More than 200 businesses have now committed to The Valuable 500 pledge, thanks to the additional sign-ups on International Day of Persons With Disabilities (IDPD).
At least another 100 are expected to join the initiative in the next few months, according to the movement that’s putting ‘disability on the business leadership agenda’. Companies that have signed up today to mark IDPD 2019 are from all over the world, including Brazil, Canada, France, Russia, Spain, Indonesia, Switzerland, UK and USA.
They include: Enterprise-Rent-A-Car, The Adecco Group, Anglo American, Arup, Autotrader UK, Aviva, Beeline, Bradesco, British Airways, BT, Carnival UK, CIBC, DNP Indonesia, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, ghd, Greggs, IFF, ITV, Jurys Inn and Leonardo Hotels UK and Ireland, Linklaters LLP, Lloyd’s of London, McLaren Racing, Reed Smith, Salesforce, Savills (UK) Ltd, Sberbank, Syngenta, Telefonica, Tesco, The European Space Agency, TSB, Vodafone, PageGroup and XPS Pension Group.
IMPROVING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
On signing The Valuable 500 pledge today, British Airways’ Chairman and CEO Alex Cruz, said: “I am really proud of the strides British Airways is making to support customers requiring additional assistance, from our investment in enhanced staff training to the dedicated customer team which, having been in place just two months, has already doubled customer satisfaction levels for the customers they are supporting.”
Aiming to become the airline of choice for customers with hidden and visible disabilities, British Airways has already invested in a number of initiatives to ensure journeys are as ‘simple and easy as possible’.
Cruz confirmed his commitment to include accessibility on his board agenda and said he will continue to support investments that improve the journey experience for customers with additional needs. “We know travelling with a hidden or visible disability can be difficult. So through signing this pledge we are making a commitment to get this right for our customers, and providing reassurance that we will do all we can to make their journey easy and stress-free,” he added.
ACTION FOR DISABILITY INCLUSION
Auto Trader UK’s CEO Nathan Coe also confirmed that he is determined to ‘make a difference’ to the lives of disabled people who form part of his company’s communities, including employees and customers: “Initiatives like The Valuable 500 will put disability on the board agenda, inspire more positive action and sharing of ideas from across the world. We have made the commitment to build on our existing progress and actively participate in making disability inclusion a top business priority across our industries.”
Today signals a huge step forward in the fight to achieve inclusion for the 1.3 billion disabled people worldwide, as employees, customers, suppliers and members of the community, confirmed The Valuable 500.
“There are 1.3 billion disabled people in the world, with a market opportunity of $8 trillion. Business leaders have underestimated their value for too long. And it’s fantastic to see that business leaders globally are committing to take tangible action for disability inclusion,” stated Caroline Casey, Founder of The Valuable 500.
BOARDROOM PRIORITY
The Valuable 500 seeks to tackle the trend for businesses to claim they are diverse, yet exclude disability from their definition of diversity. “Research by EY and #valuable earlier this year found disability is still woefully absent from the majority of board level discussions globally – with the majority (56%) of global senior executives rarely or never discussing disability on their leadership agendas,” added Casey.
The Valuable 500 initiative, launched at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Summit in January 2019, calls on 500 global businesses to commit to placing disability inclusion on their board agendas, to make a firm commitment to eradicating the exclusion of disabled people in business. Many more firms around the world have done that today.
“When we look only at the challenges of disability we can overlook the talent and potential of the individual. I want Syngenta to be a company where all our people feel valued because of the differences they bring in helping teams achieve our purpose to help farmers safely feed the world and take care of our planet,” said Syngenta CEO Erik Fyrwald. “This is exactly why we have joined The Valuable 500.”
PROMOTING INCLUSION
Victor Dodig, CIBC President and Chief Executive Officer of CIBC, said his motive for joining the movement is to focus on “continued efforts to level the playing field and remove barriers to ensure all talent can flourish. Our commitment to The Valuable 500 reflects the importance we place on affecting meaningful change in our business and the communities around us by fully embracing and promoting inclusion.”
Commenting on the importance of the Valuable 500 to Enterprise, Khaled Shahbo stated: “This important initiative helps us as a global business to reflect on the impact that we can have on the wellbeing and success of people living with disabilities, within Enterprise and beyond.”
OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERYONE
“We know that great teams thrive through diversity and inclusion,” added Zak Brown, CEO, McLaren Racing. “Formula 1 is no different and we recognise that by creating opportunity for everyone, not only can we give ourselves the competitive advantage to win, but we can help people unlock their potential too. Our commitment to The Valuable 500 is an important step to move closer to that goal and truly grow as an organisation.”
For many companies, signing the pledge today was about reaffirming their existing commitment to disability inclusion. “PageGroup, for example, has supported disability inclusion since 2016,” confirmed Sheri Hughes, PageGroup’s UK D&I Director. “Signing up to become part of The Valuable 500 is a great way to demonstrate that it is more than a D&I priority for us. It is and always has been a board priority too.”
Reed Smith also launched its LEADRS initiative – an award-winning disability inclusion group aiming to recruit and retain talented individuals with disabilities – back in 2012. “Today it has more than 120 members (including Board level members) and we want to continue to move the dial on disability inclusion, by signing The Valuable 500 pledge today,” stated Tamara Box, Managing Partner, EME, Reed Smith. “We are delighted today to be joining a group of leading organisations who share our goals as members of The Valuable 500.”
Click here to apply to be a Valuable 500 business member.
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