Accessibility and Inclusion Guide

Accessibility and Inclusion Guide | 1 Believing in Accessibility for All

Accessibility and Inclusion Guide

www.reciteme.com


Contents

Introduction

Why are Digital Barriers a Problem?

Who Needs Support?

What Barriers Do Applicants Face?

Why is Inclusive Recruitment Important?

Inclusive Workplaces

5 Steps to a Digitally Inclusive Workplace

Recite Me Assistive Technology

The People We Support Online

Recite Me Careers Clients

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Digital barriers are a problem for online recruitment because they stop applicants accessing information and they stand in the way of users filling in application forms and completing skills assessments. According to tuc.org, the disability employment gap between disabled and non-disabled people was nearly 30% in 2020, demonstrating that there are still many disabled people facing barriers that stop them entering the workplace. The results of the latest Recruitment Industry Disability Initiative (RIDI) survey showed that:

Introduction

Why are Digital Barriers a Problem?

75%of jobseekers surveyed

found their condition had an impact on their job

search

54%encountered hurdles at multiple

stages of the recruitment process

28%found online assessments

challenging

Modern recruitment processes rely so heavily on digital technology. 14.1 million people in the UK have a disability and often encounter obstacles online when applying for jobs. Only one in three job seekers think employers and recruiters make online job applications suitably accessible for disabled people.

With only 51% of applications from disabled people resulting in an interview, assistive technology offers support to website users to enable them to understand information, making it easier to apply for jobs online.

Hidden talent is going undiscovered because users who may be disabled, visually impaired or speak English as a second language do not have the tools to use your website effectively.


On an individual level, the short answer is about 20% of the population. This equates to a pretty staggering number – over 13 million people in the UK, and over 65 million in the US, for example.

The disabled are the largest minority group in the world, as approximately 1 in 5 adults has at least one of the conditions in the categories listed above. This can make website content difficult to access for four main reasons:

Candidates that are susceptible to access barriers can include those who have:

• Visual impairments

• Learning difficulties

• Neurodevelopment and neurological conditions

• Mobility and physical impairments

• Linguistic problems

Who Needs Support?

What Type of Online Barriers do Applicants Face?

Applicants Can’t Read It

For applicants with sight loss, colour blindness and deaf blindness, reading web copy can be difficult. The size of the text, the font and the colour contrast between the text and background can all be barriers to reading for those with learning difficulties like dyslexia, dyspraxia and hyperlexia.

Applicants Can’t Navigate Through the Application Process

Temporary or permanent physical disabilities can make accessing websites via a smartphone or tablet difficult, and using equipment like a mouse may also be problematic. Website errors like empty links and buttons, missing input labels on forms, and missing document language makes keyboard navigation impossible meaning many people are unable to complete the application process.

Applicants Don’t Understand the Information

Users with cognitive and neurological disorders may have problems following the flow of the information if it is not written in simple language, doesn’t follow a logical order, use headers, or include alt tags and link descriptions. Additionally, users who’s speak English as a second language may have difficulty understanding the information and may need translation assistance.

Applicants Don’t Trust Your Site

Fear of the unknown is a big factor for many applicants. For those with epilepsy or other conditions that cause disorientation or confusion, elements like flashing images, videos, or image carousels that they can’t control are simply not worth the risk.


Why is Inclusive Recruitment Important?

Many companies shy away from online accessibility and inclusion factors as they perceive them as being complex, expensive, or simply too difficult to work around. Yet the average cost of making an accommodation for a disabled employee is just a few hundred pounds/dollars, and data shows that employees with disabilities take less time off and tend to stay with companies for longer. So in reality, this is nothing more than a common misperception, especially when you consider all of the additional benefits of becoming an inclusive employer.

Key advantages of providing an inclusive candidate journey include:

• Drawing from the widest pool of talent available• Acquiring high-quality staff who are skilled, hardworking and loyal• Improved innovation thanks to the wider perspective you gain by having a more diverse team• Demonstrating fairness in the workplace• Reduced staff turnover rates overall• Improved staff morale• Showing customers and other businesses that you are committed to equality in the workplace• There is also growing evidence that improved inclusion leads to increased revenue and profits

The Benefits of Being Inclusive


Inclusive Workplaces

The key for employers is to alter their perceptions and the way they think about disability, and make positive changes to the way they attract, recruit, develop, and retain disabled employees.

One of the fundamental challenges companies face when looking at digital inclusion is taking account of the many and varied barriers that employees face online. We tend to think of disabilities purely in terms of mobility and physical restrictions, but in reality, there is a whole range of diverse conditions that can prevent users from gaining equal access to online information.

Recruitment and Talent Facts and Statistics

Workplace Facts and Statistics

60% More Jobs Disabled people have to apply for to find their next role (The Independent)

1 in 3 Job seekers think online job applications are suitably accessible for disabled people (RIDI)

Only 26% of people think online applications are suitably accessible for people who speak English as a second language (RIDI)

As many as 75% of disabled job seekers feel their condition has an impact on their job search (RIDI)

2.3% higher cash flow diverse companies enjoy 2.3 times higher cash flow per employee (Deloitte)

19% Revenue Increase For companies with diverse management teams compared to their less diverse counterparts (Bostin Consulting Group)

87% Better At decision making and more likely to capture new markets with diverse companies with inclusive talent to capture new markets (Bullitin Beta)

30% Profit Margin For companies that embrace best practices for employing and supporting people with disabilities (Accenture)

Your website is the shop door to your business, you should make it clear that everyone is welcome and make sure that door can be opened by everyone.

