How Sky is Turning Disability Data into Meaningful Action:
Sky’s reporting process revolves around gathering data on disability status, neurodivergent conditions, and long-term conditions among its workforce. Employees are encouraged to self-identify through a series of questions within the HR system, allowing for multi-selection of various conditions. This approach ensures inclusivity and provides employees with the opportunity to ‘see’ themselves in the categories before self-selecting. Sky reports publicly on these metrics annually in its impact report, with ad hoc awareness campaigns throughout the year.
Currently reporting stands at 9%. With new legislation coming into force in 2025 requiring all products and services on the EU market to be accessible for people with disabilities, Sky recognised the importance of its employees feel fully informed and educated to integrate accessibility into its future design process. Failure to comply with the European Accessibility Act will result in significant consequences for the business, but Sky has also recognised the opportunity to level the playing field for people with disabilities through inclusive products and services.
Key Findings:
Sky’s reporting efforts have yielded valuable insights into the composition of its workforce and employee sentiment. Some key findings include:
- Representation: Currently, 9% of Sky’s employees self-identify as disabled.
- Variation Across Business Areas: Disparities exist in disability representation across different business units, with areas like customer service showing higher proportions of disabled employees.
- Employee Sentiment: Survey results indicate that disabled employees perform comparably to their non-disabled peers in areas like feedback and inclusive leadership. However, neurodivergent employees score lower in areas of growth.
Action taken:
Armed with these insights, Sky has taken proactive steps to enhance inclusivity and support its diverse workforce:
- Workplace Adjustments Reform: Sky is undertaking a comprehensive workplace adjustments reform project to streamline support for employees requiring accommodations.
- Training Modules: Six training modules are being developed to improve disability confidence among line managers, rolled out as a priority in businesses sectors where Sky’s data shows it is most needed.
- Neurodiversity Training: Recognising the prevalence of neurodiversity among reported disabilities, Sky is designing specialised training modules for managers to better support neurodivergent employees.
- Professional Development Programs: In response to the distribution of disabled employees across different organisational bands, Sky has initiated targeted professional development programs to enhance career progression opportunities.
- Multi-territory taskforce to examine all its products and services to identify how Sky currently meets the European Accessibility Act (EAA) standards and pinpointed areas needing improvement. This team is focused on integrating accessibility into its design process making sure that every feature not only meets legal requirements but also aligns with consumers’ needs across all territories.
- Empowerment and education of our staff: Sky is embedding new, sustainable work practices company-wide and has already successfully implemented several initiatives to enhance accessibility and have more in development.
- Adapting for real world use: To ensure it maintains focus and adapts based on real-world use, Sky engages in ongoing discussions with people with disabilities and regulatory bodies to continually assess the effectiveness of its features, explore different implementation strategies, and integrate feedback from both customers and our internal accessibility expert.
Sky is also putting concerted effort into gathering data on the disability status of its workforce. With new legislation coming into force in 2025 requiring all products and services on the EU market to be accessible for people with disabilities, Sky recognised the importance of integrating accessibility into its future design process. Failure to comply with the European Accessibility Act will result in significant consequences for businesses, but alongside regulatory compliance, Sky has also recognised the opportunity to level the playing field for people with disabilities through inclusive products and services.
Employees are encouraged to self-identify as disabled and Sky reports publicly on these metrics annually in its impact report. In response to its findings, Sky has initiated targeted professional development programs to enhance career progression opportunities and is designing specialised training modules for managers to better support neurodivergent employees and to improve disability confidence among line managers. This has been rolled out as a priority in business sectors where Sky’s data show it is most needed. To address the demands from the EAA it has implemented a multi-territory taskforce to examine all its products and services and to integrate accessibility in its design process. Not only this but it has embedded new workplace initiatives to empower and educate its staff, while also engaging in ongoing discussions with people with disabilities to ensure it is making adaptions based on real-world use.
