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IN TOUCH – A corporate call to arms

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TX:Ìý 23.07.2019Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý LEE KUMUTAT

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White

Good evening.Ìý Diversity has been a buzz word in business for many years now.Ìý In a nutshell it says that companies should reflect all of us on their boards, on their staff and as customers.Ìý But behind all the warm words do businesses really get it?Ìý Visually impaired businesswoman and campaigner Caroline Casey thinks that when it comes to disability they don’t.Ìý This video illustrates why.

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Video

We believe in marketing to everyone.Ìý We don’t want to single out disabled people for special treatment because that’s – they’re too valuable.

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So, you don’t market to anyone specifically?

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We do, we do to everyone who fits in with the core brand message which is as much about inclusion as it is about embracing the future.Ìý

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So, we’re really active in helping and supporting other companies within this sector to solve that problem.Ìý Thanks for asking.

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Disability is something we feel is very important in this business going forward.Ìý I think 2019 is going to be an exciting year to be disabled.Ìý Yeah.

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So, this is Bill, isn’t that right Sharon?Ìý

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Yes.

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And you’re on our diversity page on our website, aren’t you Bill?

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Yes I’m the only one currently…

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Tremendous, tremendous addition to the team.

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Yeah disability is something that we are committed to investing in very soon.

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Absolutely.

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Yeah.

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When?

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2020?

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Ice caps.

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2021?

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Mindfulness.

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Do you have a year in mind for people with disabilities?

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Yes.Ìý Absolutely, I mean just watch this space, that’s what I can say.Ìý Yeah.Ìý Sorry.

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Yeah.

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I think you get the idea.Ìý

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Well now Caroline has thrown down a challenge to the CEOs of some of the world’s biggest companies to put disability on their boards’ agenda and to make a specific commitment.Ìý She launched Valuable 500 at DAVOS earlier this year, where big business has its annual bash.Ìý She’s been telling 91Èȱ¬ business producer, Johny Cassidy, more about her aims for the campaign.

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Casey

The Valuable 500 is asking 500 CEOs that employ over a thousand people to put disability on their board agenda and make a commitment to action.Ìý The reason is because we want to end the disability inequality crisis and we want disability equally represented in business, not to be the poor cousin on the inclusion and diversity strategies that exist.

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Cassidy

Diversity is being taken seriously with LGBT issues, with the gender divide, with ethnicity but why do you think it is, then, that disability has always, as you say, been the poor cousin to the rest of those?

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Casey

Well there’s a few things but one of the things I would say is there’s still a lack of understanding about the huge value of the 1.3 billion people in the world and their families who have a disability.Ìý The second piece – and that’s why the Valuable 500 exists – is because leaders – we haven’t had a business leader stand up and with and for 15% of our global population, like we’ve had many leaders for other issues.Ìý Seven percent of our business leaders have a lived experience of disability, yet four out of five of them hide it.

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Cassidy

Why do you think some of these business leaders are scared to embrace disability?

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Casey

I mean I hid my visual impairment too, so I went into the corporate world and I never told anybody I was registered blind.Ìý And the reason that I didn’t tell anybody at the time, of something of which I am ashamed for, is that I was worried that it would stop me doing the job I wanted to do or that I wouldn’t actually get the job where people would look at my disability and my sight, not look at my potential and my skills and my personality, that they would define me by a medical condition not about who I was and what I had to offer.

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Cassidy

What do people have to actually do to sign up to the Valuable 500?

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Casey

The signature means that they will have disability as part of a board conversation in 2019 and will make a commitment to action.Ìý That commitment to action will be logged on our Valuable 500 website before DAVOS of 2020 and then we will ensure that that commitment is done.

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Cassidy

And how can the boards, the chief execs of these boards and the chief financial officers of the boards, be held to account?

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Casey

I think that’s really important because this is not a PR campaign, this is a movement that I created, having to re-mortgage a house, and it’s been really hard to make this happen, so I am going to make sure that people deliver on their word.Ìý And that’s why this signature of the CEO is very personal – you sign something, you are going to deliver on your commitment.Ìý But actually, we are asking the public and the media – and that’s why it’s so important to be sitting here with you – because as we log those commitments and as we log those actions that they say they’re going to do we will make sure that they do that.

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Cassidy

Obviously, you can hear the passion, you’re very, very passionate about this, does this come from personal experience, does it come from a personal place?

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Casey

It is personal.Ìý I was born with ocular albinism but my parents didn’t tell me I had a sight condition, I found out by accident when I was 17 because I went to get my driving licence, which is hilarious.Ìý So, it’s very personal that I felt it’s nobody else’s fault, it’s my own that I had to hide my sight or my vision for fear of not belonging or fitting in or getting the life I wanted.Ìý But related to the driving licence.Ìý So, this is one story that I often tell.Ìý The company that I run to make the Valuable 500 a success, we’re over in America and we needed to get to a place that you had to drive a car and I had one of my team with me.Ìý Now obviously I can’t drive but I hold the company credit card because I’m the founder of the company.Ìý And so, we went to hire the car and I was passing over the credit card details and the gentleman said – so, well you’re the driver of the car.Ìý And I said – no, no – I had my white cane in my hand and I said – no, this is my team member and she’s sighted so she needs to drive.Ìý And I was just joking and he went – but you can’t because she needs to use the credit card not you.Ìý But I said – it’s a company credit card, I’m the one who has the credit card but she needs to drive.Ìý And he said – well, I’m going to need to see your driving licence.Ìý I said – I don’t have a driving licence because I can’t see.Ìý And he said – well unless the driving licence matches the credit card we can’t do business with you.

