The Digital Accessibility Podcast – Amy Low

In this episode of The Digital Accessibility Podcast, Joe James is joined by Amy Low, CEO of AbilityNet, a UK charity that has been transforming lives through technology for over 25 years.

Amy shares her unexpected journey into accessibility, moving from a career in commercial property and global operational leadership into the charity sector, where she now leads an organisation dedicated to making the digital world more inclusive.

We discuss:

• A non-traditional path into accessibility: How Amy’s career in sales, operations, and transformation shaped her approach to leadership at AbilityNet.
• Empowering individuals and organisations: The role AbilityNet plays in supporting both disabled people and businesses to remove digital barriers.
• Embedding inclusion beyond products: Why accessibility is as much about people and culture as it is about technology.
• Opportunities in inclusive hiring and training: Where Amy sees the most potential for lasting change in the workplace.
• The impact of accessibility work: Practical ways to create measurable, positive outcomes for communities and organisations.

This conversation offers a unique perspective from a leader who bridges commercial insight with social impact, showing how accessibility can be embedded at every level of an organisation.

Follow Amy Low:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-low-abilitynet-accessibility-digital-inclusion/

Follow Joe James:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeajames/

Twitter (X): https://twitter.com/A11yJoe

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PCRDigital

Visit PCR Digital:

https://www.pcrdigital.com/

Welcome back to the Digital Accessibility Podcast.

If you're looking to learn more about the field of

accessibility, how to implement it within your role

or your company, or to get advice on where to start or

see how others have navigated complex issues that you may

find along the way, then you're in the right place.

I'm honored to be able to share these insightful

chats with thought leaders, advocates, and practitioners

of digital accessibility throughout this podcast,

and I hope you'll find it a useful resource.

As always, thank you so much for listening, and

I hope you enjoy the chat

Today i'm really excited about our guest, someone who

spent over a decade driving inclusive practices and

making digital accessibilitya reality across industries.

I'm joined by Amy Low, the CEO of AbilityNet, a UK

based charity that's been transforming lives through

tech for over 25 years.

Amy's background spans both commercial and the

charity sectors with a deep expertise in strategy,

communications, and building inclusive communities.

She's also a certified professional in accessibility

core competencies, or CPAC, a champion of embedding

inclusive principles, not just in products, but in

people and culture too.

We're gonna be diving into the real impact of accessibility

work and how AbilityNet is empowering individuals and

businesses alike, and where the biggest opportunities lie

when it comes to inclusive hiring and training.

So welcome to the podcast, Amy.

Thank you and thanks for having me.

It's an amazing podcast and you've had some

fantastic guests in the back catalog, so I'm honored

to be joining the party.

The Honour is all mine and our listeners I'm

sure will be very happy that you are with us.

So thank you again.

Can't wait.

So I guess we'll kick things off.

as always, we'd like to hear about, the sort of

background of our guests.

So could you tell us about a bit about your journey

and what led you to, to work in the accessibility space

and eventually take on the, the CEO role at AbilityNet?

Sure.

Well, my journey into accessibility feels pretty

non-standard, although talking to others in the space and

listening to some of your previous podcasts, it does

seem that it is quite common.

I didn't come from a techie or a charity leader background.

I studied languages at uni, and then I spent over 15

years working in commercial property, so predominantly

for the Regis Group who were the world's largest

provider of flexible offices.

Whilst I was with them, I worked in a range of sales

and operational leadership and transformation roles,

firstly in the uk and then later as part of the global

performance improvement team covering Europe, the

Middle East, and Africa.

I guess I've always needed to feel a strong purpose

from the work that I do.

And when I was at Regis, this meant empowering organisations

of all shapes and sizes to achieve their objectives and

goals wherever in the world they wanted to operate and of

course, technology played a really important role in this.

I guess I learned ever such a lot along the way about.

what makes organisations and people tick and how

to deliver results and make impactful change.

And when my daughter was quite small, I was

finding travel, you know, increasingly challenging and

wanted a change, I guess.

And when I joined AbilityNet, it was a bit

of a wild card opportunity.

Put to me by a somewhat visionary

recruitment consultant.

