Leadership

When running a Disabled Employee Network, good leadership is critical. The skill, style and level of ‘reach’ that person or persons have can make the difference between delivering a purposeful, outcome focused disability network that delivers good value for money or one that is known as a moaning shop.

Creating a network that becomes known as a moaning shop, at best does nothing to support the development of a culture of disability confidence and at worse begins to have a deleterious impact on progress for disabled employees.

However, that does not mean that those that run networks should avoid giving difficult information about how disabled people are impacted by policies, procedures and work cultures.  On the contrary – they have a moral duty to do so.

However, disabled employee networks are neither trade unions nor campaigning groups. They are something altogether different.  And that is what makes them so special and useful in the story of change. And with skilful leadership Disabled Employee Networks can make an enormous contribution to the pace and quality of culture change.

The primary purpose in KNA setting up this virtual hub of good practice is to support the skill development of those running disabled employee networks.