 Welcome. I'm Gillian Mackay, MSP member of the cross-party group on disability, and I would like to welcome you all to this special online edition of the Festival of Politics 2021 in partnership with the Parliament's think tank, Scotland's Futures Forum. This evening's panel is titled Employer Ability vs Employability and is held in partnership with Inclusion Scotland and Disability Equality Scotland. We're delighted that so many people are able to join us online today and I look forward to hearing your comments and questions from you as we get into the discussion. We're pleased to offer BSL interpretation for today's event and I look forward to receiving questions and comments. So what exactly does employer ability vs employability mean and how welcoming and inclusive are companies when it comes to disabled people? Are people being treated as equal and valued employees in the workplace? This panel aims to address all of these questions in the next 60 minutes, so do stay with us. We're delighted that you're able to join us to take part and I would encourage you all to use the event chat function to introduce yourselves, stating your name and your geographical location and pose any questions you would like to the panel. I'm very pleased to be joined by our panellists, Paula Gray, who's head of HR with STV, Gary McLean, Inclusion Scotland intern with SAVA Life for Scotland, Alex Wilson from Inclusion Scotland and Brian Scott from the Glasgow Disability Alliance. There will be an opportunity for our online audience to put questions and views to the panel throughout the event. If you would like to make a contribution, please enter them into the question and answer box, which you can find on the side. Make sure to state your first name and where you are this evening and we'll get through as many as possible. However, to start this evening, I'd like to begin by asking each of our panellists what they think about this new term employer ability that has been coined by Inclusion Scotland and do they agree with its meaning? I'll first come to Paula, then Gary, then Brian and then Alex. Paula, what are your thoughts on this, please? I think that the term is very good at conveying the ability of employers to create inclusive employment experiences and it helps to draw out the focus of the power that we have to do that. Within each of our organisations, I think of the journey that colleagues are going on in terms of being attracted to our organisations through the networks that we are advertising through the actual application process, through the point of induction and onboarding and then on to their career and development with each of our organisations. There are small changes that can make a big difference to individuals and really enable them to thrive through that process and to thrive in their environment. Some of the things that we've been thinking about, taking each of those in turn through that attraction stage of the networks that we're trying to reach out to, working actually with Inclusion Scotland has been something that's been very helpful for us and thinking about how we describe our recruitment adverts, the language that we're using, which skills are excellent communications skills, truly essential to that role. Is there another way that we can convey what's required so that we're not causing candidates to roll themselves out of the application? We worked on the interim programme with Inclusion Scotland through the interview process as well. We were able to think about all the different people adjustments that were very important for candidates and make sure that we're making that process as accessible as possible. Things like accessibility software as well for online systems can make a huge difference in terms of people being able to customise content in the way that works for them, be that font sizes, screen colours, text-to-speech functionality, accessibility features that can make a huge difference to somebody's experience of that application process and making it clear in your adverts that you're very willing to make those adjustments. Through the onboarding process, often it's different systems that we use as an organisation when somebody's actually in and working with us, then it might be through the application process. Through our induction, again, making colleagues aware that we have a real focus on this as an organisation and we want them to be able to come to us with any ongoing reasonable adjustments that they might need, and also letting them know what reasonable accessibility features are available as standard in our systems. Through teams, office and Microsoft Outlook, what accessibility features are there as standard and if there's more customised support that an individual might need in their ways of working, where can they access that through IT teams? Through our occupational health, how can we make that available? Then, on-going development of individuals and thinking about equality of opportunity and progression and training within the company so that other colleagues can continue to raise cultural competence and awareness so that people will be able to have a conversation about what adjustments might be required and know that they can go to their manager and speak about that. Again, we're looking at different training there to try and break that down into a way that's digestible for all colleagues and for people in a position of influence, like hiring managers. We're looking at the different types of access requirements that colleagues might have across physical disabilities or sensory or learning. The different types of access requirements that might arise and how we can try and make those processes as streamlined for people as possible should they ask for support. The term really captures the fact that it is within our gifted employers to be able to look at those areas and where we can make adjustments. Great, thank you Paula. Can I come to Gary next, please? Hi, yes. For me employerability is really all about focusing on organisations and employers themselves and what they can do to be more inclusive and welcoming as opposed to candidates having to sell themselves. It's what an employer can do to make their posts attractive for a disabled candidate rather than an applicant trying to sell themselves if they can get to that point. It's all about making the recruitment process more inclusive and more accessible. As Paula said, it's about on-going support for employment to make sure that people can contribute and participate