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Today Purple launched its new membership offer to businesses at the Opening Doors: Diversity and Inclusivity Conference in London.
Hosted jointly by the British Property Federation (BPF) and Revo, the Conference was an opportunity for organisations to come together to share diversity and inclusivity best practice, focusing on the workplace, the local community and the built environment. The conference was attended by major organisations in the property and retail space.
Purple is an emerging and innovative organisation which for the first time brings together disabled people and businesses in order to change the conversation on disability. Purple provides support services to over 3000 disabled people alongside its offer to business, bringing direct experience of working with both to its products and services. As a not for profit organisation, all monies raised go towards funding Purple’s work to reduce inequality in society meaning organisations are also actively and meaningfully contributing to their wider community.
Purple took part in a Panel discussion during the event and announced our new membership offer as a solution to organisations looking to commit to disability, in terms of both recruitment and retention, but also ensuring their services are accessible to their customer base. The offer includes support to achieve the Government’s Disability Confident accreditation, disability-related training to upskill your workforce, consultancy, a digital diagnosis of the accessibility of your website, as well as networking and promotional opportunities.
Mike Adams, Chief Executive Officer of Purple said:
“Our new membership offer is a direct response to the needs of businesses and provides a clear way of getting involved with disability in a fresh and exciting way. We will support business of all sizes to recruit and retain disabled employees, to ensure their services are accessible, and provide them with opportunities to network and be part of a real change movement.”
The offer also comes in three packages to ensure a tailored approach to organisations of all sizes, including a special commitment to small organisations with under 50 staff.
The BPF is the membership organisation for, and the voice of, the UK Real Estate Industry. Melanie Leech, Chief Executive of the BPF, said:
“We published our Statement of Principles for a more diverse and inclusive real estate sector in May 2017, and this included a commitment to fostering a culture of equality. We are lending our voice to support Purple’s work to improve accessibility to our industry among our employees, future talent and customers. The BPF is also now proud to be one of Purple’s first members and we want to use its personalised membership support to become more disability aware and to be part of a real change movement .”
Research shows the majority of organisations want to be accessible to all, but need a starting point which takes into account where they are now. They also want a way of being able to promote what they are doing to potential employees, current employees and their customers so the impact is felt across not just their organisation but wider stakeholders too. Purple’s membership offer begins with an initial conversation to discuss what the organisation is currently doing in terms of disability-related activity and what they are personally looking to achieve.
Chief Executive Officer of Revo, Ed Cooke said:
“As an organisation, we are playing a leadership role in advancing the diversity and inclusion agenda, through our positioning the Governments’ Accessible Retail Forum and in publishing and promoting our recent Accessibility Toolkit. With disabled people making up 19% of the UK population, it is both commercially and socially imperative that all organisations have a strategy to engage with disabled people in the right way, and specific to their needs. Becoming a Purple member is a demonstrable way of showing your commitment to this agenda”
Revo supports individuals and businesses in the retail property sector, with over 400 organisations and 2,300 individual members.
Purple will be holding a webinar this Friday, 23 February, in which Mike Adams and James Bishop from Skye Cloud, Purple’s first member, will be discussing the offer and why businesses should sign up. Organisations can subscribe for free now to be a part of the conversation and find out why you should work with Purple, and what becoming a Purple membership can do for you.
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