Over the last 20 years, there's been a growing appreciation that diversity in the workplace is a societal and business imperative. Today, it's rare to find an employer who doesn't want to understand the makeup of its workforce and then take steps to ensure that it is representative of the society in which it operates. In some sectors there is regulatory 'encouragement' on knowing the percentages and having targets, and the government recently released its framework paper on disability employment reporting which is highly likely to become mandatory in the future, bringing it into line with gender and ethnicity..

But how possible is it to get accurate data when it comes to disability?

We will:

• Support you to support your organisation to not make assumptions about how easy it is to secure accurate data
• Offer you ideas about where your organisation can ask about disability and ill-health
• Help you to help your organisation to frame what you ask, and why
• Help you improve data collection by starting in a different place

What can you look forward to this month?

PurpleSpace Ambassador Andy Kneen, Shell, will kick off the month for us with a welcome in the Member Zone - and pose the big question, "How possible is it to get accurate data when it comes to disability?"

During the month you will have the opportunity to listen to a new podcast where podcaster Phil Friend and Disability Consultant Graeme Whippy MBE explore some of themes first explored in the publication Secrets & Big News in more depth: How do you support your organisation to approach the subject of data? How do you know when you have accurate data about the number of disabled people working in your organisation? What are the questions you need to ask yourselves when your organisation wants to get more accurate data?.

As usual, we will have our monthly 'Spotlight On ...' member interview and this month writer Jim Pollard will be speaking with Amina Hassan from the Financial Ombudsman Service about the work they have been doing to encourage data sharing across the organisation.

To round the month up we invite you to drop into the Member Zone between 16:00 - 17:00 on Monday 25th November 2019 for our MZChat - PurpleSpace Ambassador Andy Kneen, Shell and guest contributor Graeme Whippy MBE, will lead the discussion based on the following four questions:

1. Why is it hard to collect accurate data when it comes to disability?
2. How do you help your organisation to look "beyond the number"?
3. Should you measure the numbers of adjustments delivered, the growth in the network, engagement levels instead or as well?
4. What roles do anonymous surveys and exit interviews have?

Diary alert

And finally, if you need a bit of one-to-one support on the topic book yourself a Power Hour session with Consultant Sally Ward on 20th November 2019.