This year marks the 10-year anniversary of Disability:IN’s Disability Equality Index – an assessment tool used by business leaders around the world to help benchmark their accessibility initiatives.
Disability:IN, a leading nonprofit, currently partners with more than 500 corporations as part of its mission to build an inclusive global economy where people with disabilities can participate fully and meaningfully across enterprises.
This year’s report revealed several key findings with major implications for both the current and future progress of disability inclusion in business. You can use the report as a benchmark for your ongoing inclusion efforts.
Major milestones of the 2024 Disability Index
This year’s DEI report comes on the heels of the 10-year anniversary of the DEI, which was created as a tool for driving progress in disability inclusion. The Disability Equality Index was also officially internationalized when Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, the Philippines and the United Kingdom were added to the index.
These milestones speak to the growing desire for increased disability inclusion globally. With more than a decade of growth under its belt, the Disability Equality Index has positioned itself as a reliable and valuable tool for business leaders around the world seeking to make sustainable progress.
DEI 2024: What does the data say?
This year’s index received a total of 753 submissions across eight different markets. Here are some of the major takeaways:
Culture and leadership
The 2024 global data revealed that inclusive business culture relies not only on the efforts of employee organizing groups but on business leaders’ public support for disability inclusion. Of the 753 companies that participated in this year’s report, 87% have a senior executive who is a visible ally for the disability community and 83% have an officially recognized disability-focused Employee Resource Group (ERG) or Affinity Group. The US market saw an increase in each of those percentages between 2022 and 2024, which reflects new and compounding efforts to prioritize disability inclusion by business leaders in the United States.
However, only 11% of participating companies have someone who openly identifies as having a disability serving on their company’s corporate board of directors and only 3% publicly disclose or report on disability within their company’s corporate board. These statistics suggest that businesses around the world still have work to do with respect to developing more inclusive organizations from the top-down.
Enterprise-wide access
With the introduction of international organizations into the Index, 2024 saw a slight decrease in the percentage of companies that encourage employees to self-identify as a person with a disability. However, this slight discrepancy is to be expected and the DEI noted that the overall progress of enterprise-wide accessibility practices has kept on pace.
The 2024 report revealed one major discrepancy in current employee retention and advancement programs, however. Specifically, 86% of participating companies reported that they offer employee retention and advancement programs that include employees with disabilities, but only 6% reported that they offer programs that solely focus on employees with disabilities.
Additionally, only 37% of respondents worldwide reported that they make job interview candidates aware of the option to request an accommodation for their interviews, while this figure for the US market was closer to 60%. This difference suggests that a more standardized approach to offering and highlighting interview accommodations may be necessary at a global level.
Accommodations, benefits and employment practices
The data collected in this category reflected the most widely adopted inclusion practices offered by index contributors. Below, you will find specific data for the popularity of these practices around the world:
- 98% of participating companies offer flexible work options
- 87% have a company-wide disability accommodation policy that can be accessed more than one way
- 87% provide wellness benefits that extend beyond their EAP or mental health benefits
- 55% have a centralized accommodations fund or allow managers to have a “budget margin” with disability accommodations expenses
- 48% offer a Supplemental Long-Term Disability (SLTD) insurance benefit
- 46% have disability-inclusive standards of nondiscrimination in the workplace that apply to all employees outside of the United States
Companies from the US market reported even higher rates of implementation for each of the practices outlined above. This trend could be explained by the fact that an overwhelming percentage (71%) of the participating companies in this year’s Index were US-based companies. However, it still stands to reason that more universal practices can and should be enacted by businesses around the world to close the performance gap between the US and other markets.
Recruitment, employment, education and retention
Data in this category sought to assess the pervasiveness of inclusion efforts throughout every step of the employee life cycle. The data in this category also was analyzed in the aforementioned Enterprise-Wide Access subset, but a few stand-out statistics to keep in mind from this section include:
- 64% of global participants report that they use numerical data to track progress in hiring people with disabilities
- 92% include disability-focused information in new-hire orientation
- 51% require all people managers to take at least one of the trainings for disability inclusion
These findings suggest that strides are being made in businesses’ efforts to embrace inclusive hiring and onboarding practices, which will doubtlessly continue to move the needle forward in terms of companies’ implementation of other inclusive practices throughout the employee life cycle.
Community engagement
The 2024 report concluded that companies around the world are more engaged with the disability community than ever before. This assertion is supported by reports that:
- 90% of annually participating companies have formal programs in place for understanding how to address the needs of the disability community
- 77% market directly to the disability community by authentically depicting people with disabilities in their marketing materials
- 69% have a plan to ensure that social media postings are accessible. Notably, only 31% of respondents worldwide reported that they currently offer an accessibility-audited smartphone app
As the number of new hires who self-report having a disability continues to grow year-over-year, the need for comprehensive community engagement programs will also continue to expand. Companies can build upon their current progress moving forward by investing in the accessibility of their social media posts, applications and communications.
Supplier diversity
The 2024 DEI report notes that Supplier Diversity, as a category, shows the most room for improvement within the global and US markets. While 83% of respondents reported having in place a supplier diversity manager or a leader dedicated to overseeing supplier diversity initiatives for their business, only 11% reported having a supplier diversity council or committee with a mission that specifically includes disability inclusion as an area of focus. Additionally, only 22% reported having disability-focused goals in place for supplier diversity and inclusion. By partnering with suppliers that have Tier-2 expenditures with Disability-Owned Business Enterprises, companies can have an upstream impact on their local and global supply chains while laying the framework for the continued economic success and equity of individuals with disabilities.
Looking ahead
The findings of this year’s DEI report make clear that significant progress has been made in the fight for disability inclusion in business. With companies around the world reporting active engagement in fostering disability inclusivity throughout every step of the employee life cycle, the future of disability inclusion looks bright.
Moving forward, business leaders around the world can build on their progress and fill in their performance gaps by assessing their inclusion efforts alongside the benchmarks set forth in the Disability Equality Index. Additionally, business leaders can take advantage of the DEI to help them satisfy new legislative requirements that pertain to disability and sustainability reporting.
By partnering with Disability-Owned Business Enterprises, enhancing their inclusive hiring practices and investing in accessibility technology solutions and resources, businesses around the world can cultivate more diverse, sustainable workforces while contributing to the economic and professional success of the global disability community. Verbit is partnering with many business and university leaders who are taking these efforts seriously.
If you’re interested in learning more about how our technologies like captioning and audio description can help you foster a disability-inclusive work environment, reach out today.