this period is, before slowly handing over responsibilities.
Proportional Inductions. Too much information at the induction stage can be confusing, and won’t be retained as well. At first, just share the most key information for the role. Think about how other information can be shared across the whole trial period rather than in the first 2 weeks.

Deadline: (Month, Year)

Progress: (Achieved / In Progress / Not Started)

Who: (Staff Names/Job Titles)

Company Culture

Policies, meeting agendas, and important emails should aim for plain language or easy-read. Understanding the basics of plain language is something everyone in an organisation should learn, not just specific staff members.
It may help people engage with important documents if you encourage phone-calls or meetings to discuss written materials.
Some ideas & concepts need to be practised in context for them to be understood. Consider role-play and forum theatre exercises to explore scenarios like safeguarding. This can help people to learn & remember important information.
Offer pre-meetings before board meetings or major company meetings so people can look at the agenda, ask questions and understand documents in their own time.
When writing agendas, try to make the purpose of the meeting clear – e.g. is this a meeting about sharing information, making decisions or coming up with ideas? If attendees need to do different things at different points, try to make that clear in the agenda – e.g. when are people listening or expected to talk?
Find ways of accepting neurodivergent communication styles, like info-dumping or non-linear tangents. A well-trained facilitator can summarise the points raised by neurodivergent staff members for others in the meeting with different communication styles.
Bring rehearsal and workshop techniques into your meetings like focus games, check-ins, smaller groups and creative activities. These can allow more people to contribute, concentrate for longer, and speak up when something isn’t working.

Deadline: (Month, Year)

Progress: (Achieved / In Progress / Not Started)

Review of Action Plan

Created: [DATE]

Last reviewed: [DATE]

Reviewed by: [NAMES/JOB TITLES]

Approved by Board of Directors: [DATE]

Liam

Liam has spent the last 2 decades awkwardly moving between grassroots activist groups, professional NGOs, and frontline community organising spaces. In each of them he found groups struggling to find ways of working together that aligned with their values and allowed a range of people to engage with them across power and privilege lines.

The NGOs had modelled themselves after corporations; the activist groups had usually refused most forms of structure, leaving power in the hands of the most privileged; the community groups had typically found that the models available excluded most of their members from being actively involved.

But there were folks in each of these spaces trying to address the same issues, from different perspectives. Liam found himself becoming an informal repository of some of the early radical organisational policies that fill this site, sharing them back and forth between groups and across sectors, based on personal contacts and connections. Chats with Kiran and Rich helped turn this informal practice into a (hopefully!) far-more-accessible project with wider reach!

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