Behind the numbers in 2014: Accessibility

Target:
Provide staff with an e-learning training module to increase awareness of accessibility issues. Ensure that 75% of frontline staff undertake this training to understand customer needs.

How we did:
42% of frontline staff completed the e-learning training module to increase awareness of accessibility issues.

The detail:
Our Accessibility programme is all about making our products and services accessible to all, and improving the customer experience for our most vulnerable customers. So whether that’s introducing a video relay sign language service for customers with hearing difficulties, or providing a high contrast remote control for customers struggling to read the black buttons, it’s all about helping customers live an independent digital life.

In the first half of 2014 we scheduled time for our frontline staff to ‘down tools’ and complete the training, which meant we had a good completion rate. Unfortunately, business requirements in the second half of 2014 meant we had to cancel the scheduled times because there was concern that we were taking staff away from business critical activity – resulting in us being unable to maintain our completion rates, because staff were not mandated to complete the course.

While only 42% of our frontline staff completed the online training – the rest will do it in 2015 – we did have some key successes in 2014. Here are some of the highlights:

• We launched a successful video relay service for British Sign Language users. This service means our deaf customers can speak to our agents via a video call with a third party, who interpret the conversation by lip reading and sign language.
• Introduced a high contrast remote control whose white fascia helps the black buttons to stand out more. This is helping customers who previously found it difficult to read the buttons on the traditional remote.
• Worked with Scope – the pan-disability charity – in support of many of their projects, including a national helpline and IT support.
• Partnered with Richard Whitehead to promote our national Charity Day and raise awareness of accessibility issues. Richard also spoke about accessibility at our People team conference.

As we look towards 2015 we’ll be focusing on a number of important initiatives. These include further updates to the Personal Digital Assistant devices our technicians carry, which will allow them to know when they’re visiting a customer with accessibility needs; making accessibility improvements to our marketing literature and across our sales channels; and continuing to raise awareness of accessibility across all internal teams.

Find out more about our new people goal here. For more information about what we're doing about accessibility click here.