Investing in access

There are many organisational assessment tools out there, but Investors In People (IIP) is unique in the emphasis that it puts on the opinions of an organisation’s staff. IIP doesn’t count how many policies you have or interrogate your annual accounts, it simply asks your employees how they feel about the organisation. Here at Shape, we know that our staff have very high expectations and, as a disability-led organisation, many have quite complex access needs. So when we decided to go for our IIP Award, and ask the staff team, “How well does Shape support you?”, it was not without a little trepidation. We knew it was important though – our staff are our biggest asset and at the centre of everything we do. It’s therefore vital that the organisation’s structures and culture support them to do their very best.

But that’s not the only reason that we decided to go for IIP. Shape does a lot of work with mainstream arts organisations to encourage and support them to employ deaf and disabled people. We spend a lot of time talking to people about their Access to Work funding, accessible recruitment procedures and disability action plans, but we also know that employing disabled people can throw up some very complex and personal issues, and it’s not always possible to overcome these with well-meaning policy or a toolkit. Every disabled person’s access needs are completely different, and both employer and employee need to be patient and flexible if these needs are to be fully met. If this doesn’t happen, the employee will not be able to engage fully with their colleagues or their work, and both parties will suffer. That’s why we chose IIP over some of the other organisational assessment tools. We already knew that we had all the relevant policies, we already knew that we were following best practice in recruiting and employing disabled employees: we wanted to find out if best practice actually worked. To do that, we had to ask our staff directly. After all, if we weren’t getting it right, how could we show anyone else what to do?

Thankfully, when the report came back from the assessor, it was overwhelmingly positive, and we now proudly carry the IIP Award. There were so many enthusiastic quotes that came out of the report. For example, “I did the BSL course. I can now communicate with my colleagues on a personal and professional level: this has improved our effectiveness for both of us.” I’m not saying that we are perfect, or that we always get it completely right: no one ever will. Disability access is a human issue, and like all human issues, it’s personal, subjective and changeable. What works today won’t work tomorrow. The important thing is that we have the commitment to keep trying to get it right, and we allow ourselves the time to work out how to do that. IIP works for Shape because it means that we will continue to ask ourselves the question, “Is what we are doing actually working?”