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Cassidy

How, right now, can you measure the success of this?

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Casey

Well the most important thing is the disability community itself and all our partners said the missing piece with engaging business and disability, to bring that gap smaller, is we needed the commitment from the very top.

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Cassidy

And do you think we could go down the lines of quotas or numbers, we’ve seen it with the 30% club for women representation on boards, do you think that we should be getting to the stage where companies should be reporting the number of disabled members of staff?

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Casey

You know what?Ìý I’ve always been against quotas because I really believe if you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, well actually you don’t, you need a bit of both – you need carrot and stick.Ìý And frankly, I think one of the other reasons that disability is not equally on our inclusion agendas is that we’re not reporting on it.Ìý So, one of the things that we should be saying and we should be challenging these 500 CEOs when we get them, is to make sure that disability performance is reported on equally and it’s tied into the strategy of the business.Ìý Wouldn’t it be magnificent, Johny, in a few years time that we can see that disability performance is integrated into business indexes like the footsie for good, because you cannot get up high on that index if you do not report on disability?Ìý We need to put this into the business, not keep it aside, not keep it separate, not keep it special because we’re just part of any system like anybody else.

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Cassidy

I think, and you know we’d all agree, that in an ideal it would be fantastic.Ìý How far away from that do you think that we are?

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Casey

I think one of the biggest problems and business excuses not to make this happen and I’m not angry with business for it because I think this is just the reality of the systems that have been set up, is that we are categorising humanity into gender, race, LGBTQ, red hair, disability and we are pitting them against each other.Ìý We are creating hierarchies of inclusion and exclusion, when business only has a finite amount of resource and they say, well, we can’t do it all.Ìý And I don’t think this is going to be accepted anymore, that we are categorising each other and choosing one over the other and you can feel that.Ìý

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And the second thing that makes me more excited than anything – I think the next generation really have a very different attitude to belonging and inclusion and identity and they are not going to accept this anymore because they choose the companies they work with, they choose the companies they spend money with and they don’t think it’s okay.Ìý I think we have a chance; I really do because the business case is compelling but the human case is so much more.

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White

Caroline Casey.

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Well listening to that is James McCarthy, he’s employment manager of Blind in Business and at the sharp end of this problem.Ìý Blind in Business is a specialist charity that supports blind and partially sighted graduates and professionals to get jobs which reflect their talents.

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James, first of all, tell us about Blind in Business’s approach to persuading companies to take on visually impaired employees.

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McCarthy

We often do a consultancy and an education piece with recruitment teams of businesses because they come to us and they say we want more disabled people to apply for jobs, we’re aware of it, it is on the agenda but if people aren’t applying, if people aren’t showing that interest, we don’t know what we can do.

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White

And which is likely to be more effective, do you think, boosting numbers on boards or pressing those who recruit to try to get more visually impaired people into jobs?

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McCarthy

Obviously in an ideal world you’ll be attacking on both fronts.Ìý For me, the problem is across the City and definitely across the UK diversity and inclusion is on the agenda already but it’s so low priority that people aren’t doing anything about it.Ìý Where we can do work with those decision makers who are actually deciding who gets a job and who doesn’t, we can see a real immediate impact.Ìý It’s a very high numbers game, so, in the City I think it’s only one in a hundred graduates that apply for a job will actually get the placements.Ìý The current status quo with recruitment is we need to make this as quick and easy as possible.Ìý What can we do to get our list of 5,000 down to 500 will take on board and unfortunately at the moment diversity, and in particular disability, isn’t considered.Ìý So, often we come in and we try and make separate recruitment streams for disabled people.Ìý Their skills and their abilities are taken on board without just getting lost in the numbers.

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White

And if they ever do get down to disability is there a hierarchy there in terms of who people think they can hire and who they can’t?

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McCarthy

Absolutely, it’s all about risk and I think disability and diversity people are looking for easy wins.Ìý So, there are some disabilities where if you’ve got a wheelchair friendly office, they’ll feel confident taking someone in a wheelchair but when you talk about things like blindness or deafness or visual impairment or even different learning difficulties, people don’t know how to approach it and it can be quite a taboo topic.Ìý And when you’re in a high intensity, high numbers routine often it’s easiest just to kind of turn away and go with those easy wins.

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White

And I mean can you give us a sense of which factors of visual impairment scare them or worry them or make them feel they don’t know what to do?

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McCarthy

Oh, it can be wide ranging and bonkers.Ìý Often because it’s new and often different technology is involved there’s the question of how exactly do you do the job because I use my sight every day in nearly every aspect of my job.Ìý I can’t understand how you could do it.