fully. It's important that people with disabilities are given equal opportunities for personal development and promotion. I think that a term like this might help to improve disability employment statistics, which are quite woeful. I fully agree with it and I fully support it. I think that it's good. Fabulous, thank you. Can I come to Brian next and then we'll go to Alex finally on this question. Thanks, Gillian. As a disabled person's organisation, we really warmly welcome this focus on employerability. It's something that disabled people have identified for quite some time, has been missing from the debate around how we address a disability employment gap. So much of the focus in the past has been on the disabled jobseeker and, often, a deficit model, if that is a problem, the individual who needs to be fixed. From our perspective, there are many factors that underpin the persistence of the disability employment gap. One of them, which is significant, is the capacity and the confidence of employers to implement the best practice when it comes to recruitment and retention of disabled people. The focus on employerability is really helpful because we are approached as a disabled person's organisation by employers who are minded to be more inclusive and who want to do better in terms of how they recruit and retain disabled people, but often lack confidence or skills or knowledge to know how best to do that. I think that it's really welcome that employers are starting to be honest about that and say that they would like to do more, to be more inclusive and to have a more diverse workforce. We're not sure how to attract applicants, we're not sure how to, first, for example, somebody's workplace support needs. I think that it's really healthy that we're starting to have this discussion. From that, we can really engage with employers who are minded to be more inclusive. I think that that will result in increased recruitment of disabled people, which hopefully will go some way to addressing the disability employment gap. As Gary pointed out, the figures for employment rates of disabled people are appalling and have been for quite some time. In short, we really welcome that focus. Alex Last, please. Thank you, Julianne. I have to agree with everything that has been said previously. I think that everyone has been really nailed it in terms of our perspective. I'm certainly similar to Brian at the Glasgow Disability Alliance, including Scotland, where I disabled people's organisation. We work with employers and individuals every day of the week trying to remove that fear factor that Brian alluded to himself earlier on. The term that we've come up with a definition for is turning the normal discourse on its head. How can I, as an individual, sell myself to an organisation? It's a recognition that it's a two-way process that the organisation has to be open and welcoming to the individual applicants as well. The way that they can achieve that is very much through the systems and processes. If anything, Brian began to allude to the different models of disability for me. I don't want to go into this tonight, because it's another conversation for another day. However, I would suggest that the employer ability is an extension of the social model of disability. It's not the disability itself, it's the barrier. It's the barriers that society put on us. I suggest that the systems, processes and culture of an organisation, perhaps historically, have been those barriers. The definition of employer ability is about trying to break down those barriers moving forward. I would wholeheartedly agree with everything that has been said by our panellists. Thank you for your opening remarks. We're now going to move on to some questions that I have before we head on to some questions from the audience. I think that this one, I'd like to come to Gary first and get his perspective on this. What defines an employer as disability-inclusive? As a former inclusion Scotland intern, I very much have a view on this. Gary, it would be lovely to hear from your experiences and what you think an employer to you is when we say that they are disability-inclusive. It's just understanding that employers who consider a disability perspective look at their needs at all stages of work. I've worked for employers who aren't disability-inclusive and employers who are. The difference is night and day, things like flexible working, understanding when it comes to hospital appointments and stuff like that. Support in general. I work on this to make those adjustments, as I said earlier. I think that it's important that other organisations don't realise that those tiny adjustments could open them up to employing lots of different people. I work on this to engage and make those adjustments, to try and understand from a perspective of the person themselves. Helping them if there are any issues throughout. For me personally, I've got lots of hospital appointments. That was always an issue in my previous employment. I had to contribute more because I was going to hospital more. I had to make up for it, as if it was my fault. My current employment is much easier through inclusion in Scotland. It's an internship. It's because they came to inclusion in Scotland to employ a disabled person. They're looking for that perspective in their organisation. That's the difference. That's excellent. We'll come to Alex next. Hi. The question was around what makes an employer disabled confident. Was it Julian? What makes an employer disability inclusive? I must admit that I was thinking about that question earlier on today. I don't think that I've got an answer to be honest with you. I don't think that there's an end point for this. I think that it's a continuous journey. I would suggest that for any of the protected characteristics, it's an organic process that's on-going and on-going all the time. Personally, I would struggle to define what that would look like, just from my perception that we're constantly striving as a society to be more inclusive and accessible. I don't think that we'll ever finish that job. Excellent. Thanks for that. We'll give two seconds to allow the interpreters to swap over. Thank you. I'll come to Brian next on this one. It's a really interesting question. I think that Gary absolutely nailed it in terms of the most important characteristic of a disability inclusive employer is how able they are to make workplace adjustments and reasonable adjustments and to address people's workplace support