She saw a, a sort of a tenuous fit between my skillset and

what the charity was looking for and put me forward

for the role of service delivery director and this

involved looking after all of AbilityNets, delivery

departments, including its digital accessibility

consultancy team, now

at that point, I didn't know anything about

accessibility at all.

and as I researched the opportunity, I kind of

became aware of these amazing assisted tools that disabled

people could use to access digital, which I didn't know

anything about but then I also learned of these barriers that

existed in the digital world and were preventing equitable

access, even if people had the tech that they needed.

And I guess this really pulled me up short.

And I was kind of hooked by the mission and, and the role

that AbilityNet could play in driving positive change.

And then I really wanted the job.

so.

Thankfully the recruitment panel saw something in me

and offered me the role and the rest is history.

I've now been with a AbilityNet for nearly 10

years, as you said, it's been the most amazing and rewarding

experience as well as

being a huge learning curve.

I mean, every day definitely feels like

a school day even now.

I was honored to step up and take on the role of

chief executive late last summer and just really

feel super privileged to work in such an incredible

sector and organisation.

Oh yeah.

Well, amazing.

And, yeah, I guess a bit non-conventional, the,

the entry into the space.

And as a recruiter, obviously I'm trying to

make those connections.

So it's great that that person, that recruiter

saw that, in you.

And it's, it's interesting 'cause a lot of

recruitment, unfortunately, is keyword searching.

So you could have been very easily overlooked

if you didn't have the word accessibility

or, or any sort of

experience in, in your background, but it's nice that

they saw, obviously you had lots of transferable skills

and, and things to, that you could, take to the role at

AbilityNet initially as well.

Yeah, I mean that the others that were in the mix did

have much more sort of.

Conventional backgrounds, but luckily I, I, I managed to

persuade them to take me in.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Well, yeah testament to you and your, your

ability to interview.

No.

Brilliant.

And it's obviously an, an excellent match, 10 years

and you're now CEO of the company as well, of the,

the charity and it's, yeah, just incredible what you've

been doing over those, those last 10 years, which has

sort of been when I've been aware of the space, so, yeah

amazing what you've done.

And it's, it's got a very unique blend of, of sort of

charitable work, so supporting individuals with disabilities

and advising global businesses on accessibility.

So, do you see much evolution in, in the charity's mission?

It's, it's very digital first in, in the world to date.

and, and the rise of things like ai, sorry, but

remote working as well.

Yeah, I mean, just for listeners who haven't come

across AbilityNet before, our vision is a digital

world accessible to all and for us that means

individuals having access, adaptations, and skills

to benefit from digital.

organisations creating digital experiences that are optimized

for the widest audience.

And it also involves convening and supporting a community

of practice to deliver this.

And we've been doing this work for over 27 years

now, so we've supported countless individuals and

thousands of organisations, including some of the

biggest brands on the planet.

And you know, your reflecting your time in

in the sector, Joe, a lot of progress has been made

in that time, however.

We are undoubtedly living in a really disrupted and

volatile world, aren't we?

and with the rate of change and innovation accelerating,

it feels like our mission's never been more relevant,

especially as digital begins to blend into the

physical world as well.

So one of our core values is innovation and when you

sort of start to delve into innovation, it's amazing

how much of, how many of the tools that we all use today.

Came out of efforts to remove barriers for disabled people.

and assistive technology's always been exciting and

groundbreaking, but AI has come along and blown

the doors off in terms of the art of the possible.

And of course, this is incredibly empowering

and transformative for individuals.

And one of our key roles at AbilityNet is ensuring

that people actually know about the tools that are

available to support them.

you know, in the services that we offer to end users,

one of the most commonly heard quotes is, I wish

I'd known about this before

this, this is going to be just life changing for me.

Yeah.

But sort of staying on ai, it obviously has, many,

many positive use cases, but also immense potential

to further exclude people.

And AbilityNet has a mission and a duty.

To make sure that accessibility requirements

are understood and baked into the fantastic world that,

that work that's taking place in the innovation space as

well as in, you know, your, your average day-to-day

digital developments.

And I think the threshold to get involved in developing

digital tools is, is becoming lower and lower and it's just

making sure that guardrails are in place to prevent a mass

proliferation of inaccessible digital experiences.

Yeah.

so, sorry, go on, Joe.

No, just on that, just on that point, just very

briefly, it's, you are right.

I think everyone now has the opportunity to become

a, content producer.

