'Diversity-aware' Royal Mail signs up to Access to Work init

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 18 Feb 2008, 14:53

'Diversity-aware' Royal Mail signs up to Access to Work initiative to ease employment of disabled people

Personnel Today

Royal Mail has signed a deal with the government to help make it easier for the organisation to employ disabled people.

The Access to Work initiative currently helps thousands of workers and their employers to overcome barriers resulting from disability by offering practical advice and funding.

Royal Mail will build on the scheme by creating a dedicated national team which will respond to managers' questions relating to the recruitment or the ongoing needs of disabled employees.

It is hoped that Royal Mail's pilot will streamline the process considerably, encouraging other businesses to invest in similar, simplified arrangements.

Kay Allen, head of social policy and inclusion at Royal Mail, said: "Facilitating the employment of disabled workers is a key priority for us as a diversity-aware business. The best way to do this is to make it as easy as possible for our people to become "disability confident".

"We're aiming to use this pilot to demonstrate new ways in which large employers can take advantage of the Access to Work scheme, helping to ease some of the country's 3.3 million economically inactive disabled people into work."

More than 11 million people in the UK are estimated to have some kind of impairment.

Post by **dvbuk55** » 18 Feb 2008, 16:58

Go on with you - is equality not the order of the day anyway?

sevenandseven · Post by **sevenandseven** » 18 Feb 2008, 17:36

Two faced hypocrites. They will sign up to a publicity driven campaign like this to make them look like a caring company while it treats many of it's employees with contempt and disdain. Go sick with a work related illness - back trouble or stress - and you are invariably treated as if you are swinging the lead no matter how genuine the problem may be. Even your own doctor is not trusted. Caring company?

And being really cynical are they so keen to help the 'economically inactive disabled people into work' because they might just be a little cheaper to employ?

norbert · Post by **norbert** » 18 Feb 2008, 18:50

sevenandseven wrote:Two faced hypocrites. They will sign up to a publicity driven campaign like this to make them look like a caring company while it treats many of it's employees with contempt and disdain. Go sick with a work related illness - back trouble or stress - and you are invariably treated as if you are swinging the lead no matter how genuine the problem may be. Even your own doctor is not trusted. Caring company?

And being really cynical are they so keen to help the 'economically inactive disabled people into work' because they might just be a little cheaper to employ?

usual story , lots of spin and hype to impress , :lfo this guy doesn't deliver much in reality

:the snakeoil salesman

warlord · Post by **warlord** » 18 Feb 2008, 19:17

sevenandseven wrote:Two faced hypocrites. They will sign up to a publicity driven campaign like this to make them look like a caring company while it treats many of it's employees with contempt and disdain. Go sick with a work related illness - back trouble or stress - and you are invariably treated as if you are swinging the lead no matter how genuine the problem may be. Even your own doctor is not trusted. Caring company?

And being really cynical are they so keen to help the 'economically inactive disabled people into work' because they might just be a little cheaper to employ?

APPLAUSE ..............

Absolutely 100% fact.
We are puppets in the system. From my experience the old school style of management became a victim of RM. evolutionary tactics probably better put as an iron fist in a velvet glove In reality the future of R.M. will be staffed by a workforce of immigrant labour, casuals, short term contract labour and disability people.
The time bomb for this is ticking....!
Within five years or less I would expect retiring employees to be replaced in favour of a lower paid workforce.
Greed is the motive and profits will soar into the bank accounts of the lazy useless management that we seem to have now.

Barry Trotter · Post by **Barry Trotter** » 20 Feb 2008, 17:51

I use the access to work scheme run by the government due to health difficulties and have done for the last six years. I have to say on this occasion RM were the ones, well one person in particular who got me signed up for the scheme. she done all the running around between the government and specialists at the hospital to arrange this and if I'm honest there has been many days where I would otherwise have been off of my work were it not for this assistance and although covered by the DDA I would still have been concerned about my absence.

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 20 Feb 2008, 17:55

Barry Trotter wrote:I use the access to work scheme run by the government due to health difficulties and have done for the last six years. I have to say on this occasion RM were the ones, well one person in particular who got me signed up for the scheme. she done all the running around between the government and specialists at the hospital to arrange this and if I'm honest there has been many days where I would otherwise have been off of my work were it not for this assistance and although covered by the DDA I would still have been concerned about my absence.

Thanks for posting that we all curse RM its human nature, but its good to hear when they get things right.