How to Build a More Disability-Inclusive Brand

Diversifying Workforces

While the working-from-home era represents significant gain for disability inclusion, a wide employment gap endures. Non-disabled Americans are more than three times as likely to be employed than those with disabilities.

To address everything from equitable hiring to more inclusive corporate events, a global corporate coalition leading reforms has been established. The Valuable 500, a community of multinational corporations committed to closing this employment gap, is driving positive momentum. For example, The Valuable 500 member Telefónica (Madrid) recently pledged to double its number of disabled employees within two years. To help develop C-suite disability talent, The Valuable 500 also launched a programme called Generation Valuable.

Elsewhere, several start-ups focus on inclusive hiring and bias elimination, such as US-based Inclusively, which helps connect disabled jobseekers with employers. Last year, a Microsoft-led coalition launched the Neurodiversity Career Connector to introduce “an untapped population of talent” to American employers.

As the Neurodiversity Career Connector makes clear, businesses are neglecting a key talent pool if they’re not removing barriers faced by disabled applicants. Partner with the crop of new companies – like Inclusively or Mentra (US), which supports neurodivergent jobseekers – helping to diversify workforces.

Workplaces Fit for All 

A more accommodating work environment is another key to disability inclusion. This means thinking more consciously about office design, as American firm Steelcase is doing, publishing the Blueprint for Inclusive Workplaces of the Future. Steelcase found 51% of people with disabilities across 28 countries believe an accessible physical space is a crucial element of an inclusive workplace. Meanwhile, at contract furniture show NeoCon 2023, we noted the appearance of wheelchair-accessible privacy pods.

Tech solutions can also help businesses better meet more employees’ needs, such as the recent wave of software promoting productivity for neurodivergent workers. For instance, UK-based Read&Write assists those struggling with literacy via features like text-to-speech services and focused reading modes. Also, think about making meetings and events easier for neurodivergent professionals. This is an aim of Google-backed initiative The Neu Project, which has published a Guide to Neuroinclusion for event professionals.

As we discuss in Future Workplace Trends, employers must demonstrate greater flexibility (providing options to work remotely) and empathy to retain future workers. As populations age and more people delay retirement, accommodating disability will become particularly crucial – and as highlighted here, businesses have a growing range of resources with which to do so.

Designing for Everybody

Universal design (designing a building, product or service so it can be accessed, understood and used to the widest extent possible), while long undervalued, is increasingly regarded as the norm, not a niche. Still, only 4% of companies are actively designing products for people with disabilities.

The process of designing for and with disabled people is becoming better facilitated and more equitable. Some products are being tweaked to make them easier to use – for instance, Samsung has implemented sound and tone variations to help operate the controls of its appliances. Other products are completely adaptive to suit individual needs – such as Sony’s Project Leonardo, an accessibility controller kit for the PlayStation 5 – suggesting what’s possible when disabled people are included in the creation process from the outset.

Brands should forge alliances with diverse disabled communities, honouring the “nothing about us without us” adage. Microsoft made a particularly impressive investment by opening the Inclusive Tech Lab in its headquarters near Seattle last year. The principle behind this incubator for the ideation, creation and evaluation of products is that designing for people with disabilities results in better design overall, benefitting everyone.

Recalibrating Representation

Disabled people are pushing to de-stereotype how they’re represented. Too often they’re infantilised – not imagined as participating in the range of human experiences, such as having children or intimate relationships – or seen through the lens of inspiration porn (where adversity is the hallmark of someone’s value). In response, savvy marketers are creating more nuanced depictions and storytelling.

Apple’s joyful ad The Greatest, which won the 2023 Entertainment Grand Prix for Music at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, roots itself in the everyday. It shows at-home, at-work and around-the-neighbourhood lives made easier and better with Apple’s adaptive tech features. Meanwhile, redressing the lack of conversation on disability and intimacy, a 50-video series on TikTok from period care brand August and adaptive underwear label Liberare (both US) showcased women with disabilities discussing topics like dealing with their periods and feeling sexy.

Following the lead of these brands, advertisers can move beyond tokenistic representation by showing a range of relatable people with disabilities who are fully engaged in everyday life. It’s also imperative to think beyond inspiration-based themes: strong human-interest stories will connect across the board in their own right.