You know, we've all got social media profiles and

things, so even on that smaller scale, not necessarily

building products and, and websites, but yeah, so every,

everyone's got their voice, but we wanna make sure that

everyone's being considered.

So, yeah.

That's it.

Definitely.

And, and I think there's a policy piece here.

So some of the work that we do feeding into government policy

and wider research is really helping the voices of disabled

people to be represented.

I think this is so important.

It, if not the most important thing because.

Unfortunately the populations working in tech do still

lack diversity with disabled colleagues underrepresented.

And that has a knock on effect on the ability of

teams to know how to produce accessible experiences.

So, so I think that's a really important area to think about.

So you talked about evolution of our mission, and of

course it is ever evolving to keep pace with change,

but some of the fundamental areas that we impact,

remain pretty similar, I would say awareness.

Still an enormous challenge.

We've got a really big job on our hands with

our charitable activities to support digitally

excluded and disadvantaged people to embrace tech.

And then within organisations, despite working, you

know, with a wide range of organisations on

this over many years.

It's such a very picture and in many organisations

there's just this fundamental gap in understanding and

confidence, which I think sometimes can, can, mean

that people stick their head in the sand, they don't

wanna do the wrong thing, so they don't do anything.

and that's, a massive own goal, obviously.

Yeah.

Geez.

Yeah.

you, you're so right.

And that's the thing.

It's the fear of of, of not knowing the right thing

to say sometimes as well.

I think that that's a huge education piece right.

At the, at the forefront of accessibility is, is

that education on how to speak to people with

disabilities as well.

I think there are, there's an ever increasing.

Case in our lives and as we all grow older as well,

that we'll come into contact with more people that

experience an an impairment or have a disability or,

we, we get that ourselves even with the temporary

side of things as well.

So it's, yeah, hoping that that work can be done, sort

of more naturally, but, but the need to raise that

awareness from the people that are in the know is really,

yeah, really important.

I think accessibility is quite often owned at a

middle management level.

and as a consequence, often the further up the tree you go

in an organization, the worse that sort of situation gets,

you know, and so having those discussions at the top table

is quite important as well.

Especially if you are going to properly embed

digital accessibility in an organisation.

It's a huge change management piece, and, and I think a

lot of people underestimate that task and, and making

sure that they're able to do that groundwork with

stakeholders and get that goodwill and, and sort of.

Spend adequate time on really agreeing where it

is they want to get to.

I know with the organisations we work with, increasingly

we spending time working with clients to really

coalesce stakeholders around a clear vision and ambition.

Sometimes people say they wanna do something about

it, but they're not really clear on what that is.

so spending some time there, getting that down

in their words and, and really, you know, getting

that motivation going and then looking to those

organization-wide roadmaps, you know, what do they need

to do next to encourage challenge and motivate

people to take action.

And then from a practical sense, it has to live

across the organisation.

So if it's not a part of process flows, if it's not

baked into policies and made as straightforward as

possible, you are always gonna be reliant on the

goodwill of individuals and it's just not sustainable.

No, you're right.

And all too often we hear that people do accessibility

as a side of desk thing.

It's something that they do because they've personally

had that experience or awareness, but they don't have

the clout, maybe, I suppose, in their role, within an

organization to, to push for it or gain that buy-in and.

They're doing great things, but then that

can also just get lost.

So once someone leaves an organization, they may have

done some incredible things, but if a, say a developer or

a designer comes in to replace that person that doesn't

have that viewpoint, it can all just get lost and, and

back to square one almost.

So you are so right.

I think, yeah.

Baking it in across the organization is, is

so key, to, to, well.

Meaningful change.

yeah.

Otherwise a lot of energy can go into something

that just rolls back.

And I think sometimes these side of the desk

heroes carry a hell of a lot on their shoulders.

But also then there's this temptation within

organisations to say, oh, you know, oh me,

digital accessibility.

Mary looks after that.

And you know that naivety of.

This is something that needs to live in everybody's

work plan and just become part of quality assurance

as much as anything else.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

No, so true.

And, and that nicely brings us onto the next

sort of, question around training and inclusion.

So I know that ability, that Net does a lot

of work supporting the education and training.

Across the board.