needs. That's really the essential ingredient, if you like, of being inclusive. For me, there are some other considerations. I think that a disability inclusive employer is one that has disabled people working throughout the workforce and at different levels within the organisation, because we know in the past that historically disabled people have been disproportionately represented at lower entry-level jobs and often under-employed. For me, disability inclusion is about progression opportunities and people working at all different levels within the organisation. Something else that is maybe more nuanced which isn't always considered, a disability inclusive employer for me is one that employs disabled people with a range of impairments and conditions. For me, that would be evidence that this was an employer that was meeting the workplace support needs of a diverse group of disabled people, because for some people it might be one of the minor adjustments that you need to put in place, but for some other people it might be more challenging. For me, a really inclusive employer would be one that had disabled people working across the organisation and people with a broad range of impairments and conditions. Thank you for that, Brian. Paula? A big part of it, as the panel has said, is being able to be responsive, but also having things in place as much as possible so that somebody comes in and it's accessible from the outset. Being able to think about it ahead of time and it being evident that you have done that is quite key. We have found with all areas of inclusion, and as Alex said, for any underrepresented group where we are trying to make the employment experience as inclusive as possible, it is quite a long process and it is quite iterative and it is trying to break down both ways of working from an employment perspective but also the way that we undertake our roles from an operational perspective, what that can mean for individuals coming at it from a range of different perspectives and vantage points. For us, that was a turning point where we were able to engage colleagues across the business about how they build it into their roles, the actual operational side of their roles, because when they were then thinking about their customers and the needs of the customer, it helped them put it into context. When we think about it in that, it makes it more readily transferable into the way that we are all working day to day. Even something like at the moment when some of us are back in the office working, some of us aren't. Hopefully at some point there is a semblance of normality when more of us can be in the office at once and we're thinking about things like future ways of working. We don't want to lose some of the benefits that we've had out of this period in terms of increased flexibility. I've had colleagues say to me, as you said Alex, it's the environment that can create the issue. It's not the disability at sale and actually where we can make these adjustments be those physical, where we've had less colleagues in the office and there's been greater space. That's actually been very welcomed by some colleagues with mobility, a physical disability, or be it our ways of working, our sort of our own line, the adjustments that we can make, just even things like the sort of font sizes that we're using, etc. Are these in a way that's accessible for people and we know that there's, when we come back to the office, we're talking about kind of hot desking and hybrid working bit for some individuals. If you're required a hot desk, you can go to a different environment every time you come in, you could cause obviously alarm and not be conducive to that individual thriving in there. So it's sort of trying to think about these things up front, doctor or colleagues about what we've put in place but also make it clear that other things we haven't considered, it's very open to come and talk to us about that and make those adjustments. Great, thank you. Probably Brian on this one first. So how, so what are the real and perceived barriers and challenges stopping a company employing someone with disabilities? Obviously you'll have supported interns before, so what are the things that you're seeing that are maybe perceived by companies but maybe aren't actually realistic and probably there will also be barriers that are realistic that people won't have thought of in the same instance. So your thoughts on that would be great. Yeah, that's a really interesting question. I mean, I think there's been some research done in the past as to there's attitudes towards recruiting disabled people and what they perceive the barriers to be and I think so much that this is about misperception and about employers and this is why employability as a focus is so welcome as much as this is based on people not having information and not being really aware of what the real issues are. I think that research with employers is often highlighted that a significant concern of employers is that if they recruit disabled people there's going to be issues around attendance and absence and that that's a worry that if they have disabled employees they're going to require a lot of time off and they're going to need time for hospital appointments and so on and so forth and in our work with employers something we frequently have to point out to them is that the attendance rate for disabled people is usually much, much better than for their non-disabled peers so I think some of this is about perceptions I think a huge issue is that employers tend to have an exaggerated idea of how difficult or expensive it may be to provide reasonable adjustments and I think there's quite a common misperception that many employers have is that if they recruit a disabled person it's going to be expensive and challenging to provide workplace adjustments and it's going to cause a lot of upset and it's going to be of concern to other members or staff. When the reality again is that we know that for the vast majority of disabled people reasonable adjustments can be completely at no cost or very inexpensive and can be provided very, very quickly without any major upheaval for the organisation and then you factor in things like access to work which can also help disabled employees so I think so much of this is about having an honest conversation with employers about what do they perceive the barriers to be what are their worries and have a safe space for them to talk about that but then to reassure them that much of this is based