Jo Major, Founder of Diversity in Recruitment


5 Steps to a Digitally Inclusive Workplace

Most recruiters and managers would agree that a diverse team helps provide a richer and more innovative team. We have listed some of top tips for a digitally inclusive workplace.

5Seek AdviceCommitting to a more inclusive organisation is a significant step forward. Don’t panic, though, as some fantastic companies specialise in supporting businesses to develop more inclusive practices within the workplace. Here are some examples: Inclusive Employers, RIDI and Verdica.

1Integrate D&I into Your Core ValuesEnsure your organisation complies with disability discrimination laws, gather employee feedback regularly and make sure that employees with disabilities have a say in decision-making processes.

2Become a Disability Confident EmployerDisability Confident schemes exist to help employers be more inclusive and explore the benefits of employing disabled people. Over 20,000 forward-thinking companies are currently registered as Disability Confident – Recite Me being one of them, of course.

3Provide an Inclusive Candidate JourneyTo tap into the biggest pool of talent, you need an inclusive recruitment process from discovery and attraction right through to application, onboarding and beyond.

4Use Assistive Technology Accessibility software allows disabled people to access your website and job vacancies in the way that works best for them. Many organisations also use accessibility software on internal systems like intranets and learning platforms to ensure company information is fully accessible and inclusive to their employees.

Let’s become disability confident recruitersRIDI exists to create disability confident recruiters by raising awareness and removing barriers in order to help reduce the UK disability employment gap.


Recite Me Assistive TechnologyInaccessible websites create barriers for users. Create an inclusive experience online by providing accessibility and language options to enable everyone to customise your website in a way that works for them.

Web Accessibility Plugin Software

Over 1 billion people worldwide encounter barriers when trying to read and understand content online. This can be due to disabilities, learning difficulties, visual impairments or if people speak English as a second language.

Without additional accessibility and language options, people are unable to perform everyday tasks from paying bills and researching services and support, to applying for their next career move.

Recite Me website accessibility plugin software provides every online user with the tools they need to create a unique experience.

Recite Me Accessibility Features

Give your visitors total control when viewing your online content. Discover the unique range of accessibility features to allow people to customise the way they interact with your website.

Screen Reader Reading

Styling Translation

Providing our screen reader will help website visitors to perceive and understand your digital content by

reading aloud website text, which can be customised to suit the viewer.

To simplify use and support your website visitors, the Recite Me web accessibility toolbar provides five main

tools; ruler, screen mask, magnifier, margins, and a dictionary.

Recite Me assistive technology allows people to change the way a website looks. Users are able to

customise the website’s colour scheme as well as the text, font style, size, colour, and spacing.

Recite Me web accessibility technology quickly and easily translates all your web content into over 100

languages, including 35 text to speech voices.


The People We Support Online

Our software is already installed on over 3500 websites, and every day we help thousands of internet users to enjoy accessible and inclusive online journeys. Our most recent 12-month stats show that:

STYLING READING AIDS

The most popular feature was the screen reader used to playback the content in English. The translation feature has also been popular with lots of translations being made to Afrikaans and Welsh.

17,621,585web pages were viewed

3,132,510toolbar launches 5.63

The average user viewed

pages per session.(This is higher than the average

of 2.8 pages.)

Background colour

Link colour

Screen mask

1,228,564

1,227,211

827,006

Options ClicksTextmode

Dictionary

Ruler

121,837

62,733

61,173

Aids Clicks

Features Used

SCREEN READER

English

Danish

French

30,863,879

289,774

269,413

Language Clicks32,547,436

63%

TRANSLATION

Afrikaans

Welsh

Arabic

1,362,345

826,404

694,460

Language Clicks13,317,960

26%

4,232,5508%

516,1931%


Recite Me ClientsRecite Me work with a variety of clients across a variety sectors including recruitment, education, charities and utilities. See some of the organisations we work with below.

We chose to install the Recite Me assistive

toolbar to make our website not simply

accessible, but to be truly inclusive to all.

Accessing the internet can be a challenge for

some key customer groups. It is a pleasure to

work with a specialist provider like Recite Me

who takes great care to understand customer

needs. We are proud to be a digitally inclusive

company that values each and every online

visitor.

Subhash Mishra, Head of Digital Strategy,

FirstRail

Equality is at the heart of everything GMB does,

inside and outside the workplace. That’s why

we’re proud that visitors to our website can

customise the GMB web pages in a variety of

ways that work best for them, using the Recite

Me website accessibility toolbar.

Vital Features such as being able to easily have

documents read aloud or translated into a

whole range of languages have been described

by our members as ‘a game changer’ in terms of

accessibility and inclusion.

Nell Andrew, National Equality and Inclusion

Officer at GMB Union


If you’d like to take steps to make your website more accessible and provide more inclusive candidate journeys with our assistive software, you can contact our team or book a free demonstration.

The Next Steps

t: +44 (0) 191 432 8092e: [email protected]: reciteme.com

Baltimore House,Baltic Business Quarter,Gateshead, NE8 3DF


t: +44 (0) 191 432 8092

e: [email protected]

w: www.reciteme.com

Baltimore House,

Baltic Business Quarter,

Gateshead, NE8 3DF Believing in Accessibility for All

Accessibility and Inclusion Guide

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