Covid-19 and Disabled People - Reflections One Year On

"The biggest and quickest reasonable adjustment ever made. Let us never hear the health and safety excuse again"

The sentiment of disabled people about the world’s response to Covid-19 and more specifically the nearly wholesale move to remote working overnight.

Everybody has been deeply affected by the pandemic over the last 12 months since the first lockdown on 23 March 2020. Over 125,000 people have directly died and counting. Indirectly, thousands upon thousands have also died through delayed diagnosis and treatment.

Recent ONS data has found disabled people accounted for 6 in 10 deaths in England last year. Closer scrutiny suggests the risk of death is three times greater for more severely disabled people, and 3.7 times for those with a learning disability. It is not just about deaths. Disabled people have been disproportionately isolated, cut adrift from mainstream society both face to face and online. But it would be wrong and far too easy to focus only on negatives.

As a disabled person I wanted to share my reflections of Covid-19, one year on, the positive lessons we can learn and what this might mean for you as an individual and your organisation going forward. I am writing in a personal capacity and not as CEO of Purple although there will clearly be significant overlap in terms of views. I focus on four key issues.

Online Accessibility

Only 3% of the top worldwide 1 million websites meet basic WCAG accessibility standards. 80% of UK websites don’t meet minimum industry standards. All the answers – and how to implement – exists in the public domain but it has been completely ignored. 22% of the UK population are disabled. Organisations are passing up over one fifth of potential consumers.

In 2021, this is economically and morally naive and blatantly wrong. Four months before the first lockdown, I presented at a conference and challenged the audience to go home that evening, unplug their mouse, and see the extent to which they could navigate their company’s website. Most decided to do it there and then and probably did not hear the rest of my crafted messages! However, the point was made. In lockdown it became clearly apparent disabled people were not accessing vital online information, able to buy core products including food and connect with others via social media.

Poor accessibility impacts people with a range of disabilities. Cluttered pages are one of the main reasons why people experiencing poor mental health leave a site. The fascination with colour navigation has a huge impact for the three million people with colour blindness in the UK, and stylistically having the first sentence of web pages all in caps means a blind person’s screen reader will interpret words as acronyms.

The fix for organisations are predominately quick and low/no cost. Some can be achieved overnight and others with limited guidance to web developers. There is also no excuse not to build in accessibility in all new developments and overhauls of sites. The Click Away Pound – disabled people leaving a site before purchase due to poor accessibility – stands at £17.1 billion and rising. Online accessibility is an opportunity, not a cost. 

Mental Health

The rise in people experiencing mental health conditions over the past 12 months has been exponential. Covid-19 is indiscriminate and takes no prisoners. The same can be applied to mental health and it has touched people who hitherto would never have dreamt of being affected. And its impact can be severe for the individual, their family, colleagues and the organisation.

So many people have lived with a condition but too frightened to disclose through fear of being called weird, ostracised or even losing their livelihood. For organisations, at best they have overlooked a chunk of their workforce who have been unhappy, under-productive and simply existing to survive. The issue of mental health has been outed. I absolutely hope and think issues of mental health will no longer be taboo. Organisations will be proactive and loud in their response and support. It is a wellbeing issue. It is a productivity issue. And it is a brand equity issue. In organisations where a positive approach has been taken, the disclosure rates are rising, flexible adjustments being put in place, productivity increasing and the organisation gaining a reputation as caring and an employer of choice. A win, win, win, win situation.

And it has opened up the wider conversatioon about hidden disabilities which comprise 80% of the 14 million disabled people in the UK. The ripple effect is a growing awareness of dyslexia, neurodiverse conditions and mild/moderate learning disabilities.

The fix for organisations is to make mental health a top down priority, a bottom up movement and address the sandwich in the middle. I know a good number of CEO’s who have used online all staff forums to speak about the issue. In one particular example, four staff disclosed their hidden disability to all for the first time. Organisations should start with internal conversations, campaigns, positive practice and support and higher disclosure rates will follow. These individuals, and their colleagues then become the acolytes for selling the organisation as a place to work and a brand for which increasing numbers of customers will want to become associated. 

