It’s not often that members of our disability ERG/Network leader community tell us that their disabled colleagues’ number one priority is improving the organisation’s disability workforce data. 

In fact, it’s pretty much never.

Yet organisations around the globe are spending vast amounts of time and money on new systems and communication campaigns to encourage employees to share their disability status.

And we know why. Data helps organisations understand demographics and informs programming, resources and KPIs. What gets measured, gets managed.

However, most disability ERG/Network leaders from the PurpleSpace community support their employers to improve policy and procedure based on the lived experience and stories of their community members. They do it in the knowledge that, even when the data doesn’t show it, up to 25% of employees in any business are likely to have a disability or long-term condition.

This month, we invite you to consider: 

• How can you help surface the lived experience of your community of employees with disabilities so that a lack of disability workforce data doesn’t prevent action on known issues?
• How can you support your organisation to focus on actions that will build trust and facilitate more sharing from employees with disabilities?
• How can you support your organisation to avoid language that suggests they have something to hide e.g., 'disclosure' or 'declaration' when inviting colleagues to share?
• What would happen if your organisation measured and acted on what really matters. For example, disabled employee engagement and development or the efficiency of the workplace adjustment/accommodation process?

Peer Leadership Roundtables

One of the most valuable aspects of PurpleSpace membership is the opportunity to build your leadership capacity via quality conversation with other disability ERG/Network leaders.

Each month we convene groups of disability ERG/Network leaders to stimulate discussion on the monthly leadership lesson.

Connect with your peers during these interactive one-hour sessions for disability ERG/Network leaders. These sessions are a great way to share good practice and challenges, swap ideas and build your ERG/Network leadership capacity. 

In January we have two sessions to choose from to explore an ERG’s role in supporting better disability workforce data:

• 9 January 08:00 GMT/13:30 IST/19:00 ACT
• 25 January 16:00 GMT / 11:00 EST

New resource

As part of #PositivelyPurple 2023, we collated the Top Ten Priorities of Disability ERG/Network leaders from around the world. One of the priorities relates to organisations developing a more holistic approach to disability data capture. 

These priorities will inform content for the first ever PurpleSpace Global ERG Summit on 15 October 2024. At the Summit, we will determine the top three strategic drivers of workplace equity as expressed directly by people with disabilities world-wide via ERG/Networks – that, if tackled, would result in lasting change in the employment prospects of employees with disabilities.

Purple Confidence Strategic Forum 

The Purple Confidence Strategic Forum is Chaired by PurpleSpace Ambassador and Workplace adjustments and accessibility director at GSK, Andy Garrett.

The Forum exists to help organisations to develop the confidence of every employee with a disability and to inform PurpleSpace content upstream for downstream delivery.

The Purple Confidence Strategic Forum meets on 30 January 16:00 GMT / 11:00 EST

PurpleSpace and External Useful Resources:

Tap into our Networkology know-how and check out some of the external learning that links to this month’s leadership lesson:

• Top Ten Priorities Read this month’s published report on the Top Ten Priorities as voted for by our global disability ERG/Network community
• Nothing Without Us Explores how disability ERG/Networks are now informing business performance and learning to support progress in different areas of their organisations.
• Read the Forbes article about Microsoft and as you read the article ask yourself "what are the next big challenges my organisation is facing? And how can the ERG / Network help meet those challenges by learning directly from our own people?"
• Why Data Isn’t Enough to go on – LinkedIn article by Koren Black MBA, with 5 reasons why data alone isn’t enough to make smart, strategic business decisions
• Decisions Over Decimals: Information and Intuition are NOT Oxymorons – Co-author of Decisions Over Decimals, Oded Netzer joins leaders from Quantiphi exploring why modern leaders can’t rely on information alone.
• 8 Pitfalls of Data-Driven Decision Making (DDDM) This Forbes article from Brent Dykes looks at how bad data can lead to poor decisions and shares an example of how good data still led to a costly mistake.

• Forget The 'Business Case' For Diversity And Inclusion (forbes.com) “The house burned in front of them but they wanted the data to prove it. That is the audacity and ridiculousness of making the business case: convincing one of the obvious. If the smoke doesn't alarm you, the fire certainly should.”

  Plot Twist! This Company Encourages Employees to Disclose if They Are Ableist - The Squeaky Wheel – links into our upcoming February Leadership Lesson