Some organisations proudly share their percentage of employees with disabilities. This ‘headcount’ only reflects the disabled colleagues who are prepared to make their disability, condition or neurodivergence seen.

But to what extent do those disabled colleagues feel heard?

And what about the unseen employees with disabilities, perhaps those who don’t feel safe to ‘tick the box’ or share with colleagues, and whose experiences aren’t seen or heard at all?

Organisations tend to over-invest in ‘counting heads’ and under-invest in learning directly from the lived experience of disabled employees and measuring the things that really matter.

As our Founder, Kate Nash OBE, has said “sharing our stories, that often catapults companies to go further and to go faster, is better than any dry data collection exercise.”

One of the most powerful impacts a disability ERG/Network can have, is to surface the lived experience of employees with disabilities. They are in a unique position, providing a confidential and compassionate space, to facilitate openness.

And they can also facilitate solutions. A disability ERG/Network can help the organisation to improve, by engaging with internal business teams, such as recruitment, procurement and operations, to help them learn directly from the lived experience of their own employees with disabilities.

In doing this, the ERG/Network leader might encounter the resistance, fear, misunderstanding or benevolent undermining of disabled colleagues’ experiences.

But they should expect to be able to work creatively and collaboratively with the business, to help them understand the benefits lived experience can bring to improving policy, process, built environment and digital accessibility.

When an organisation can demonstrate that it listens, learns and acts on insights from disabled colleagues, it is better able to build trust with all its employees.

This month we invite you to consider:

• How can your ERG/Network surface the lived experience of your disabled employees?

• What role could your ERG/Network play, to influence business operations to enhance accessibility or inclusion for disabled colleagues?

Peer Leadership Roundtables

One of the most valuable aspects of PurpleSpace membership is the opportunity to build your leadership capability 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 June, we have two Peer Leadership Roundtables to choose from, to explore the opportunities to enhance accessibility or inclusion for disabled colleagues and how ERG/Network Leaders can influence this.

• 23 June 10:00 – 11:00 BST

• 17 June 16:00 – 17:00 BST