on misperception and in fact on myths Paula, can I come to you next on this, if you have any reflections on the original question but also if there's any reflections maybe from yourself in your own role as to whether there were any perceived barriers that you maybe had preconceptions about that maybe weren't didn't come true and maybe some that you maybe hadn't thought of before as well. I think as Brian said on the perceived side of it I think it's exactly as you've said there Brian much of it is about the perceived cost of the adjustments and the perceived ability of the individual to meet the requirements of the role and that's a particularly probably troublesome one because we shouldn't draw those perceptions I guess that takes us into things like unconscious bias and all the rest of it that we know is real as well and so to challenge our own thought process and not to make assumptions and to give individuals a full opportunity to demonstrate their ability to meet the role and how they think they could overcome any challenges that there might be in the course of it the point you made as well about a fear, a danger of getting it wrong if you do get it wrong or you make a mistake that can be something that employers are concerned about but again having a very open line of communication where an individual can see that there's an active desire to be supportive and to have that open dialogue to make sure that the adjustments because it's so bespoke isn't it what the access requirements might be or what support might be required so make sure that we're getting it right it can often overcome it and it is perceived barrier in terms of the real barriers but actually working with Inclusion Scotland on the internship programme probably gave us confidence as an employer to be able to because we were that was a training opportunity specifically for candidates with disability to apply for we were able to be and Alex had actually encouraged us to be open and honest because at the same time we want to manage expectations we don't want to give a false sense of disabilities that wouldn't lend themselves to the role so Alex, the time I recall due to the nature of the role for instance it wouldn't have lended itself to a visual impairment that particular role due to the technical equipment that the individual would have to work with coming in so we were honest about that and advertising but I don't think we would probably have had the confidence to do that if we hadn't been doing it as part of an internship programme in Inclusion Scotland but I can very much imagine from a candidates point of view you would rather have that directness and that openness as opposed to potentially going to the effort of going through a process then to find out there was a real barrier as you say rather than a perceived barrier and coming to Alex next and then I'll come to Gary last Alex from an Inclusion Scotland point of view you've probably seen and heard at all in terms of perceived barriers versus actual barriers and I'm sure we could go on at length about that but if you want to offer your perspective on this No that's a great thing to talk about it really is and I just have to concur with what Brian and Paula have said really and I think most of us would agree that the majority of them are perceived I think we've had there are reality barriers as well but I think potential we've had some of those over the last year and the half in terms of it doesn't matter where we live we can all work from home effectively and that's a simple thing like that has opened up opportunities for all of us across Scotland really a couple of things if I may just picking up on Brian's point about reasonable adjustments in the costs I think the average cost Brian we worked out is about £175 you know nothing really at the end of the day what we find in as a disabled people's organisation Inclusion Scotland, probably similar to Glasgow disability alliance employers are just scared to get it wrong it's there's this perception that they'll get it wrong I think like all of us we all get things wrong in life we get it wrong first time we'll get it right the next time and this is why we try to work with employers it's the small talk about it a bit later on Polly alluded to it it's the wee things we can all do today as individuals to make an organisation more accessible Polly began to allude to it and we try and encourage it even in our emails change your emails to what is it, sans serif font 14 quick win suddenly opens up your communications to people with visual impairments so it's just these certainly from our perspective the majority of them are perceived and I think finally for me there's this perception that disabled people can't do certain jobs a question we get asked quite a lot is in terms of language and job descriptions must have a driving licence really? the question should be as long as you can get to that place and back as long as you can access to your own transport that's the end of the conversation really so it's perhaps as a society again we put our own assumptions on to roles that disabled people can actually perform and what we would encourage is be open just put everything on the table and look at it and Polly alluded to it there will be certain impairments that will prevent certain jobs being performed the internship that we were working with STV on was in their VHS legacy videos on to digital to create a digital library so you could say that and we certainly worked with STV to put this into the advert that a visual impairment wouldn't necessarily be you would have a visual impairment would be a barrier to doing this role so there are situations where it's legitimate you know to ask for certain characteristics in the position but in general be open consider all the options and don't be afraid excellent thank you so finally coming to Gary maybe reflecting on some of your experience of different employers and how you find the perception of making reasonable adjustments versus the reality of what it's actually like for a disabled person in an organisation first of all I agree with everything everyone said about misconceptions or a lot of misconceptions about disability and employment you know I agree with Paula being open is really important being open and honest when the get go was a candidate it really helped my confidence going through and closing Scotland the fact that I knew that they were looking for a disabled candidate and they wanted that perspective and the job description right