Narratives. They crop up everywhere. In the stories we read as children, the programmes we watch, and in the images we see all around us. On an organisational level, they’re created in a number of ways, including via internal and external communications (the latter through publicly shared branding, advertising, content and images etc).
These narratives massively influence perceptions and relationships with customers, clients and stakeholders. They also impact the ability to engage, connect and attract and potential new employees.
So, on a recent inspection of the careers and EDI pages of many of the UK’s top 10 FTSE 100 websites, I was surprised to see images that almost entirely failed to represent employees with any form of visible disability. Some EDI content (information, policies, targets) did focus specifically on disabled employees and disability, however I found neither images, nor videos, that showed anyone who appeared to have a visible disability.
It’s true that many disabilities are not visible. It’s also true certain images (for instance, head shots) may be of staff with visible disabilities, which aren’t captured. But the question is, what does this lack of disability visibility communicate to potential employees looking at these pages? As with stories we hear or read, narratives are also created through images we see. Similarly, we’re able to identify subtexts, by understanding what isn’t being said, or shown. That leads us to create our own narratives about what we think is really going on.
What could be some of the narratives that might be created as a result of seeing these images?
People with disabilities don’t work here.
Our workforce is not fully diverse.
We don’t employ people with visible disabilities.
People who look like this belong here, others don’t.
Creating and maintaining a diverse workforce is supported by an ability to actively promote existing diversity (these FTSE 100 organisations employ tens of thousands of employees, so this should not be difficult). But when people don’t see diversity (particularly if they can’t see themselves), they’re less likely to feel they belong, less likely to engage, less likely to apply. Which in turn undermines any recruitment or talent attraction endeavors that focus on creating (and maintaining) a diverse workforce. It’s also incredibly damaging from an EDI perspective, because what’s being said doesn’t tally up with what’s being seen – or done - making it appear insincere (another sure-fire way to dis-engage potential employees).
This lack of visibility for disabled people isn’t isolated to company websites – it’s happening across the board. Just ask yourself when you last saw a product advertisement – either on TV, online or in print, that featured a person with a visible disability? When, for instance, did you last see a person in a wheelchair, a person without a limb, or someone using British Sign Language? Just like organisational career pages, these adverts communicate something about the place they believe disabled people have in the world.
Until relatively recently, the same was true for other minority groups, who were unable to see themselves in stories, programmes, adverts and so on.
Superheroes were always white, able bodied and straight, with storylines that centred around hetro-normative expectations. The obvious narrative here was that, in order to be super – or a hero – you needed to be all of these things.
Think about models in advertisements in the mainstream fashion and beauty media. Editorials historically featured people who were young, slim, able bodied and, almost entirely, white. The narrative here was simple: This is beauty, and these people are beautiful. The subtext was, if you didn’t possess these characteristics, that you didn’t belong in those adverts. Or, worse still, you were in some way less beautiful.
In order for potential employees to feel they’re part of the narrative, they need to be represented in the images they see. They need to see diversity, and they need to see representations of themselves. In order for organisations to attract a diverse range of applications, they must present images externally that support, not undermine, the EDI rhetoric.
The alternative is to diminish, or erase, the prospect of many talented individuals from under-represented groups wanting to work in the roles being advertised. But with disability visibility lacking in all of these organisations, their approaches to hiring diverse talent and EDI will continue to be compromised.
These organisations need to start representing - they need to change the narrative.