Accessibility & Inclusion
India has close to 80 million people with disabilities (source: World Bank, ). Employment for People with Disabilities (PWD) is one of the biggest challenges of the development sector today, owing to the low literacy levels, poverty, inaccessibility to education, and social stigma, which leads them to be among the most excluded in society!
The Government and Non Government Organizations (NGO) are motivating educational institutions to provide quality education for individuals / children with disability while also including them in the mainstream education system. e. Some NGOs are focusing on specific skills and are providing the much needed ‘employability skills’ to people with disabilities to help prepare them for future job opportunities.
Several persons with disabilities may educate themselves and be ready with relevant skills for specific jobs. This is only possible with sheer determination and will power and persistence. However, most of the corporates/ companies are not aware of this untapped resource pool and the potential and value –add each of these individuals may bring to the companies they are employed.
Social Equity Advisory Services can bridge this gap and help (a) organizations be truly inclusive by hiring persons with disabilities and (b) provide equal opportunities for persons with disabilities in the mainstream workplace. SEAS is the first of its kind of advisory firm that focuses on inclusivity at the workplaces for persons with disabilities.
Services Offered:
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Creating Disability Inclusive / Confident Organization
Social Equity Inclusive program can help organizations in their journey of inclusion through its unique framework to inclusion. Social Equity’s end-to-end portfolio of services in Accessibility & Inclusion are based on an unique ABCD approach – (a) Awareness creation and capacity building, (b) Build inclusion eco-system and (c) Connect (helping organization to hire right candidates) d) Develop and retain employees with disabilities.
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Awareness Creation & Capacity Building:
Awareness building and sensitization programs focus on dispelling myths and negative stereotypes about persons with disability and working with them. This is achieved through Interactive workshops and group meetings and can also be reiterated through e-learning modules on the topics such as Inclusive and adaptive leader and Inclusive employees.
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Build Inclusive Eco-system Creation:
Inclusion at the workplace is sustainable only when a supportive environment is created, which is conducive for hiring of persons with disabilities and also integrating them comfortably / easily within the organization.
This requires a closer look at (and even at times a change of!) the existing policies and the physical and digital accessibility of resources of a company. Social Equity can help organizations / companies to:
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Review and (if needed) tweak existing policies to help them in becoming truly non-discriminatory and inclusive
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Conduct a Physical Access Audit of the workplace and provide relevant recommendations to enhance accessibility for all types of disabilities.
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Conduct Digital Access Audit of company’s website, portal and internal digital apps and tools, to make them accessibility.
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Build processes to promote inclusive business culture
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Connect – Hire Right Candidate for the role:
Companies want to hire the individuals who have adequate qualification and skills to perform a particular job. If you are wondering how you could identify the right candidate with disabilities, Social Equity can support you with the necessary know-how to help you select the candidate with disabilities that is ‘right-fit’ for the role. Social Equity’s framework for hiring is based on the global practices, used by successful companies globally, that include inter-alia
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Job-analysis
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Placement support for hiring persons with disabilities as per identified roles
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Workplace solutions
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Manager and Peer Sensitizations sessions
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Develop & retain employees with Disabilities
Employees with Disabilities have the same aspirations as any other employee and organizations should ensure that they have equitable access to develop and grow in their career. There can be structural or behavioral hindrances, the employers must identify them and provide equal opportunity to employee with disabilities to develop and the grow as per their potential.
Social Equity can support your organizations in developing career development and retention tools keeping people with disabilities in mind.
2. Compliance to RPWD 16
Rights of Persons with Disability Act 2016 (RPWD16), that was notified on 15th June 2017. The RPWD 16 Act which replaces the PwD Act, 1995 also brings our law in line with the United National Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), to which India is a signatory since 2006. The new law will not only enhance the Rights and Entitlements of Persons with Disabilities but also provide effective mechanism for ensuring their empowerment and true inclusion into the Society in a satisfactory manner.
The law has given a very clear and unambiguous mandate to the organizations (public and private) to promote non-discrimination, accessibility and inclusion. The act also prescribes the timelines for the implementation of the same. And to ensure the implementation, a penalty clause is also included for non-adherence to the law.
3. Other Services
A. Readiness Assessment for Hiring Persons with Disabilities
Assessment of the readiness for being an Accessible and Inclusive organization – Using the assessment framework, we can check what is already accessible and inclusive in your organization. Based on the results we can develop a plan to work on the gaps identified during the assessment process.
B. Accessibility & inclusivity Audit of Organization’s Disability Inclusion Program
Periodically organizations need to take a neutral look at their Disability Inclusion program to understand where they stand at the maturity model. Social Equity conducts the audit of the organization’s Disability Inclusion program to assess the current stage of accessibility & inclusivity of the program. The audit report acts as a guide in helping organization take progressive support to become more inclusive and accessible for employees & customer with disability.
Social Equity can support your organization to become a Disability Inclusive and Compliant Organization, want to know how, Contact us
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Social Equity Advisory is the first of its kind of advisory firm that provides end-to-end advisory services on inclusion of ‘Persons with Disabilities’ at the workplaces.
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Social Equity’s team is made up of senior diversity & HR professionals who have several years’ experience of implementing diversity and inclusion practices in their previous organizations.
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Social Equity works very closely with India’s leading NGOs and training outfits who work with educated youth, train them and make them employable.
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Social Equity has experience of successfully designing and executing diverse small and large events on various D&I and CSR topics across India.
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Some of our esteemed clients include leading organizations such as Capgemini, Intuit, JP Morgan, CII western region etc.
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Social Equity has good understanding of the domain from Corporate, NGO and the individual’s perspective
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Successfully led the ‘Disability’ initiative of NASSCOM Foundation and took it to the new heights.
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Social Equity is well connected with India’s leading experts in accessibility (physical & digital) and policies
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Developed framework that helps organizations to create awareness, develop supporting eco-system, hire and retain persons with disabilities.
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Advised corporate on diverse issues related to inclusion of persons with disabilities at the workplace.
Why Social Equity Advisory Services?
“There is nothing that I did not like about the workshop. It was truely a learning knowledge provider. I liked the deep in cooperation with persons with disabilities. Learned very well how to behave with persons with disabilities.”
Team lead, a multinational financial services company
“I liked the way trainer explained challenges of persons with disabilities. The session helped in understanding challenges of persons with disabilities and also how to interact with them
Client Manager, a multinational company