from everything it just gave me that confidence that I could do this job and I could work in that professional environment especially with having a hidden disability I think like it's not always clear that you need reasonable adjustment I think that's for me that was a big barrier because I was suffering but it wasn't clear that I was suffering so when I needed time off it was a case of why do you need time off you're perfectly fine so I think there's lots of barriers out there but being open and honest is the best way to overcome them Absolutely, do you feel Gary, I wonder if you share my feeling on this as someone with a hidden disability as well that when you applied for the inclusion Scotland internship and went through that process there was almost that feeling of not having to explain yourself and the effort that that took away from it of having to explain explain yourself and explain your access needs and all those sorts of things and how different that made the process feel for you compared to maybe a normal recruitment process that maybe wasn't as disability inclusive Exactly, the very fact that they ask you about adjustments pre-interview it's just it's very helpful rather than you having to go and explain yourself but you often think the second you do that you're not going to get the job so it's important just from a personal point of view to give you that confidence We're going to have one more question Sorry, on you go Gary Sorry, I mean you shouldn't have to feel guilty about disclosing the disability so I think we need to move in the direction that we're talking about I think that that guilt and what you said about time off for hospital appointments and things like that is probably something that any disabled person who's on this event as well will probably heavily relate to and that feeling of having to do that bit more before you can be allowed to go for your hospital appointment and things like that as well and that's a whole culture shift that we need to get not just with employers but through that whole working environment thing as well that hopefully and that's a much bigger piece of work than we've got time left for this evening so we'll have one more question from me and then we'll come to questions from our audience so if you have any questions please get them in through the Q&A tab on the event so finally for me how important I think I'll come to Alex first this time how important is the backing of the CEO or the board or high-up management if inclusion is to become a company policy that actually filters down to day-to-day employment practices that's probably coming back to more of the more of the culture shift that we were just talking about there and how if we have higher-up management on board does that filter through to the rest of the organisation yeah obviously that's extremely important because that to an extent defines the organisation and its culture going forward so yeah very much for that but again very much a realist that takes time to permeate its way down through an organisation it almost demands not only a cultural shift within the organisation but a societal shift as well so nothing's in isolation again yes I completely agree it's important that there's buy-in from the top but again I may have touched on that earlier from our perspective it's what we can all do as individuals ourselves in our daily jobs to make our workplace more accessible and inclusive the it's an old hackneyed analogy here but it's like turning an oil tanker that takes a long time to happen but we can all as individuals be much more nifty and swift in terms of what we can do in our daily jobs and that can be as simple as I alluded to earlier, change the front size in your emails as an organisation think about where you advertise your jobs the point that Gary made earlier really resonated with me and it's something we hear all the time all our internships are ring-fenced and only open to disabled people it's an epiphany that you get when you see the quality of applicant coming through and the confidence it gives applicants that because the opportunity has been ring-fenced for disabled people it's almost like Jekyll and Hyde they can now champion a disability but it can be talked about in an open constructive manner and it can be supported and listened to as opposed to through perhaps more traditional recruitment methods something that maybe they did not want to talk about and just a final cut I often find myself that the individual applying for a job doesn't know they can ask for reasonable adjustments they might not know what a reasonable adjustment is they might think by asking for a reasonable adjustment is giving them a fair advantage it's not all we're doing for reasonable adjustments is giving equity for everyone so yes it's important to permeate down but we can all do things together as individuals daily thank you Excellent thank you Gary can I come to you next on that same question on how important do you feel it is if higher level management or a board or a CEO has buy in and how that filters down to the rest of an organisation Well I don't really have a strong view on it but I suppose it is important management views are very important I'm trying to think of past employers I think if the management doesn't care then the employees aren't going to care so when it comes to adjustments and treating people fairly and equally I think it is important and especially when it comes to complaints and things like that in HR I think it's very important that people all listen to and that has to come from the management because I think that certainly in some works happening it's sort of a just suck it up kind of attitude and I think that so if the management is like that then you know it's not very good it's not going to improve so yeah I think it's important that the management buy into it and see through the whole organisation Great, thank you Paula, can I come to you next and then I'll come to Brian Laugh I think it's very important and for us it's made a huge difference in our ability to effect change within the organisation and to effect progress and it's not because if it wasn't there it's not because people are doing it because they have to or they've now been told by management but it's about the ability of senior management to make a priority I think when people are juggling so many competing priorities it can be very easy to default to doing what we've always done when we're pressed for time to not take that little bit of extra