Disability Awareness / Equality Training

People are often concerned about meeting and helping disabled people. They are afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing and solve the problem by not doing anything at all. That in itself is discriminatory. Disability Equality Training provides an opportunity to explore these fears and concerns and find out more about disability and realise that providing a service to disabled people is essentially common sense, courtesy and good customer care.

Why your customers will benefit

Service and hospitality are the cornerstones of any service providers business. How we meet, greet, and communicate with customers is so important. Training in these hosting skills is pretty much the accepted norm in most businesses today, but in order to successfully manage the customer journey for disabled people from airport car park to aircraft seat, specific disability awareness and equality training for management and staff should be adopted as part of any staff induction or ongoing training strategy.

Why your business will benefit

There are 10 million disabled people in the UK, more than 50 million in Europe and hundreds of millions more globally. That represents a lot of 'traffic' through UK airports. All have individual needs, desires and requirements. It is also known that 25% of the population have some care related responsibility for a disabled person - this is a major section of society and a huge potential market. The high level of repeat business in our own travel and leisure businesses is evidence that disabled customers, their friends and relatives, will display loyalty to a service where their needs are understood and actions are taken to ensure that these needs are met. Disability Awareness Training will greatly enhance the quality of service you and your personnel can provide and this will almost certainly result in improved staff morale, customer satisfaction, and bottom line profit.

And the law…

One of the suggested ‘reasonable adjustments’ included in the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 is to provide formal ‘Disability Awareness Training’ and ‘DDA Training’ for appropriate personnel. If a possible case of discrimination does take place and there is no record that training has been given, then your business will be liable. EU 1107, Access to Air Travel for Disabled Persons goes further and essentially makes such training mandatory for "all staff dealing directly with the travelling public must receive disability awareness and disability equality training".

The question is not whether, but when to deliver such training.

Online Disability Awareness Training

Our online Disability Awareness Training module gives an excellent introduction to all employees and management in an area where many feel uncomfortable and uncertain but overwhelmingly want to get things right. The aim of this training is to help your employees to be more confident in their day-to-day dealings with disabled people.

Apart from understanding your moral obligations, there's also the legal side to think about. The Disability Discrimination Acts of 1995 and 2005 are in full operation yet many people do not understand the implications this has for disabled people, their families, service providers and employers.

Here's what our Disability Awareness Training covers:

• What is disability?
• The different types of disability
• Legislation regarding customers and disability discrimination
• Legislation regarding employees and disability discrimination
• Practical advice on how to meet the needs of people with different disabilities whether they are customers or colleagues.

Don’t worry, our Disability Awareness Training module isn't designed to catch your employees out and it’s certainly not meant to be anything more than a basic introduction to Disability Awareness. However, we will also provide sources of additional information should they wish to learn more about disability.

When your employees have finished the training they will be more self-assured and, therefore, able to give disabled people the same high-level of service that they undoubtedly give to everyone else.

And this training won't break the bank either... Training is available at just £25+VAT per person with great discounts available for 10 or more people being trained.

A solution to your training needs is simply a phone call away. Call 01502 512888 or fill in our enquiry form