Disability
Boots’ – disability Alliance
Boots’ disability Alliance aims to build and foster a culture of disability inclusion through education and awareness. The Alliance hosts events and partners with teams across the business to implement disability-focused initiatives to create a workplace in which colleagues with disabilities and long-term conditions can thrive. Read more here.
Boots’ Workplace Passport
Boots has launched a Workplace Passport. The Workplace Support Passport (WSP) can be used by team members to support and facilitate a conversation with their line manager about their disability, long term medical condition, impairment or caring responsibilities, how this impacts them at work and what support may be useful to them.
Tesco as a Disability Confident employer
Tesco are a Disability Confident employer (Level 2) and have implemented programmes to attract, develop and retain disabled talent. Tesco has established a strong relationship with Remploy and Shaw Trust, who help find skilled and dedicated people with disabilities to work with Tesco. The company also provides a work experience programme for disabled children through the British mobility equipment charity, Whizz-Kidz. Tesco also partner with the Business Disability Forum which provides support and expertise in building disability-smart organisations. Tesco have also been awarded a Visibly Better Employer standard from the Royal National Institute for Blind People (RNIB). Find out more here.
Superdrug – DisAbility Network
Superdrug’s DisAbility Network focuses on disabilities and long-term health conditions. Superdrug strive to build awareness of visible and non-visible disability across the business, support colleagues that live with these disabilities or long-term health conditions and break down stigmas and remove the labels attached to disability overall. The company has signed up to The Valuable 500, a global community revolutionising disability inclusion through business leadership and opportunity. Read more here.
Well’s efforts to support colleagues with additional needs
Well are working with Buttercups, who provide their Pharmacy Assistant, Technician and Checker training and accreditation, to ensure that more support is provided to colleagues enrolled on qualifications who might have additional needs. Well are also working to ensure their standard operating procedures are more accessible.
Morrisons’ Ability Workstream
Morrisons has an active working group looking at how best to support its disabled colleagues and customers through a number of initiatives. These include: providing work placements for students with disabilities, becoming a disability confident employer and working to become a visibly better employer, as well as disability awareness training for line managers.
Useful Further Reading
- Case Study: Disability Inclusion at Boots – Read about the story of Sally Lodge, proud member of the Disability Inclusion Business Resource Group (BRG). Following a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, Sally was supported to find a more suitable role in the Nottingham Support Office within pharmacy deployment before later re-joining Boots Opticians in resourcing and then moving into learning and development. You can read the case study here.
- Case Study: Boots’ community pharmacist Binta talks about her experiences of working in a pharmacy as a wheelchair user and the support she has received from her employer.
- Disability Related Microaggressions – disability related microaggressions are a form of discrimination and ableism. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society have produced a series of resources to bolster understanding of these microaggressions which can be verbal, non-verbal or environmental, including posters which can be readily downloaded.
Need a Break from Reading?
Check Out These Insightful Webinars and Podcasts:
Disability Microaggressions Workshop – Shani Dhanda, a multi-award winning disability specialist and speaker explores what disability microaggressions are, and what they can look and sound like. She also talks about the impact they can have on individuals and communities in a webinar organised by The Royal Pharmaceutical Society.