time and care and things like recruitment processes or whatever whatever it might be the point that I made about building it into our roles is thinking about our customers what's the transaction we're looking to have with our customer what's the call to action that we're making of them what's the process they have to go through how accessible is that for them where can we make these adjustments so I think in the absence of it being made a priority there's a tendency that you'll have many other priorities and those will be the ones that lead your day so I think the senior management and chief executives really giving something their backing and setting targets around it and making it a formal part of senior managers performance objectives it just keeps in front of mind that it helps with that process of effecting change because as Alex said it is something that's iterative that we need to be constantly working away at to be thinking about and crucially to be trying to think about from the very outset of whatever it is we're focusing on if it's an event we're holding but thinking about inclusion from the outset for all underrepresented groups and trying to make sure that it's being built in in that way giving considerations I think they have a huge ability to influence mindsets internally in that sense and finally on this one, Brian yeah I think senior management is very important but I think the most important thing is what you talked about down to actual changes in practice because I'm aware of quite a number of quite large sometimes public sector organisations which have fantastic written policies on workplace diversity and on how they are disability confident employer and so on and that doesn't translate into actual changes in their recruitment practice and some employers who have really workforces which really are lacking diversity and don't have appropriate representation of disabled people sometimes organisations which have all the policies in the paper work in place some of this is about the people who are actually doing the recruitment and the people who are actually providing the workplace support adjustments really being on board with this and I think it's also about why would an organisation be doing this if this is something which is posed upon staff doing it because they've been told to do it because it's now company policy then that's never going to be sustainable in the long run what we really need is all levels of staff buying into this because they see it as a really worthwhile thing to do because it's actually going to benefit the organisation and it's going to benefit them and benefit all the employees within the organisation so I think if you have an organisational culture where the focus is on let's actually have buy-in as to why we're doing this and there's really good business reasons for doing it we're much more likely to see real change in practice and if it's just something that's imposed top down as seen as corporate social responsibility or something we need to be seen to be doing then there's ways that can be undermined or just sidetracked so for me it's about how we get the buy-in of all levels of staff Excellent, thank you We're now going to move on to questions from our audience so the first one we have is from Stephen McMurray who says, people with disabilities often have a lot of experience, knowledge and skills which are relevant to many workplaces yet I suspect that these attributes are simply not captured in the recruitment process how can we improve this so Brian I might look on you again and come back to you first on this if that's okay and then I'll go to Paula after that I think it's such a good question and it resonates so much with our experience that we work with so many disabled people who are very skilled able people with very good qualifications and experience and so on who sometimes don't make a successful application not through any fault of their own but because the recruitment selection process is fundamentally flawed or needs to be reviewed and again that's what employerability is all about, it's about reviewing that recruitment selection process one of the things which is a real bugbear is that so often there's a kind of reliance on just using the same kinds of job competencies and person specification that have always been used for the post and I think the first step here is for employers to think right radically and quite differently about right what skills and knowledge and experience is really needed for this role and also how could people demonstrate that in a different way so I'll give you a really good practical example so security Scotland and their recruitment because of their commitment to equality and diversity made a really significant change in their recruitment which was people could demonstrate that they had the appropriate skillset for the job by reference to their lived personal experience and from things like volunteering and that was so liberating and so empowering because otherwise you had this situation where employers are saying demonstrate the key skills and competencies with reference to your most recent employment if you're a disabled person who because of the disability employment gap has been unable to find employment you're then in that classic catch 22 situation so I think something as simple as that of actually looking at how could we ask candidates to demonstrate their skills and competencies in a different way is a really good way of actually having a more inclusive recruitment process that would allow disabled people who maybe didn't have recent employment history but who had really great skills to be able to apply successfully for the job so that's one example and there are others like that That's great thank you so come to Paula next and then we'll go to Gary after that Thank you again Brian has very much captured what our view would be of that it is about not trying to have a sort of preconfigured set of criteria that somebody must respond to and it's about drawing out the skills that somebody and the kind of ability, the aptitude of the individual there's obviously some roles that lend themselves particularly well to that so there's a danger we can't just do it with entry roles but entry roles are helpful in the sense that you don't have to have in its early prior skills and experience and it can be about how you would approach a situation so you can give a real example of what the individual might encounter in the role and ask about what their approach would be