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White

So, this is the recruiter talking or this is what they say?

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McCarthy

Yeah.Ìý Often the recruiter. ÌýAnd then the other side is the grander perception of risk.Ìý I think Caroline touched on the awkwardness that surrounds disability.Ìý I think people around disability get nervous about do they now have to be a carer, they have to show someone to the toilet or cut up their food at lunch or help them cross a road every day.Ìý Whereas really, a good business’s responsibility is to treat a disabled person like anyone else.Ìý Put the technology and support in place for them to do the job independently rather than feel you’ve got to hold someone’s hand and make extra work.Ìý

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The other side of our work, when we’re not dealing with businesses, is doing mentoring and coaching.Ìý People are growing up and if they’re growing up visually impaired, we often see parents are too over-protective, teachers don’t try and push students to achieve as highly as other students.Ìý I think just to get by is taken as a win, where it should be going to the best universities, getting the best jobs, getting promotions, making chief executive, that should be a win but currently it’s just not expected of disabled people, so it’s almost a self-fulfilling prophesy that you won’t be successful.

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White

Just looking at possible solutions, I mean Caroline rather rejected the idea of quotas, for example, what’s your own attitude to that?

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McCarthy

I think, much like Caroline, I like the fact there should be a carrot and there should also be a stick.Ìý No one should ever have their job questioned, you shouldn’t have that one disabled person in the corner and everyone in the office thinks they’re only there to fill a quota.Ìý But there are incentives that I think have been really good.Ìý If you take the apprenticeship levy, for example, this has done so much to get apprentices into work.Ìý Can it be incentivised that diversity and disability are going to be a financial factor for recruitment consultants because if they’re getting an extra grand in their pocket at the end of the month, I think they’d care a whole lot more.

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White

James McCarthy of Blind in Business.

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And that’s a classic In Touch reminder of the way in which visually impaired people can compete successfully given the chance.Ìý But there are times when we think it’s our job, on this programme, to provide the chance to discuss situations where blindness can make things touch and try to come up with some answers.Ìý Situations where you know what’s happening but you don’t have enough information or physical ability to take charge.

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Take the experience of Emily Brothers, who told us what happened earlier this year when she was walking with her guide dog.

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Brothers

I’d been to a Labour Party meeting locally and was walking back home with three friends.Ìý We walked along the road up to a common area called Sutton Green around about 10.00 pm at night and we were just approaching the green when two dogs came from literally nowhere from the green and one of them pulled Truffle by her harness and took her forcibly around 20 yards away and then proceeded with an attack.Ìý As you can imagine, it was very scary.Ìý I initially shouted, that didn’t help, so I pulled out my smart phone and hit emergency services and spoke to them in a rather desperate way, that Truffle was being attacked.Ìý And my friend, Phil, then waded in amongst the three dogs and very bravely pulled Truffle out.

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Williams

You must have been terrified Emily?

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Brothers

It was terrifying.Ìý And that sheer feeling of hopelessness that there was nothing I could do and the realisation that if I’d been on my own Truffle may well have been killed or her injuries so extensive that she would never have worked again.

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Williams

Do you feel more vulnerable now as a blind person following this incident?

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Brothers

Yes, I find it difficult, the feeling that I can’t sort it.

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White

Emily Brothers talking with Dave Williams.Ìý The dog recovered physically but that sense of powerlessness had clearly stayed very vividly with Emily.Ìý

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And Damon Rose’s experience also concerned a guide dog, although in this case, not because of physical danger but as you’ll hear in Damon’s tone, impotent frustration.

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Rose

Right, here I am in the rain, it’s Monday morning and I’ve just had a driver drive away from me, we’re back to the usual taxi situation here.Ìý I have a guide dog, there he is – Debee [phon.] – he’s in harness.Ìý The taxi arrived, I got a message from Uber saying your driver is waiting for you or something like that.Ìý I came outside and I was looking around, obviously I can’t always find a taxi immediately, can’t work out where it is, and I heard a car – a motor – kind of motoring away gently, leaving, not past me.Ìý So, well yeah, that’s it, yet another.Ìý I only reported another driver last week.Ìý And this is getting upsetting, it’s tipping it down right now and I wanted to get work early.

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White

If we’re honest, we’ve all had things like this happen, becoming temporarily lost, having a credit card misbehave in the machine but not knowing what it says.Ìý You’re moving house but there’s so much going on – so many moving parts – you feel powerless to contribute.Ìý Things we have the nouse to do but because of lack of sight we don’t have the cues to make decisions.Ìý It can make you feel small, not the grown up you know you are.Ìý And that’s what we’d like to explore in a future programme.Ìý Not to whinge but to look for solutions and share our stories.

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You can leave your messages on 0161 8361338.Ìý You can email intouch@bbc.co.uk, our website bbc.co.uk/intouch.Ìý And you can download tonight’s programme from there too.

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That’s it from me, Peter White, producer Lee Kumutat and the team, goodbye.