Internationally renowned disability inclusion expert, Susan Scott-Parker recently questioned the effectiveness of programs that allow organisations to self-assess and score 100% for accessibility and inclusivity.
Scott-Parker is the founder of Business Disability International, which helps organisations in all sectors to improve disability equality.
In a post on LinkedIN, Scott-Parker highlighted a three-part series from Catalyst News, by Kole Petersen, that examined Disability:IN’s Disability Equality Index in the United States.
Disability:IN is a global organisation comprising a network of over 500 corporations working to effect change for people with disabilities in business.
Petersen found that the methodology used DisabilityIN’s Index to rate the disability inclusion of participating companies was a questionnaire with just five weighted sections, which is “an incredibly narrow method of data collection,” he said.
“Instead of collecting data from multiple internal and external sources such as employee interviews, face-to-face conversations with company leaders, and external reviews, the questionnaire issued by the Disability Equality Index is meant to be filled out by the companies themselves.
“Although self-reporting is an easy, inexpensive, and fast way to obtain data, collecting information through self-reporting has many more limitations than benefits.”
Petersen said a frequent criticism of the Disability:IN index is the ease with which companies get the highest score. Out of the 485 companies that participated in the Index in 2023, 294 received the highest possible score of 100, and 83.5% scored at least an 80.
On its website, however, Disability:IN explains that “a score of 100 does not indicate or imply perfection. There is always room to advance disability inclusion regardless of one’s score. A score of 100 indicates adherence to many leading disability inclusion practices.”
Scott-Parker worked with Australian Disability Network to create and launch an evidence-based assessment called the Access and Inclusion Index in 2016.
The Access and Inclusion Index contains 82 questions covering 9 key areas of the business. Each question has 4 options depending on the organisation’s level of maturity. Organisations need to submit evidence to support their answers and will likely need to engage multiple representatives from across the business. If the evidence does not support the score, Australian Disability Network’s evaluators will adjust the score accordingly.
The average difference between organisation’s self-assessed score and Australian Disability Network’s evaluated score is 25%.
“It isn’t a tick box exercise.,” said Rosie Lane, Australian Disability Network’s Access and Inclusion Index Lead. “This is really valuable because it can highlight the differences between where an organisation might think they are and what their actual practices and processes are.
More than 185 organisations have participated in the Access and Inclusion Index.
“Organisations participating for the first time typically score relatively low. This is because they are doing the Index early in their journey to identify a baseline and their strengths and opportunities.
“When organisations implement recommendations from their Index report, this is where we start to see change and improvement in their score, and greater impact for access and inclusion for people with disability as employees, candidates, and customers.”
Typically, we see the most growth between the second and third time an organisation takes part in the Index. In 2023 the average score for repeat participants was 37% and 90% of the Top 10 performers were repeat participants.
“The Access and Inclusion Index is a maturity model assessment. We don’t see organisations achieve 100% in the Index. This would require a strategic level of maturity across 82 questions of the 9 key areas, which we have found is quite challenging to achieve,” Lane said.
Maintaining disability confidence requires continuous and ongoing work. There is always room for improvement, even within organisations with mature disability and inclusion plans and processes.
But organisations cannot become disability confident until they take that first step to review their current level of accessibility and inclusion.