Building an Accessible Future for employees with disabilities at Sopra Steria

Brian Wall is Sopra Steria’s Accessibility SME – he shares his ideas for how the company can continue to be a powerful champion for colleagues with disabilities.

 

 

I have been with Sopra Steria for more than 15 years, and in August 2022, I became the company’s Accessibility Subject Matter Expert (SME). In a nutshell, this means I am the person who is evangelising, and trying to achieve a consistent approach to ensuring the access needs of all colleagues are met. This includes raising awareness and enhancing the capabilities of everyone across the whole business.

As the first person to do this job, I’ve come with a blank sheet of paper. It’s about accessibility for everyone – it needs to be seen as a majority issue, not just something that concerns a minority of people in our organisation. And it needs to involve every part of the business.

To demonstrate how serious we are about accessibility, at Sopra Steria, our processes are externally audited and we have review processes for all our systems. Initially, we focus on our internal processes, but we are also looking at accessibility issues across our current client base, our suppliers and future clients. We want to be part of a bigger ecosystem where accessibility is standard.  

Communication is really important. We have to make sure we always give out the right information and we can influence our leadership. Historically, Sopra Steria have always done brilliant things, especially in terms of user experience and accessibility by design. And we are working hard to make sure this accessibility is consistent across the whole organisation.

As a disabled person myself, I have seen how committed Sopra Steria is to diversity and inclusion. The company understands that accessibility is more than just installing a wheelchair ramp at the entrance, for example. There is so much more to consider in how an individual goes about their day and is able to do their job. For example, it’s fine to give someone with visual challenges a screen reader, but if the screen itself has not been designed well, it won’t read out accurately. Every individual’s experience and needs must be considered and accommodated.

Within Sopra Steria, I am Chair of the Disability Inclusion Network. I have been with the company a long time meaning I have a wide-reaching network and the platform to educate, challenge and engage my colleagues, helping to bring about positive change.  

 

 

Sopra Steria’s principles of Wellbeing and Social Value mean we are committed to moving to the next level with accessibility – these principles are part of the company’s DNA. It has always been a very human organisation and the accessibility journey started a long time ago, with commitment from the very top. And that’s why I’ve stayed with the company for so many years.

We’ve so many plans to keep pushing forward on this journey. Accessibility is a key focus for us, and we want inclusion to become more organic, happening naturally across all our business units. There will be training to make sure there is consistency of awareness among managers, particularly around hidden disabilities. We have a Neurodiversity Inclusion Group, which is helping to bring neurodiversity into sharp focus across our organisation.

We’re also very clear that our journey to full accessibility needs to start with the recruitment, and onboarding of new employees – if someone needs a certain piece of equipment to do their job effectively, it should be there for them on their first day, rather than waiting weeks for it to arrive. And people need to feel comfortable enough to tell employers about disabilities and accessibility needs. This means that even from the first connection in our job adverts, it is important to make accessibility a natural part of the process.

There are already so many brilliant initiatives and processes in place at Sopra Steria. In this role, I am committed to making sure that brilliance happens across the board.

 

 

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