So from empowering students with disabilities to

helping companies build that into their train,

their own training modules.

so what would you say the key, the key sort of

ingredients would be for building a truly inclusive

learning environment?

both in education, but also in the workplace?

It is really interesting.

I mean, accessibility in the learning space

is a fascinating area.

l and d can be highly innovative and is

often a newly adopter of new technologies.

so many learning professionals that we meet who are.

Just building their understanding around digital

accessibility can start off by being a bit dismayed,

because they, you know, they'll quickly discover that

some of the tools they're using might be excluding some

audiences, but on the flip side could be highly engaging

and optimized for others.

so I think the key to inclusive learning

environments is, once again, awareness.

clear communication and also accepting that it's all right

to offer options to meet the learning and accessibility

needs of diverse audiences.

I dunno if you've come across Universal Design

for Learning principles.

I have very briefly, but yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, they'd seem eerily familiar to you because

they're really close cousins to accessibility principles

and you know, as with many contexts when you bake.

Accessibility into the learning environment

from the outset and offer different choices and ways

to engage with learning.

It tends to just make it richer and bring

benefits to everyone that's experiencing it.

I mean, when it comes to materials.

Two, that relates specifically to learning

about digital accessibility?

I'd say some of the key ingredients that we look

to inject to maximize impact and learning

firstly, is storytelling, cannot over overstate the

importance of, of, you know, lived experience

to underlying messages.

live demos, they, they speak a thousand words.

Just showing people what a great experience looks like

versus a terrible experience.

And, I think people have a lot of questions.

When it comes to digital accessibility, but again,

going back to what we were saying earlier, there's a

nervousness to ask them.

So allowing plenty of time for q and A is important,

allowing different methods to ask questions.

We often have an anonymous way to ask questions

'cause people are worried.

Getting things wrong and giving people practical

exercises to do.

because again, it's a real learn by doing space.

I think, our team absolutely love delivering training

with, with most groups, you'll see light bulbs start

to go off above people's heads and they get this kind

of look in their eye and you think you can't wait.

To run out the door and, and go start

fixing things, can you?

but I, I think it's really important before we move

on there, to, to say that for effective learning to

take place, it's important that training isn't just

a tick box exercise.

You know, it must form part of a wider change program.

Otherwise the learning, even if it's really excellent,

has got nowhere to go and people might stick

back into, you know, how we've always done things.

So when we're working with organisations, we always

try to shape strategic learning interventions that

that form a part of their overall maturity journey.

I know.

I've lost headphones.

Yeah, that's fine.

I'll just put my hands up for the editor so you can find,

did the sound go funny then?

No, it was fine.

I'll be able to get that.

Oh,

I've lost you.

Odd.

There we go.

And then when you pressed the button, it hung up on you.

Oh, so, so that was all right.

Was it?

You don't think we need to redo that there?

No, it'd be fine.

We've got a, a, funnily enough, an AI model that, it

enhances all of the sound.

Oh,

there we go.

Oh my God.

Right.

I'm not touching them again.

Okay.

I'm not gonna smile too much.

Just bit echoy in this room, so I thought I'd be

better off of headphones, but there we go.

No, it's fine.

Yeah.

But the, the sound will be fine.

We can actually, we can enhance it.

So it actually sounds like we're using a, a proper

studio and microphone.

So I fool that.

I know ai, one of the good things I can actually

understand myself then.

awesome.

Right.

So from that bit I was just going to mention, right.

I'll try and, however be yes, the lived experience part,

That's all amazing.

I think one, one part that really stuck out for me, I was

having a conversation just, on Thursday last week with

someone who, mentioned how, how important, the, obviously

the lived experience part is, and in that discussion

we were saying that sometimes the imposter phenomenon or

imposter syndrome in people that work in this space is

because they feel that they, they don't have any legitimate

personal experience, so they always feel they're

talking on behalf of others.

And what, it was Ben, Ogilvy actually from Touch in the us.

Okay.

And he, he was saying that he, he's more than happy

to lend stories, stories of things that have impacted

him directly and that, like you say, the storytelling

element is so important.

And the live demos I think is a wonderful idea.

I'm definitely someone that learns more from seeing or

doing, and as much as I love.