towards that you can ask for ideas from someone you're not actually asking them to outline the previous skills and experience because one you wouldn't necessarily expect at that level but also because you're trying to draw out what their aptitude would be I think as you go into more experience roles where there's a more defined set of skills and experience that you're looking for again, you find there's certain roles that lend themselves well so we're thinking about content making roles or content development roles a lot of that again comes down to creativity and ideas so what we tend to do is where we can move away from being somebody to outline their previous skills and experience is actually to answer questions about so say ways in could you give us give us an idea for a programme or give us to talk to us about what sort of content formats that you enjoy and why and how would you deconstruct those so what we're trying to tap into there is their understanding of what makes good content and how that engages an audience and that's obviously specific to our organisation but what we've been able as Brian said to think about that in a different way for something like a reporting role in our news content we can offer different ways of applying so it may be prohibitive to say to somebody please give us all your skills and experience but what we could do is ask them to send us a one minute video of a story that they would report on in their local area and how they would do it and it's another way of showcasing their ability so I think really as you say Brian it's about trying to strip back this preconceived way that you must demonstrate it and think of other ways and obviously there are certain roles where somebody is coming in with a fresh perspective and an idea having that diversity of thought and Gary you alluded to it earlier different backgrounds perspective, life experience that you can bring to a team and to the ideas that that team generates those can speak for so much important than what you've necessarily been doing employment wise it's actually about in the past how you would approach your next role so trying to draw that out as much as possible great thank you so I'll come to Gary and then Alex and then we should have time for one more question before we have to wrap up Gary yeah I think I agree it's just about making maybe changing the recruitment process making it more accessible more positive action stuff like inclusion Scotland are doing with ring fence and positions for disabled people and I think just in general recruitment as well it could be things like if you meet a certain criteria then you don't have to do this test or you can go straight to an interview in certain cases stuff like that just to you know I don't like the word but level the playing field um for disabled candidates yeah so just being open to new recruitment processes and I think I like the fact that the Scottish Government have got a strategy as well is a good thing you know it's being talked about in Parliament and it's a national strategy so hopefully you know that will see some real movement in terms of employment and disability and I'll see the figures improved what we can do but hopefully we're doing the right things you know like with this discussion and you know stuff other stuff that's going on great thank you and finally on this one Alex um yeah thank you um yeah I think it's basically all been said just you know always question always question why you're doing things a certain way and can it be done a slightly different way um just a couple of them very quickly picking up on Gary's point there about the extended assessment process we worked with SDS recently for a couple of internships but it was quite an extended recruitment process involving presentations and verbal and numerical reasoning exercises stripped it back straight to the interview and the successful young lady had been in the role two years now suffered from anxiety and depression and freely admitted that she would not have went through that one would not have applied through that extended recruitment process but finally if I may we've spent quite a bit of time talking about the recruitment and bringing people into the organisation I can just very quickly touch on our journey through an organisation as an employee and you know impairments come to us at all times in our lives and certainly as we get older the linear progression of time brings its own impairments and one in five of us in Scotland has an impairment while it's always important to look at the recruitment process look at your current workforce identify we suggest and we've touched on it maybe slightly before and then work support document as well or sort of process maybe tie it in with part of your performance review and it's a recognition we'll look at performance but what support can we give to you to make you successful as you can in the role reflecting what the barriers you face might be and it's really just an audit of the role the barriers you face and the solutions in an organisation we can put in place to help you overcome those barriers so recruitment is important looking at what we do being smart trying to redefine existing ways of doing things but also very important the assets within the organisation the people you've got and support them because impairments come to us all at any journey any part of our life thank you absolutely and I think that's that's actually a really important a really important point to make that nobody really knows at what point an impairment may be maybe thrust upon them through various various of ill health and disability and impairment inducing events so I think that's something really important for all employers to remember that it's not just for new employees coming into organisations but you are actually potentially helping to support individuals that are already in your organisation that may, as you said Alex come to an impairment in time if anybody wants to reflect on that so the answer to this next question feel free to the last question I want to pick up on is from Audrey Cameron so the findings of the employment research project on deaf sign language particularly about the findings of the employment research project on deaf sign language users employers recognised that where there are deaf sign language users working in their organisations they are mostly in operational levels so progression and career development are key challenges so how do we support this group in particular but