Disability Confident Charter

1. Reasonable Adjustments – we’ll make changes at work to give disabled staff the same opportunities as others.

Where necessary, Tai Calon will take informed guidance from qualified professionals to make adjustments for disabled staff. This could mean changing your workspace, adjusting procedures or providing extra resources that better meet your needs. Our priority will be to provide fair treatment that makes you feel safe and comfortable at work.

2. Sickness Absence – we’ll give managers the tools to support staff who are sick and need help to return to work.

We’ll make our procedures around sickness absence accessible to everyone – and help you understand anything that may not be clear. We will provide managers with informed advice and support to help you return to work after a period of sickness – this could be medical guidance or clarity on employment terms such as sick pay.

3. Career Development – we’ll remove obstacles and promote career development for disabled staff.

We will change and modify our training, learning and development practices to ensure you can access the same opportunities as everyone else. We will base our recommendations for training and development programmes on your talent, ambition and aspirations – not on any protected characteristics.

4. Mental Health – we’ll make good mental health a priority, and provide flexible counselling for all staff.

Tai Calon will use our partnership with Care First – our employee assistance programme – to provide  a range of mental health resources and support. This includes access to online lifestyle resources, webinars and flexible counselling that is free, confidential and available at any time. In addition to this, we will invest in mental health first aid, conduct stress risk assessments and take qualified medical advice to help us better support staff who experience occasions of poor mental health.

5. Recruitment – we tailor our processes to ensure recruitment is based on talent and supports disabled applicants.

We have adjusted our recruitment processes to strengthen fair and objective decision-making by recruitment panels. All job applications are anonymised and contain no personal data when they are given to recruiting managers. Where a shortlisted candidate discloses a disability or underlying condition, we actively work with them to make adjustments and provide them with the same opportunities as other candidates. Recruiting managers receive equality and diversity training – including guidance on unconscious bias. We welcome candidates to contact us if our application process isn’t suitable or accessible – we’ll change it to meet your specific needs.

6. Work Experience – we unlock job prospects for disabled people through work experience and community schemes.

Tai Calon has an Employment and Skills team that delivers a range of programmes that provide work experience and placements to disabled people. We have service level agreements with partners including Job Centre Plus, 3SC and Elite Supported Employment to help deliver these schemes. In addition to this – we run programmes that help build key skills, resilience and connections within our communities.