The idea of sitting down and reading a a book, sometimes

it just doesn't go in.

and I, I find myself rereading the same page a few times.

attention spans quite poor these days, but, yeah, I

think that that's, it's a wonderful thing and it's,

it, I've learned so much from these conversations that

I've had on the podcast and, and, you know, helping to

hire people in the space and,

Yeah, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I'm a

professional myself in, in that, but I've gained an

awful lot of knowledge and experience through others.

so I think that's a wonderful way to go about things.

And I bet it is the stories that has made it sick.

'cause it, it certainly was for me, you know, when I

was trying to learn about accessibility at a, a

frenetic pace, when, when I took the job and, you know,

just asking people to really explain it to me, you know,

like I'm two years old, you know, and, and that just.

You know, people sort of were like, okay.

But then it led to them starting to tell stories,

show me things, and, and then everything starts

to kick into place.

Does that, yeah.

Amazing.

And you actually, you start to then identify things

that, oh, actually this has directly impacted me or

family members, you know, and it makes me think about

my parents and my uncle.

My uncle lives with Down Syndrome and severe autism,

and it's, that's just so natural and normal for me

because I've grown up with, with, you know, people with

disabilities in my life.

And I didn't really see it as, oh, you're gonna struggle

to use technology, or you're gonna, you know, access your

online bank account, you know.

It is like actually it brings it much closer

to home and, Normalizes things, it's not so scary.

Then when you, when you sort of get familiarity.

Yeah, we've got lots of team members who obviously

have a lot of professional experience, but lived

experience as well, and I think that can be really

powerful in the learning space is people being

able to talk from their professional viewpoint,

but also sharing, sharing their own stories, so yeah.

Amazing.

Perfect.

And that's the, I mean, community, and collaboration

was another key topic that I was hoping to discuss.

And that's one of the things that stands out about your

leadership is that focus on the collaboration.

So whether it's through Tech Share Pro, the conference,

or partnerships with other organisations, it feels like

you're always looking to just bring people together.

It's much less divisive as, as you see in a lot of other

sort of tech if, if it's tech first like communities.

But, we have discussed recently how welcoming and,

and collaborative the, the accessibility community is.

So, do you feel that that is just essential to driving

accessibility forward them?

Definitely.

And I think, interestingly, collaboration is

another of our core values, that AbilityNet.

And, you know, we consider it to be a strategic

imperative if we are gonna make serious progress towards

our vision of a digital world accessible to all.

you might have heard the African proverb that goes, if

you want to go fast, go alone.

If you want to go far, go together.

And I think this is most definitely true in the

accessibility space.

And you know, we are so proud to partner and collaborate

with an amazing range of organisations and individuals

that share our mission.

you are so right.

We love to take opportunities to convene the community.

Our annual digital accessibility conference,

tech Share Pro takes place every November.

It's a hybrid event, and it's in its ninth year this year.

It's attended by accessibility professionals and dare I

say, rock stars from, you know, around the globe.

And for me it's a massive high point of my year.

I just buzz off that coming together to, to talk

about what we've achieved and also to think about

what we need to do next.

I think when you and I first met, we talked about how

lonely leading accessibility can feel inside some

organisations, and we are lucky enough to have this

really collegiate community.

and, and you see how it brings strength and support and

motivation, to, to folks who are doing the work to continue

when the going gets tough.

you know, the generosity as well that I see in the

collaborative activities we both take part in and

benefit from at AbilityNet is pretty humbling.

Like you say, when you compare it with perhaps

some other sectors.

And I feel really lucky to work in this world.

Oh, amazing.

Well, we're lucky to have you in the, in the community

and in the sector, and it's, it is, it's very humbling.

And, and seeing all of that generosity and that kind of

ends up leaching into other parts of your life as well,

because if you're doing it for work, you know, you,

you spend most of your, your, your life working.

You know, you get two days off at a weekend if you're lucky.

Yeah.

and it's, I mean, yeah, it's.

It's so nice to see because I have worked in other

areas of technology and it's very much if you're

working in a a greenfield sort of project and you.

Trying to beat the competition.

That's all gonna be under NDAs.

It's locked away.

No one else can know about it.

We make strides with the strides forward with,

with open source, sort of code and things like

that, which is excellent, but it's always when.

Someone else has had their use out of it.

But with this, it needs to be driven together, I think.

And yeah, you do just see people saying, oh,

I figured something out.

