Purple Tuesday
Hidden Disabilities Sunflower, Purple Tuesday's global Disability Partner for 2022, is joining more than 2,000 businesses and organisations to improve the customer experience for disabled people by supporting Purple Tuesday.
Purple Tuesday is the #1 brand working to improve the experiences of disabled people as customers 365 days a year. On Tuesday 1 November 2022, we celebrated all the changes that organisations have made that have had a positive impact on the disabled customer experience and recognise the value of disabled people.
To get involved, organisations must make one new commitment to improve their accessibility and practices. This could be anything from improving your digital accessibility, to becoming a disability confident employer or simply joining the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower.
Make the Sunflower your Purple pledge
By becoming a member of the Sunflower, your business will have the tools to recognise and support individuals with non-visible disabilities and become confident in providing them with additional help or assistance. This could simply mean giving them more time to prepare, or process information, or using clear verbal language.
As well as supporting customers with non-obvious disabilities, businesses use the Sunflower to support their colleagues and extend their diversity and inclusion objectives. The Sunflower is often a catalyst that can transform the culture of disability disclosure, start the conversation about barriers that disabled people face and challenge mind-sets and perceptions towards disability within the workplace.
What is Purple?
Purple is changing the disability conversation. They are an organisation bucking convention. Pioneers. Moving the disability dial from one about vulnerable people, charity and the responsibility of Governments. To one of choice, contribution, value and opportunity to both people and businesses.
Purple is unique in the market place. They work for both disabled people and corporations, enabling disability to make a difference.
The Purple Pound – the consumer spending power of disabled people and their families – equates to US$13 trillion worldwide and is rising at 14% per annum. Yet only 10% of businesses have a strategy to access this market.
Purple work with organisations of all sizes and across all industries to support their disability journey. And most importantly, at a pace where they can bring their staff, customers and other stakeholders, including investors, with them.
The Purple Tuesday commitment
The flagship initiative, Purple Tuesday, inspires organisations and colleagues across all sectors, and of all sizes, to promote awareness, develop understanding and implement solutions for better accessibility. It is really easy to get involved and it is free! Make one commitment to change, implement the changes and then celebrate the improvements with all participating organisations. Last year the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower pledged to ensure that our website was truly accessible to all. Today, following the insights of the accessibiliy audit Purple conducted for us, we continue to work towards improving the quality and usability of our website so that it is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability. This work is never done, but here’s how we’re taking it on so far.Our pledge for next year is to become Disability Confident Leader and encouraging our members about becoming Disability Confident too.
What does it mean to be a Disability Confident Leader?
Disability Confident is a Government scheme designed to encourage employers to recruit and retain people with disabilities and chronic health conditions. Disability Confident organisations play a leading role in changing attitudes for the better. They’re changing behaviour and cultures in their own businesses, networks and communities, and reaping the benefits of inclusive recruitment practices.
Becoming Disability Confident could help you discover someone your business just can’t do without. Whether an employee has become disabled during their working life, or you’re looking for new recruits, being Disability Confident can help your people fulfil their potential and contribute fully to your team’s success.
By being Disability Confident, you’ll also be seen as leading the way in your business sector and beyond, helping to positively change attitudes, behaviours and cultures.
Disability Confident helps businesses:
- draw from the widest possible pool of talent
- secure and retain high quality staff who are skilled, loyal and hard working
- save time and money on the costs of recruitment and training by reducing staff turnover
- keep valuable skills and experience
- reduce the levels and costs of sickness absences
- improve employee morale and commitment by demonstrating that they treat all employees fairly.
Find out more about becoming a disability confident employer here.
Last year’s November celebratory day reached over 19 million people, involved over 7,000 social media conversations and received over 270+ pieces of broadcast and print media.
Hidden Disabilities Sunflower are a proud Purple Tuesday Partner and are excited to be supporting the international role out of Purple Tuesday in 2022.
Get involved and together we can improve the experiences of disabled customers and their families every day.
