Minutes from the round-table on how to attract and retain talent with disabilities

By Henrik Rydén

Impactpool is the world’s fastest-growing career platform for impact career. More than 1000 international organisations use Impactpool to reach global impact talents and more than 500'000 global talents use us for career support. Mid-June we organised a roundtable for our HR partners to discuss how to attract and retain talent living with disabilities. 35 organisations attended, before the event they responded to a survey, the ice-breaker keynote was given by Alexander Hauerslev Jensen, CCO at BeMyEyes.

The illustration below shows how BeMyEyes debunks disabilities. 

Impactpool has in a short time-frame built a huge network of HR professionals in social enterprises, HR tech entrepreneurs, recruiters in development banks, multilateral, bilateral, international, and non-governmental organisations. The purpose of our roundtables is to gather organisations and facilitate dialogue to support the sharing of tips, ideas, and best practices between HR professionals working and facing similar challenges.

 

Roundtable survey

Before the roundtable, each participating organization was asked to fill in a survey. The complete survey result is included in the minutes. 

  • The survey showed that 53% of the responding organisations use specific sourcing methods to reach out to and to attract candidates living with disabilities.

  • 50% of the responding organisations are having a screen-reader friendly recruitment system.

  • 90% of the responding organisations are having an inclusion disclaimer on their jobs.

  • 50% indicated that they have a recruitment system that is easy to use for candidates. This was the answer that surprised us the most. We know that some organisations have invested in new tools with a more user-friendly interface for candidates. But, most multilateral organisations are using complex ERP systems, with complex applicant interfaces, with complex lingo with questions not common outside this sector.

 

What some organisations do.  A comprehensive list of activities can be found in the minutes below.

  • Unicef and CERN reach out to various local associations for people with disabilities.

  • CERN also has a paid internship program for talent with disabilities, maybe Anna from CERN could say something about that later.

  • The UN secretariat has added a plug-in from the provider User1st, that optimize the screen for screen readers and helping user to magnifying items on the screen, it would be interesting to hear more from the secretariat  about this plug-in, if it works and if they can see any increased volume of applicants,

  • EPSO, the European Personnel Selection Office calls for cooperation to EU organisations involved in the promotion and welfare of EU citizens with disabilities

  • UNV is dedicating sponsored Volunteer assignments for people with disabilities, 

    If you are not yet an Impactpool partner, but feel that you would benefit from the minutes shared as a result of this roundtable, we ask you to kindly become a partner before you download.

     

    . You are also more than welcome to set up a meeting with me. As soon as you have become a partner, you can also join our next roundtable.