Why don't you use it on yours?

You know, it's gonna help you too.

And I do think that feeds into the, there is difficulty

I think, sometimes where people unfortunately have

the incorrect viewpoint of accessibility because it's

for, I mean, we live in a, a, in England we live in,

you know, a country where we're very, very fortunate

to have things like the NHS.

And people will unfortunately make the connection of

if you're living with a disability or impairment, or

you have a condition, you have access to free healthcare.

So sometimes they liken that too.

If something needs to be done to make things accessible for

you, then it should be free.

But actually, there's a cost to everything and it's still

very much like you say, with the innovation, it's at the

forefront of technology.

So why shouldn't it be paid for, you know?

And actually, there's real value in that and return

on the investment too.

But I'm, I'll digress.

I, I could speak on that point all day long.

I hear you.

But anyway, so, I guess the next part would be,

naturally I have to, or a recruitment consultant.

I say too often people get bored with it.

But, working within this field, I'd love to sort

of get your thoughts on.

on the, the, the hiring gap, I suppose, and, and

that there are limited sort of skills, in this space.

but what more do you think could be done to ensure

that companies are, are sort of ready to support

a more diverse workforce that includes people with

impairments or disabilities?

I mean, despite the growing awareness, there

is that gap in terms of.

The recruitment practices as well and, and people being

able to apply for roles that they know that they could do.

There's, there's just not enough disabled professionals

represented in tech roles, which is a, a fact.

but is there any advice you could give to employers

that want to build more inclusive teams and, and

what's the starting point?

Sorry.

I know it's a very long question.

No, not at all.

I mean, this is an area that I feel really passionately about

the disability employment gap is pretty stubborn.

I did see something recently that said representation

of disabled people in tech roles is improving.

So we are definitely starting to see traction.

And you know, I think a lot of that is skills

based and, and it is that, people are identifying

great candidates, they are flexing their recruitment

processes and their working policies to, to accommodate

different ways of working.

And they are, reaping the benefits.

you know, at AbilityNet we've got a really high fraction

of, of disabled colleagues and we are all the richer for it.

and, and this directly translates into the quality

and depth of support that we can offer to customers

another one of our core values is inclusion.

as you, as you might expect, and our HR department, our

line managers and the team at large have got a really

good grounding, inaccessible inclusive practices, not.

Just in recruitment, but right along the employee journey.

and, and, and no one sort of assumes they've got it nailed.

We, we work with the wider team to gather feedback and,

and continually co-design processes and improvements.

I think this is another area where there's a

lot of nervousness.

It can be hard to determine priorities to get started.

So, I would advocate always listening to

feedback and looking for some quick wins there.

There's usually loads of things that you can do inside

your organization that cost nothing and is gonna make

a lot of difference for disabled colleagues, but.

The wider team as well.

Again, it goes back to what I was saying when we were

talking about learning, flexibility and choice is

the most important thing.

you may also identify some more fundamental changes

that might need more effort, but are gonna have

a really large and visible impact on an organization's

employee experience.

And, and that's really key.

Reputationally can be really good for your

brand as an employer.

I think having an understanding of

barriers is key.

going round to recruitment.

you'll probably be able to tell me this anyway, but

you know, having a really clear set of instructions

about what's gonna happen in a recruitment process.

When it's gonna happen, high performance

is gonna be scored.

That kind of thing obviously is beneficial for everybody,

but for perhaps neurodivergent candidates or candidates

living with anxiety, you might struggle filling

in the gaps around vague instructions and expectations.

it that will be really, really important.

And again, considering.

Things like time to process.

When you're asked a question, you know, the person who

comes up with the quick and slick response isn't

necessarily, you know, better than somebody who has to

think a while, and often that candidate who gives it

proper thought and responds.

Is probably coming back with a more fully

thought out response.

But, you know, we've probably all had some

biases in the past when we haven't thought about that.

So things like providing questions in advance or giving

people, you know, 15 minutes to read the questions and then

asking them is going to give you a, a better sense of who,

who the right candidate is.

I

mean, we, we de developed a diagnostic tool

specifically for this, called the disability

inclusion Gap Analysis.

And it, again, it's got, it's a bit like our maturity model

for digital accessibility within an organisation.

But what you are really looking at is how mature

are you at each stop in the employee journey.

