Virgin Media O2 is collaborating with Evenbreak, a company focused on achieving greater employment for anyone of any disability. As a strategic partnership, this move by Virgin Media O2 is aimed at enhancing its workforce diversity by providing advertisement options on the global job board of Evenbreak for jobs across engineering, finance, IT, logistics, and retail sectors.
This partnership falls within the umbrella of Virgin Media O2’s more general All In strategy and seeks to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion in business. The company is therefore committed to making suitable changes to its recruitment processes in order to pave a way for equal opportunities and incliveness for its abled candidates.
This initiative by Virgin Media O2 makes it an innovative proactive measure towards attracting and retaining talent from the underrepresented pool. The organization has a job board specifically tailored to people with disabilities. It gives candidates the opportunity to explore employment opportunities from open-minded employers.
We realize disabled people make a large pool of underutilized talent; hence we want to hire and attract as many more disabled candidates into our workforce, said Philipp Wohland, Chief People Officer at Virgin Media O2. “We become a more inclusive and fair employer.”.
To further enable this, Virgin Media O2 is adjusting other practices to make the workplace inclusive. Part of this effort is critically reviewing recruitment; training on disability awareness will be provided for staff; and adjustments within the workplace will be made for employees with disabilities.
Jane Hatton, Founder and Chief Executive of Evenbreak, said: “Many disabled people find it difficult to get employers who will actually support them. When Virgin Media O2 brands advertise their vacancies on Evenbreak, they are, in effect, branding themselves as a truly inclusive employer committed to excellence through diversity.”.
This partnership also reflects the growing appreciation of the value of diversity in the workplace. Organizations that hire extensively from diverse talent pools enjoy the diversity of thought as well as ideas, which are useful stimuli to innovation and improves problem-solving ability.
Evenbreak Ambassador and a former employee of Virgin Media O2, Dr. Shani Dhanda is excited about the partnership. She thinks it shows just how serious Virgin Media O2 is about diversity and inclusion.
A part of the All In strategy will be ensuring not only a representative workforce but a more representative workforce, to actually represent communities. Virgin Media O2 knows that a diverse and inclusive workplace is much more than checking a box; it’s really about enriching company culture and enhancing overall business performance.
This is on top of its cooperation with Evenbreak, but Virgin Media O2 is continuing in the assessment of other initiatives within the larger organization along the lines of diversity and inclusion. This, no doubt, is one of the biggest barriers differently-abled people often face in the job market.
The partnership between Virgin Media O2 and Evenbreak would create a standard for other organizations to improve the recruitment processes followed there and to have an inclusive workforce. Virgin Media O2, therefore, is setting an industry standard by coming out and showing importance for differently-abled talent because they are only creating value by valuing diversity.
Finally, Virgin Media O2’s tie up with Evenbreak is one step ahead toward an inclusive workplace. It will actively promote employment opportunities to differently-abled people so that its employment gap for them will be fulfilled and diversity, equity, and inclusion will be reinforced. It helps in proving that what well-abled people can do positively in the workforce.
Source: Virgin Media O2