ACCESS TRAINING

A survey by the Disability Rights Commission found that "41% of disabled people valued a positive attitude above value for money". Unfortunately, there is no legal duty for businesses to provide employees with training on disability discrimination.

BUILT ENERGY believes that training employees to provide equal access creates huge improvements in customer service, as it has been proved that the majority of complaints of discrimination are due to the way disabled people were dealt with by members of staff. Disability awareness training is the key to achieving a positive attitude amongst staff when approaching a disabled customer.

The DDA states that employers are responsible for anything done by their staff in the course of their employment, even if it took place without their knowledge or approval. An employer can be held responsible for discrimination if a member of staff provides a less favourable service to a customer with a disability than to other, non-disabled customers. However, the employer would have a ‘due diligence’ defence if they could prove that they took reasonable steps to prevent the employee from doing the act in question.

We feel that, as an employer, it is important that you should ensure that staff members are well equipped to provide inclusive service to all. They also need to know what types of auxiliary aids or alternative services are available to customers. To protect business owners, all attendees of our training courses are provided with a training record that should be kept because it may useful if you ever need to defend your actions in county court.

Successful ‘strategy for change’ can only take place from ‘the top down’ as importance in developing and delivering accessible services needs to be understood by everyone in your organisation. At BUILT ENERGY, our training courses have been designed for business owners, managers and employees because everyone is more likely to take accessibility issues seriously if there is top-level commitment.