Inclusion – the new competitive advantage

Location
Peakon

The London HR Connection is delighted to welcome some truly inspirational guests to join our panel-led debate on the topical issue of what HR can do to help the disadvantaged and disenfranchised in our community whilst, simultaneously, boosting their own diverse talent pools.

Employers are increasingly looking in new directions to find more diverse professional talent, filling skills gaps and making their organisations more flexible, successful and great places to work.  We will be looking at how inclusive employers are successfully removing and reducing barriers for disabled people in the workplace and sharing good practice ideas which people can take away and use in their own organisations. We will also be considering the plight of other, often disenfranchised, adult groups such as refugees, career returnees and ex-military and discussing how to best create pathways for diverse job seekers and new talent.

Our panel will be made up of four, eminently qualified professionals including:

Graeme Whippy, MBE, is a business disability consultant currently working at Channel 4. He specialises in helping employers become brilliant at employing disabled people and is running the campaign to help Channel 4 replicate its fantastic work on-screen on disability into the workplace and achieve its vision of becoming the best employer for disabled people in the UK. Graeme is also a member of various accessibility/disability focus groups and committees including the Prime Minister’s Dementia Friendly Communities Champion’s Group, the steering committee for the launch of Disability Confident (and now a member of the DC Practitioners and Professional Advisors Groups) and chairs a DWP working group on the transition from education into employment for disabled young people.

Adelaide Veyre de Garrigues is Head of Resource Supply Chain for the Apps business unit of Capgemini and is responsible for workforce planning and managing the resourcing team for a group of 2,200 employees. She also plays a key role in the Capgemini UK Active Inclusion steering committee sharing best practices and driving an ambitious action plan with the business. Capgemini is addressing skills shortages and applying the business case for diversity by, for example, recently hiring a highly skilled developer from Transitions following a three-month paid internship.  The developer was originally from Egypt and had been overlooked in the market before his internship. Capgemini is now working on setting up new internships.

Jane Hatton is the founder of Evenbreak, a social enterprise run by disabled people for disabled people helping employers attract and retain more talented disabled candidates. Jane runs Evenbreak lying flat with a laptop above her due to a degenerative spinal condition and is a widely published author in the field of inclusion; including her recent book ‘A Dozen Brilliant Reasons to Employ Disabled People’.  She is a Trustee of two charities working with adults with learning disabilities and autism, the Patron of the Inclusive Skills Competitions and on the executive committee of Recruitment Industry Disability Initiative. She was a recruitment expert in BBC2’s recent documentary “Employable Me”.

Sheila Heard is the founder and Managing Director of Transitions, a social enterprise Community Interest Company with a mission to facilitate a more diverse and equitable skilled jobs market with particular reference to experienced professionals who have refugee protection in the UK. For more than 15 years, the company has been developing and running placement and employment support initiatives to assist refugee professionals who have been offered a place of safety in the UK back into their professional working lives

Venue: with grateful thanks to our hosts Peakon

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