Sainsbury’s achieves ‘Disability Confident Leader’ status
The Department for Work and Pensions has announced that Sainsbury’s has achieved Disability Confident Leader status, the highest tier of accreditation in the government’s Disability Confident Programme.
Employing over 190,000 staff, the supermarket is the largest retailer to achieve the status.
To gain the recognition, Sainsbury’s had to demonstrate not only that it takes positive action to employ disabled people and follows best practice, but that it proactively encourages other employers to become Disability Confident.
The Disability Confident Programme was launched by the Department for Work and Pensions a year ago with the aim of helping employers recruit and retain disabled people and people with health conditions for their skills and talent.
As part of the scheme, the Department for Work and Pensions also set up the Disability Confident Business Leaders Group, which is engaging with the business community on disability employment. Tim Fallowfield, Sainsbury’s company secretary and corporate services director, was appointed as chair of the group last December. Over 5,000 businesses have signed up so far.
Fallowfield, who is also Sainsbury’s board sponsor for disability and carers, said: “We are very proud to have achieved the status of Disability Confident Leader, which recognises our hard work in this area. We have developed a number of initiatives, from our You Can programme which enables us to recruit colleagues who may face barriers to employment, to creating a guide to workplace adjustments for our managers.
“Through our involvement in the Disability Confident Business Leaders Group, we hope to encourage as many employers as possible to feel confident in employing people with a disability, providing those colleagues with the opportunity to realise their potential.”
