Webinars

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How can business change ideas and possibilities around the inclusion and employment of persons with disabilities? Hosted by the ILO’s Global Business and Disability Network, this webinar featured experiences from the private sector around the world. The webinar explored what can be done in practice to tackle stigma and stereotypes on disability, and what approaches there are to focus on talent and inclusion.

Speakers:

Anne-Sophie Beraud – VP Group Inclusion & Diversity, AccorHotels (GBDN Chair): introduced the webinar series and the challenges companies face in creating a shared positive understanding of disability and disability issues;

Yves Veulliet – Global Disability & Inclusion Program Manager, IBM (GBDN Vice-Chair): gave a keynote presentation highlighting key messages and techniques for making new conversations on disability inclusion in global business;

Shashaank Awasthi – Co-founder, V-shesh (an award-winning India-based company promoting inclusion): presented conversations with employers and new perspectives to respond to their key concerns on disability.

Please download the webinar presentations here.

The webinar “Affirmative recruitment practices: Ensuring an inclusive experience for job seekers with disabilities” showed that to harness the business benefits of disability inclusion, companies proactively remove barriers in their recruitment practices to ensure inclusive experiences for everyone, including people with disabilities.

Accenture and the Australian Public Service Commission presented case studies on their inclusive recruitment practices.

Speakers:
Alberto Lapi & Aldo Pozzoli, Accenture
Robyn Beutel, Australian Public Service Commission

Moderator:
Bruce Roch, Adecco Group

The digital revolution in the world of work impacts all. How does it impact people with disabilities? Which chances and potential barriers does digitalised work bring for disability inclusion? What are the actions to ensure nobody is left behind and the digital divide is closed? The report “An inclusive digital economy for people with disabilities”, developed by the ILO Global Business and Disability Network and Fundacion ONCE in the framework of Disability Hub Europe, aims to answer those and other relevant questions. The publication was launched at the Zero Project conference on 10 February 2021. Live captioning and International Sign were provided.

Leaders in private sector companies can play a decisive role in making sure that the immediate and socio-economic responses to the global COVID-19 crisis are inclusive of persons with disabilities and their needs. The ILO Global Business and Disability Network and The Valuable 500 teamed up to take a closer look.

Moderated by Caroline Casey (Founder, The Valuable 500), Paul Polman (Chair and Co-founder, IMAGINE) and Matthias Thorns (Deputy Secretary-General, International Organisation of Employers (IOE)) discussed what business leaders can and should do to make COVID-19 responses inclusive of persons with disabilities.

The panel discussion was followed by presentations by:

• Tomas Malango – Experimentation & Technology Support Director, Repsol
• Sarbani Chakravarty – Director, India Business and Disability Network (IBDN)
• Elham Youssefian – Inclusive Humanitarian Action and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Advisor, International Disability Alliance (IDA)

The webinar ended with short interventions by:

• Yves Veulliet – Global Disability & Inclusion Leader, IBM
• Don Watson – Vice-President Global Workplace and Enterprise Services, Merck
• Manisha Mehta – Global Diversity & Inclusion Manager, Unilever
• Diane Lightfoot – CEO, Business Disability Forum (BDF) UK

International Sign interpretation and live captioning were provided.

In times of COVID-19-related teleworking, it is more important than ever to have effective global company systems for reasonable accommodations in place that effectively work around the world. Hosted by business disability international and the ILO Global Business and Disability Network, the webinar “Designing workplace adjustment services that deliver – worldwide” presented key issues in system design and shared existing good global company practices.

Facilitated by the ILO Global Business and Disability Network, all interested stakeholders, including governments, workers’ and employers’ organisations as well as organisations of persons with disabilities participated in a webinar to share good practices on the inclusion of people with disabilities in the COVID-19 responses related to the World of Work.

Speakers:

• Federico Negro, Head of Coordination Support unit for Peace and Resilience (CSPR) at ILO;
• Haibin Zhou, coordinator of the China chapter of the ILO Global Business and Disability Network;
• Yves Veulliet, Global Disability & Inclusion Leader at IBM;
• Jon Messenger, Senior Specialist on Working Conditions at ILO;
• Bela Gor, Head of Legal & Content at Business Disability Forum (BDF), United Kingdom.

The public sector is facing rapid changes – from shifts in the organization of work to new technologies making their way into public entities. Targeted initiatives by public employers can create and maintain a pipeline of persons with disabilities who develop new and improve existing skills to make the public sector work for all.

Employment of persons with disabilities in the public service not only changes their place in society, the way society perceives persons with disabilities but also the ways people interact with the public sector.

Speakers:

• Yazmine Laroche, Deputy Minister, Public Service Accessibility, Government of Canada;
• Victor Calise, Commissioner, Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities, New York City;
• Martha Jackson, Assistant Commissioner Employment and Business Relations, Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities, New York City.

Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) of workers with disabilities have proven to be a successful mechanism to make the needs of employees with disabilities heard and addressed in companies where these ERGs exist. Multinational enterprises with disability ERGs face the challenge of making these groups effective around the globe.

The webinar featured Kate Nash, CEO and Creator of PurpleSpace, the world’s only networking and professional development hub for employees with disabilities, as well as Rogier Reinders, chair of Dow’s Disability Employee Network for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India (EMEAI).

The webinar was moderated by Yves Veulliet, Global Disability & Inclusion Leader at IBM.

This Zero Project conference session explored the unacknowledged risks to the more than 1.3 billion persons with disabilities triggered by the fast-growing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered recruitment tools. Why do leaders of the global ethical AI debate disregard the potential harm to more than 1.3 billion people living today with disabilities and to the hundreds of millions who will become disabled in time? Will the HR cost savings generated by AI technology outweigh the potential damage to the life chances of so many? The discussants were Yves Veulliet (IBM), Susan Scott-Parker (business disability international), and Stefan Trömel (ILO Global Business and Disability Network).

Resources mentioned in this webinar:

• Designing AI applications to treat people with disabilities fairly
• Recruitment AI has a disability problem: questions employers should be asking to ensure fairness in recruitment

The ILO Global Business and Disability Network, in partnership with Ruh Global IMPACT, organized a webinar on the Intersectionality between Disability and the Black Lives Matter movement.

We are witnessing unprecedented changes in society and these changes are impacting businesses and employers. Understanding the complexities of movements like #BlackLivesMatter and the intersectionalities of other inclusion efforts such as disability inclusion is critical.Inequalities and exclusion not only negatively impact on business, they can negatively impact your brand, your employees, your customers, and have other unexpected socioeconomic consequences.

The webinar features Firehiwot Siyum Tadese, LaMondre Pough, Heather Dowdy and Kimberlee Archibald, discussing their professional experience as a person of colour with disabilities.