This week, Business Disability Forum launches a series of free resources, offering advice and legal guidance on supporting disabled colleagues to safely return to the workplace.
Leading disability and business membership organisation, Business Disability Forum, works with over 300 employers and service providers, bringing business leaders, disabled people, and Government together to understand what needs to change to advance the participation of disabled people as workers, users of services, and citizens in society.
Importance
The new ‘Welcoming disabled employees back to the office’ resources cover important topics as employers start to think about returning to offices. These topics include: travelling to the workplace; creating a safe working environment; carrying out roles safely; mixing with colleagues; accessing facilities.
The resource is also supported by a vaccine Q&A which considers the legality of no jab, no job policies under the Equality Act (2010).
The vaccine briefing offers answers to questions like:
- Can employers insist that employees have the COVID-19 vaccination when available?
- Are there people who cannot have the COVID-19 vaccination?
- What should employers say to employees who refuse to return to the workplace until everyone they work with has had a COVID-19 vaccination?
Framework
Alongside these, the organisation has also launched a third key resource looking at the regulatory framework around supporting disabled people to return to the workplace.
This third resources looks at essentials aspects of regulation like applying regulations that pre-dated the pandemic and reasonable adjustments post-pandemic.
Business Disability Forum’s head of legal, Bela Gor, says: “We hope our resources will help HR teams, Diversity and Inclusion practitioners and employees to make informed decisions on the pressing issue of how to make future working safe for everyone.”
The new resources form part of Business Disability Forum’s Covid-19 toolkit and can be accessed on the Covid-19 toolkit page.