CEOs and business leaders from 500 of the world’s biggest companies have agreed to publish quarterly reports into disability representation, as evidence mounts pointing to a lack of progress in tackling diversity among multinational firms.
BBC News reports that the Valuable 500 global disability network had achieved its targets of getting 500 major companies, including Microsoft, Unilever, Google, Coca-Cola, Allianz, the BBC, Sony, Sky, and Deloitte to sign up to the initiative and put disability inclusion on their boardroom agendas
The Valuable 500 was launched at the World Economic Forum in 2019 in Davos, and it represents companies with an annual revenue of over $8 trillion (£5.7 trillion) and employs over 19 million people across 36 countries.
It said its members would be held accountable for raising disability representation through quarterly updates and reporting on their progress, aiming to tackle the ‘shocking state’ of disability representation in business.
Research published by the Valuable 500 revealed that there are no executives or senior managers who have disclosed a disability at any of the UK’s biggest firms in the FTSE 100, while only 12 per cent report on the total number of employees who are disclosed as disabled.
This shows that the average representation of people with disabilities among employees is only 3.2 per cent, compared with the percentage of the wider population with a disability, which is 18 per cent.
Only five FTSE 100 companies have issued board-level statements about disability, while only 10 have set goals related to inclusion, and almost one in three fail to meet government website accessibility requirements.
However, 17 FTSE 100 firms have issued public commitments to advancing disability inclusion, while big UK businesses were among the members joining the organisation.
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28 May,2021
