Starting important accessibility conversations with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Created by VERCIDA for Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

 

Mo Koheeallee has broken down barriers for employees with disabilities at CCEP and plans to keep having the difficult conversations that lead to real change.

 

 

Before I started working for Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), I was unemployed for 18 years. Looking for work after I left college was a constant battle and I found that being a wheelchair user was an issue. Employers weren’t willing to test themselves and see how they could make things possible for people with disabilities.  

I was going through a tough time in my personal life – I was having very bad thoughts about myself and woke up one day wondering why I was thinking like this. So, I went to the job centre and basically begged them for work. I said that I wanted to work, but never had the opportunity. Luckily, I was put in touch with an advisor at Shaw Trust, who told me that I had great passion, but I lacked confidence. Years of missing out on jobs will do that to you.

She told me to not mention my disability on my CV, because it can create misconceptions, and soon, I was getting interviews. Sometimes, I’d miss out if I mentioned my wheelchair during the phone interview and sometimes, I was unable to attend in-person interviews because of accessibility issues with buildings. This was before employers were more open to doing interviews by video call. 

 

When I received an email from CCEP that expressed an interest in hiring me after reading my CV online, I didn’t believe it at first. But it was a real email, so I reached back out to them. CCEP was looking for a merchandiser in my local area. Before the interview, I visited all the stores where I’d be working if I got the job, and asked if they were OK with me working in my wheelchair – they all said yes, so I went into the interview armed with that information.

During the interview, I was asked how I was going to do a merchandising job in a wheelchair and I was able to say that the store managers were all fine with it. I showed that I could take the initiative and bring a lot to the business, and, three months after the first interview, I was hired on a six-month trial. That was four-and-a-half years ago.

Since then, I increased revenue, availability and compliance through my role as a merchandiser. As a reasonable adjustment, I didn’t have to put stock on the top shelves, but I did that anyway, as well as driving myself between the stores, developing good relationships and engaging with people. I had to get the health and safety managers around to my way of thinking and my hard work along the way has paid off.

 

 

Now, I am 14 months into a health and safety apprenticeship, as well as being the Lead Accessibility Ambassador GB for CCEP. I really want to drive the accessibility agenda across the whole business by having conversations that many people don’t want to have. But it’s important to raise questions about how we can make working at CCEP safe and accessible for everyone, whether they are disabled or not. Every individual should feel included at CCEP. 

My health and safety apprenticeship – as well as becoming an ambassador – has been a great opportunity to start conversations that can be awkward, but need to happen. For me, adaptations include ramps, hand sanitising stations and card access points that are lower down, doors that are easy to open, and a desk with an adjustable height. But for someone with Crohn’s disease, for example, the adjustment might be easy as ensuring access to toilet facilities or adjusted working patterns. It shouldn’t be embarrassing to let managers know about your needs, but for some people it still is. I will happily talk to a manager on someone’s behalf and soon it becomes no big deal.

 

 

I can see the culture changing. We ask ourselves where we went wrong, where we can do better, but it has to come from management. Making sure managers understand health and safety in all parts of the business is so important – someone has to start these conversations, and the managers need to feed it back to their teams and ask questions themselves. Everyone needs to buy into the accessibility agenda.

We are doing a massive project at our Edmonton site so it’s accessible to wheelchair users. With any accessibility project, so many little things matter, such as making sure way-finding signs are easy to see in contrasting colours. This is how we create inclusive environments. As long as the right adjustments get the right backing, people are capable of achieving so much in their jobs.

My health and safety training has helped me with my ambassador role, so I can support the business in the right way. Accessibility makes companies better, no matter where you are in the company.

 

To learn more about the inclusive culture at CCEP and to see a full list of vacancies please click here.