Social Impact and Brand Equity

And that brings me to the third of my four points. The pandemic has accelerated the importance of social impact for consumers and staff to brands for which they work and are their customers. Suddenly ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) has become so much more than a paragraph in an annual report. They are the letters and actions which will become the stick of rock and life blood of the organisation.

I retell the story of a recent global webinar where a wise sage (not me!) dispassionately articulated that this was the decade of inclusion. For those who fully embrace they will thrive. For those that don’t they will struggle to survive. Full stop. Just ask those businesses 20 years ago who thought the environmental revolution was a fad that would blow over.

People talk about the demands of Millennials and Generation Z. The pandemic has been a rally cry to the world for a fairer as well as prosperous future. The research evidence has shown those organisations that adopt ethical approaches to business have consistently outperformed their peers. So this is not simply about doing the right thing, and only when we are in sunny land times.

We currently live in a world of fake news. The warning for organisations who play at this issue is that you will be quickly found out and punished by your customers, employees and investors. You need a credible plan. Identify existing good practice and build. Involve your staff and customers and properly engage. Think about the data you need to collect and make that the backbone of what is routinely captured, interrogated and published to show all the journey you are on. People will forgive late starters and perhaps nervousness and hesitancy. No longer will ignorance, cover up or hubris be tolerated. 

Next Generation

At a recent Purple Tuesday 365 webinar on living with cancer, the Dad of a young person who had passed away spoke about his son’s wishes as he battled the disease. I am Daniel. I want to be seen and treated as normal. I want to see my mates and do everything they do. It has had a profound effect on me and Daniel’s legacy will live on as Purple reorientate everything we do to engage the next generation. That means changing our approach and the channels for which we communicate.

The younger generation are not so interested in the social model but more the outcomes that will make their life normal. They are not selfish but don’t want to be campaigners (not on disability rights) and simply expect in 2021. And quite right. We know 50% of the UK workforce have a disabled relative or someone with a disability in their close network. Would they want their young son, daughter, niece or nephew to have a worse experience with the organisation where they work simply because they are disabled? No. And they would not expect their relative to have to fight to make that a reality.

In terms of communication channels Purple, and myself, have just set up Instagram and TikTok accounts. Not to just copy LinkedIn or website blog posts but to engage in discussions and on topics that matter through mediums such as video and animation that connect. And to break down barriers so young people with, for example, mental health issues understand the Purple purpose and represent them in an authentic way. It is this generation that will shape the future disability conversation and their approach and the tools they use will rightly be different to those I and previous generations used.

Organisations ignore this generation at their peril. They will vote with their feet and the click of their mouse. The fix for organisations is to engage, ask, listen and then act. Being digitally accessible is non-negotiable. Access all areas has to be your motto. If it isn’t, not only will you lose disabled people, but all their friends and acquaintances as well. Gettng it right won’t set off fireworks because it is what you should do but it will lead to success both socially and economically. 

Final Reflections

No words can do justice to the impact of Covid-19 on the lives of disabled people. I have highlighted four issues which act as a disability windsock and indicate the direction the breeze is blowing. The breeze is quickly becoming a gale as disabled people, the local community and world expect our society to be very different, post pandemic.

Addressing these four issues will be a good start. Most organisations are already on it and it will be a matter of fine tuning. For others it will be more kick starting activity.

Disability inclusion is a journey. People and organisations will be at different points but all need to head for the same destination. The events of the last 12 months have accelerated the speed we now need to travel.

This think piece was written as part of the resources for Purple Tuesday 365 Members, a Purple Subscription Service to support organisations and their staff to increase their knowledge, understanding and approaches to disability. For further information about how organisations can become a member go to: https://purpletuesday.org.uk