Creating a Culture of Accessibility in Your Organisation
For businesses, embracing accessibility means more than just ensuring their digital products are accessible. It involves embedding a mindset of inclusivity into the company’s values, practices, and operations.
In this blog, we’ll explore insights on how to build a culture of accessibility within your organisation and why it’s crucial for long-term success.
1. Make Accessibility a Core Value
To truly create a culture of accessibility, it must become a core part of your company’s values. This starts with leadership. Executives and managers must be vocal advocates for accessibility, setting the tone for the rest of the organisation.
When accessibility is woven into the fabric of the company’s mission, it signals to employees, customers, and stakeholders that inclusivity is a priority. Make accessibility a key part of your diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategy and communicate its importance through internal and external messaging.
Actionable Steps:
Incorporate accessibility into your company’s mission statement.
Ensure that leadership champions accessibility in their messaging and decision-making.
Set up regular training sessions on accessibility for all staff.
2. Provide Accessibility Training and Resources
Creating a culture of accessibility starts with education. Employees at all levels need to understand why accessibility matters and how they can contribute to it in their day-to-day work. From web developers to customer service teams, everyone should have a basic understanding of accessibility principles and how to implement them.
Offering regular training, workshops, and resources helps build knowledge and awareness across the company. It's also important to provide tools and guidance for making digital products, services, and workspaces more accessible.
Actionable Steps:
Provide mandatory accessibility training during onboarding and offer ongoing learning opportunities.
Share resources like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and best practices.
Encourage employees to attend accessibility workshops or conferences.
3. Incorporate Accessibility into Every Process
Accessibility needs to be integrated into every part of your organisation’s processes. This means considering accessibility from the earliest stages of product design, marketing campaigns, or HR initiatives.
By making accessibility a part of standard operating procedures, your organisation can consistently deliver inclusive experiences for customers and employees alike. This proactive approach saves time and resources in the long run, as it’s easier to address accessibility upfront than to add it in later.
Actionable Steps:
Include accessibility checks in product design, marketing, and HR workflows.
Set accessibility goals for each department to align with company-wide objectives.
Make use of accessibility tools like WAVE during development processes.
4. Involve People with Disabilities in Decision-Making
To truly build a culture of accessibility, it’s essential to involve people with disabilities in your organisation’s processes. Their firsthand experiences provide invaluable insights into what works and what doesn’t. Including people with disabilities in your design, testing, and feedback processes ensures that accessibility features are user-centred and practical.
Additionally, hiring people with disabilities promotes diversity and strengthens your commitment to inclusivity. It shows that your organisation values different perspectives and is actively working to remove barriers. This is why at Konnektis, we have individuals with accessibility needs on our site auditing team!
Actionable Steps:
Create advisory roles or accessibility councils that include people with disabilities.
Conduct user testing with individuals who rely on assistive technologies.
Ensure hiring practices are inclusive and accommodate people with disabilities.
5. Foster an Open Dialogue About Accessibility
Creating a culture of accessibility requires open and ongoing dialogue within your organisation. Encourage employees to share their ideas and feedback on improving accessibility, both internally and for external products and services. Recognise accessibility champions within your organisation — those who actively advocate for inclusivity and help push the company forward.
It’s also important to be transparent about your accessibility efforts. Share progress with employees, stakeholders, and customers to build trust and accountability, either via a newsletter or weekly or monthly meetings. Whether highlighting successes or acknowledging areas for improvement, maintaining a conversation around accessibility ensures it remains a top priority and is constantly thought about when it comes to a company's products or services.
Actionable Steps:
Hold regular meetings or forums dedicated to accessibility discussions.
Encourage feedback from all levels of the organisation on accessibility practices.
Publicly share your company’s accessibility efforts and milestones.
6. Measure and Improve Accessibility Continuously
Accessibility is an ongoing process, not a one-time project. Creating a culture of accessibility means continuously evaluating and improving your efforts. Regular audits, assessments, and feedback loops are essential for identifying areas that need improvement.
Setting measurable goals around accessibility and tracking progress helps ensure that your company remains committed to inclusivity. Use tools, data, and customer feedback to monitor accessibility over time and make informed decisions about how to improve.
Actionable Steps:
Conduct regular accessibility audits of your digital products and services.
Track progress using metrics such as customer feedback or accessibility compliance rates.
Establish a process for regularly updating and refining accessibility practices.
Conclusion
By embedding inclusivity into the core of your company’s values and operations and making it a priority, your organisation can create a more inclusive environment for both employees and customers.