probably generally how do we support disabled people out of those entry level positions and into more promoted posts within organisations whether they be within private companies or within public organisations as well so Paula can I come to you first on that one and then I will come to Gary next thank you yes I think that is a key point and actually it does correlate to what you were speaking about there Alex as well in terms of your existing colleagues and people who are already working with you who are already in your industry who have a depth of skills and experience but who are perhaps facing challenges to progression and at the same time running in tandem with that we know that we have an under representation at senior levels again across all under represented groups where it is common that it can be across all under represented groups and it is good to understanding your organisation which particular groups that might relate to so I think looking at what you can put in place is a business, one of the things that we have done is developed what we call an accelerator programme and it helps to have you need to have for us for that to feel authentic to the individual because again I think Gary you sort of alluded to as well you are very mindful when you talk to be there about levelling the playing field you know that this is something that individuals have absolutely earned with the experience that they have under their belt but it is about removing those barriers that have inadvertently arisen for whatever that may be within that environment that has not allowed them to thrive and move on to the next level so where we are actually identifying roles at a senior level where we have a gap we perhaps don't have representation and we know that we have colleagues within our business who have those skills looking at how we can almost fast track their development and we are finding that that is coming in probably at the kind of mid level so it is not an entry level point where we are already in and already have a depth of experience in their own right and actually are working independently in their role with the experience that they have gained but actually looking at how we can broaden that further and move them on to the next level and that you know I think for minor organisations that is likely to be quite small scale but it can make it absolutely doesn't detract from how worthwhile it is for those individuals you know we are talking you know kind of a handful of people within our business about taking them from where they are now to actually through to an identified need within the business that also provides that career development for them and that involves going through a series of different secondments some of which are sideways moves some of which are taking on more responsibility but it is about fast tracking the process of them having that exposure so that when they get to that role we are aiming for within two years of starting that journey that they do feel they absolutely have had the ability to get that experience under their veil albeit as our slightly quicker rate so that's one of the ways that we are trying to approach that that's great thank you we've got about just under three minutes left so you've got about a minute each left to answer this question if possible so Gary I'll come to you next and then Alex then Brian well I agree I think it's it's a cultural thing it's a cultural shift that's got to happen and the more and more we chip away at it the faster it will happen and I think seeing disabled people in higher positions will make it happen faster and I think that's improving as well like the last Scottish Parliament only had one disabled parliamentary and now this one's I'm not sure of the number but it's definitely more than one but it's improving I think we're starting to get there and you know hopefully in a decade's time things will be much better and we'll be an outlier in the world for employment and disability absolutely I hope so too and I hope we have many more disabled colleagues next session as well Alex and then Brian please I'm very conscious of the time running here I think just alluded to earlier on you're certainly looking at the development of colleagues on regular and work support reviews tied in with the performance review as well to capture just life changes as they develop and then access to work Brian talks about it right at the start UKWI programme not utilise very much that can provide financial and tangible support to an individual or an organisation to make it more accessible and inclusive so those two things alone really help thank you and finally Brian I'll keep it very quick I was just delighted to hear Paula's example I think that's a really great example of an employer being creative and just doing things differently and you know if more employers were to do that we've got a heck of a long way to reduce the disability employment gap I think for me this whole thing about people being trapped in the kind of lower level entry jobs so much of it is because of the access to training and development opportunities as are non-disabled peers and that means that there are employers who are not making those training and professional opportunities accessible to disabled people so that needs to be addressed and I think Paula has given a fabulous answer about how that can be done in a very creative radically different way of doing it and I think that's the way forward to be honest Thank you so much for that I'm sure we could have continued this discussion for most of the evening but unfortunately we've got to end there I'd like to thank you all for joining us today and making such a contribution to our panel brought to you in partnership with Inclusion Scotland and Disability Equality Scotland I'd also like to thank our panel Alex Wilson, Gary McLean, Paula Gray and Brian Scott for giving up their time to take part thanks to our BSL interpretation team of Jill Wood and Helen Dunipace May I also take this opportunity to remind you that you can still catch the second half of the in conversation with writer and environmentalist George Monbiott which is happening also online I think if we can post a link to that in the chat we will For the next four days we have many more panels at the festival of politics on mental health safe cities, greenwashing and fast fashion and I do hope that you can join with these discussions but once again thank you for joining us this evening and enjoy the rest of the festival of politics