So recruitment, onboarding.

General ways of working, meetings and events,

performance and career development, which is a

really important area.

There is a bit of a glass ceiling, that

disabled colleagues tend to butt up against.

And, and a lot of that can be to do with how development's

done within an organisation.

And.

It's just, a helpful way for people to benchmark where they

are and get some ideas about where they want to go next.

And, Integrity is our fourth company value.

So it was really important for us to walk the walk.

So we put ourselves through that gap analysis

and we keep focused on where we can improve.

I think another thing I, I can't remember what

the stat is, you might know this, but disabled

candidates have to apply for a large multiple of roles

compared with non-disabled candidates before.

Stay secure a role.

And, whilst it gets some criticism here and there,

I do think the disability confidence scheme is a

good thing to sign up to.

if you go for the level three accreditation, as we

have done, you get external validation from another

level three organisation.

So that's a really valuable reflective process and that.

Is a really good indicator then to candidates that they

should be able to expect a positive experience with

that organization if they did apply for a role there.

Yeah, definitely.

And I love that your, the commitment there as well is,

is not just like you say.

On the hiring side of things or the recruitment side,

because you could be doing all the right things and

bringing people in, but if you're not actually set up

as a business to support people with their needs or

any adjustments that might be required, then you're actually

failing people all the same.

which I've heard some real horror stories throughout

the years of people that have been offered a job

and they are great at it, but they just couldn't

access the systems that they were using internally.

So you turn up for work and you can't actually

log on or you can't.

See the screen or whatever it might be.

And even down to the physical element, I've had some

people that have turned up to work in an office and

it's on the third floor with no lift access, and that's

just not an accessible working environment for them.

So it's I love that you are, yeah.

The, the, the process doesn't end at congratulations, you've

got the job, but yeah, I think the stat, I mean it's a

bit skewed is around 60% more jobs, but I think that it's

actually higher than that.

I think that's, you know, that would be a. A, an

unfair average to state that it's 60% more, especially

in the current market.

I think the jobs market at the moment is

very hard for people.

There's an awful lot of competition.

and it's, again, it's the, the non awareness of, of people.

They might think that hiring teams may think

that, someone without.

A requirement for an adjustment to be made may

do a better job, but that's, it's not, not always, most

times, often not the case.

So, yeah, I think again, I mean, it all comes

back to awareness.

So it's, it's one of those awareness and an education.

and I hope that we'll see a, a change, but

that's, it's, yeah.

It's amazing that you've got that, that process

throughout AbilityNet.

And if, if I was to advise an organization which fit

to focus on, I would say onboarding is actually really,

really key because setting people up for success is.

You know, again, there are some stats which I can't

pull off the top of my head, but about, you know, if,

if your onboarding isn't satisfactory, you are very,

very likely to leave that organization within 12 months.

And, you know, you put all that effort into

recruitment and then think, oh, why, you know,

why didn't that work out?

But again, communication, having a range of ways of

working that people can choose from, assistive technologies,

all of those things.

You don't have to have a specialist process

for disabled candidates.

It, it just can be something that, you know,

that dialogue that you're opening up with everybody.

What do you need to help you perform at your best?

and that spending that time will pay dividends with

that doubt and from, from personal experience as well.

The people that are gonna be.

Best, equipped at telling you what they need are

the people that have the requirements themselves.

So if you're just not asking the question,

then you're just setting yourself up for failure.

There's a lot of schemes like access to work

and, people living with, disabilities will understand

exactly what they need.

So you can't just make assumptions either.

So you're right, the onboarding, asking the

right questions as early on as possible, you can just,

yeah, make sure that things.

Run smoothly.

You are a hundred percent right.

but amazing.

So Amy, I can't believe it already time's flying,

but before we wrap up, is there anything that you are

especially excited about at the moment or is there any new

initiatives that AbilityNet or any personal projects,

just any final thoughts, really anything that you

are you'd like to share?

Well, there's always lots of things that I'm excited about.

so I won't give you the full list or we'll

be here all night.

I'm obviously very, very excited about Tech Share Pro

2025 that's taking shape now.

the themes that we have this year, CX customer experience,

I'm really excited about that.

It's.

Area where accessibility should be entirely

baked in, but that isn't always the case.

