New Humanforce app makes the workplace more accessible for people with a disability, helping to increase the employment of a more diverse workforce
Humanforce has launched the first workforce management solution app to be fully accessibility compliant, making the workplace more inclusive for people with disabilities and an ageing population.
Recent research from McKinsey found that businesses with higher diversity are more likely to achieve higher financial performance.
“There is an unresolved tension between the business and technology vendor desire for integrating the most advanced technology solutions that often best meet the needs of millennial workers, and also making the workplace more inclusive of diversity,” explained Mike McGee, Chief Product Officer, Humanforce. “Too often we see the former being the priority at the expense of workers with a disability and those that make up our ageing workforce.”
Recent research from McKinsey found that businesses with higher diversity are more likely to achieve higher financial performance. However, people with a disability are often overlooked when it comes to workplace diversity. Australian Network On Disability (AND) shows that there are over 4 million – or one in five – people in Australia with a form of disability and 2.1 million of these are working aged (15-64 years). Yet only 53 per cent of working-age people with a disability participate in work, compared to 83 per cent of people without a disability. This translates to a 9.4 per cent unemployment rate for people with a disability compared to only 4.9 per cent for people without a disability.
AND also highlighted that the likelihood of living with disability increases with age, with 50.7 per cent of Australians aged 65 and over having a disability compared to just 12.5 per cent of those under 65.
“Employers can be doing much more to make the workplace more inclusive for the people with a disability currently working and also to increase employment of number people with a disability looking for work. And as we see more Australians working beyond the pension age of 65 and being incentivised to do so by the government, we’re also going to see the number of people with a disability in the workplace increase.
“A key piece of the puzzle is ensuring all the workplace technologies a business invests in to increase their success don’t work to preference younger workers, while discriminating against workers with a disability and the ageing population,” added Mike.
The new release of Humanforce’s mobile app complies with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 AA rating. This means it meets 100 per cent of the recommendations for making content accessible to people with disabilities including colour-blindness and low vision.
Humanforce will be exhibiting the new fully accessible mobile app at HR Innovation & Tech Fest in Sydney on 18-19 November.