Business Disability Forum's Accessible Technology Charter

Those who have signed the Charter, have pledged that they will ensure people living with a disability or who acquire a disability can apply for jobs with them, be employed by them, and do business with them, by implementing an inclusive technology strategy which includes the following commitments to accessibility.

You will not be monitored against your Charter commitment, but of course, this shouldn't be taken lightly. The Charter should be signed by a senior digital leader or CIO or CTO to make sure it is their responsibility to ensure all aspects of the Charter are embedded in the business.

If you want to learn more about the topic, visit the Business Disability Forum page and check the materials. You can also contact them if you have any questions! A good thing to note is that they also list Charter signatories on their website so this is again another good way to make your company a bit more visible in the accessibility matters. Some of the names that stood out for me were Cisco, GlaxoSmithKline, Microsoft and Oracle. But there are a lot of other names than just these! So go take a look to see all who have pledged so far.

The Charter is used in the Accessibility Maturity Model, also created by the Business Disability Forum.

The ten commitments of the Accessible Technology Charter

1. We will appoint an Executive Level Technology Champion who will report to the board, raise awareness of the benefits of this agenda and ensure that we achieve continuous improvement in this area.
2. We will ensure that colleagues are aware of how technology can liberate the contribution of everyone, as colleagues and customers.
3. We will routinely consult with disabled colleagues, customers and experts to ensure that we understand the impact of our technology on talent management, colleague productivity and our diverse customer base.
4. We will enable built-in accessibility to allow reasonable personalisation of technology by our colleagues and customers.
5. We will embed and promote a workplace adjustment process, that provides usable technology solutions for disabled colleagues, within a reasonable timeframe.
6. We will give our relevant teams the accessibility know-how needed to deliver effective business processes and adjustments for disabled colleagues and customers.
7. We will establish our performance baseline using the Accessibility Maturity Model. We will consistently go beyond minimum compliance to bring greater benefits to our business and share best practices with others.
8. We will promote a development lifecycle for our technology solutions that is based on inclusive design from definition to delivery, to minimise the cost and reputational risk triggered by retrofitting products and systems.
9. We will include accessibility as a key requirement within our procurement process and build relationships with supply partners to develop and deliver accessible products and services.
10. We will continuously improve accessibility within our organisation, document what works and share our learning with the Technology Taskforce.