So we're gonna be unpacking, you know, how do you bring

those two communities together and, and in increase

and improve collaboration?

'cause that's got a big impact on the customer.

And, and the employee side.

I think the, the whole CX piece and there's some

really exciting innovation going on in that area.

AI and accessibility of course is a theme, and

again, we've got lots of exciting people sort of

liming up with different perspectives on that.

So really keen to see those conversations start to unfold.

Accessibility leadership is an area that we'll be

covering and neurodivergence and accessibility.

so it's gonna be really, really great.

Tickets are on sales, so, really look, and I think you

are coming this year though.

Oh yeah.

Yay.

I can't wait.

It's gonna be, it's something I've been meaning to get

to for many years and, yeah, very grateful to

my boss that she's helped to fund my ticket, so

I'll definitely be there.

Brilliant stuff.

on the accessibility leaders side, there's a, there's a

project that we're working on that I'm really excited

to get off the ground, which is an accessibility

leaders peer group, which we plan to launch very soon.

As I mentioned earlier, I think accessibility can

feel like a bit of a slog at times and, and folks in

the sector really value time together to problem solve

and encourage one another.

So we are looking that the program will be sort of

part training, part peer support, part coaching and

mentoring with a bit of all important socializing.

Thrown in.

So we'll be sending out some expression of interest

invitations fairly imminently, if not already done at

the time of listening.

So any listeners that are interested, keep your eyes

peeled on LinkedIn or in your inbox for more information.

so I don't know that, what else?

I think the digital inclusion work that we do within

AbilityNet, it feels like what's been, coming out

from government and through London Tech Week and this

huge sort of emphasis on digital as a way to solve a

lot of the challenges that we're experiencing in this

country, and it's really, really important that.

Digital inclusion is considered in there.

There were so many people who still don't have access

to a device data or, or skills and confidence.

And some of the work that AbilityNet's doing supported

by, fantastic organisations like BT Group, Capgemini

and others is really pushing into that space.

So, wanna be doing a lot more of that as, as time goes on.

Oh, amazing.

Oh, it just sounds like, yeah, there's, there's always so

much going on, like you said, and it's, it must just be

amazing being at the forefront of a lot of that as well.

'cause you'll be one of the first to hear about

certain things that are happening in the space.

And it's, probably quite difficult to, to not shout

about it all the time.

But definitely my soapbox is well overused, well overused.

I guess, I guess my final thought today is an analogy

that people may have heard me used multiple times before,

but it's so accurate, is that working in accessibility

can literally feel like, maintain, you know, just

when you think you've got to the top, you go round a

corner and there's further peaks sort of stretching above

you that you need to scale.

and I found another quote actually that I love that

really encapsulates it for me.

It's a Haitian one this time.

I think I pronounced that right.

and the quote is Beyond the mountains, more mountain and.

And I guess it means that actually life itself is an

ongoing struggle, right?

But that's what makes it so meaningful.

And you know, when we go back to, the analogy of

mountaineering, it can also be really exhilarating.

And, you know, when you look a across the mountain, there's

so many other great people who are scaling it with you.

so although we've.

Always got a ton of work still to be done.

I do think we all deserve those moments where we can

kind of stand together at a viewing point and admire

what's behind us and how far we've come before we then

look around and and plan the next stage of our journey.

And I mean every single Yeah, you're right.

Accessibility's never gonna be done.

There's no full stop at the end of it.

'cause things will always change and it's, it's

an interesting one.

So now I've got a feeling I'm gonna have to start looking

for people with the job title.

Accessibility Sherpa.

Yeah, because you're gonna be guiding people

up those mountains.

I love that.

That is a good job title.

We'll have to, we'll have to start getting the

JD together, won't we?

That's it a hundred percent.

As long as you've got your climbing boots, then join on.

amazing.

Well, Amy, thank you so much, for joining me today.

And for everything you know, the conversations,

the time you've given me, it means an awful lot.

And, I just really appreciate everything you are doing

and AbilityNet is doing.

and I just hope that today's conversation sparks more of

that awareness and action.

I hope, I think that's a, a key thing as well.

So just thank you as always, and to everyone

that's listening.

Oh, thanks Joe.

And yeah, have a great rest of the day and thanks for

having me on the podcast.

Oh, more than welcome.