Business Disability Forum is calling on people to ‘choose their champion’ of accessibility and good service and nominate them for an award recognising the best businesses for disabled people.

For the first time this year, Business Disability Forum is offering disabled people the chance to nominate for special recognition a business whom they feel has offered exceptional service, experience or support to customers or employees.

The Disabled People’s Choice Award for the most inclusive service provider, employer or experience will be open to nominations until 20 September 2018, with the winner being announced in November.

The award will be presented as part of Business Disability Forum’s Disability-Smart Awards, which celebrate the best work in the disability world each year.

Other award categories include:

• Senior disability champion of the year: awarded to a senior figure who has used their position to enhance the experiences of disabled people. 2017 winner: Tony Cates, KPMG.
• Inclusive service provider of the year: awarded to the organisation that has significantly improved the accessibility of their products and/or services. 2017 winner: Procter and Gamble.
• Positive cultural change of the year: awarded to recognise the organisation that has demonstrated the most positive change in attitudes to disability. 2017 winner: Civil Service.
• Workplace adjustments innovation of the year: awarded to the organisation which has displayed the most creative and timely way of supporting their disabled staff. 2017 winner: Royal Bank of Scotland.
• Influential business of the year: awarded to the organisation that has best influenced practice and policy. 2017 winner: Macmillan Cancer Support.
• Technology initiative of the year: awarded for the best use of technology to support disabled employees and/or customers. 2017 winner: Barclays.

Nominations for the 2018 Disability-smart Awards are open and can be made at Business Disability’s Forum website here.

Previous winners have also included Lloyds Banking Group, who won a special award in 2017 for including disabled people when designing their services. Lloyds Banking Group went on to be certified as one of the best organisations for disabled people in the world under Business Disability Forum’s Disability Standard benchmarking tool in 2018.

Diane Lightfoot, Chief Executive Officer at Business Disability Forum, said:

“There is some very good work going on in the disability space, with a lot of that work being led by innovative and proactive businesses.

“We know that the best way to drive best practice is to highlight the areas where good work is happening, and the best way to measure that is to hear it from disabled people. That’s why this year we are awarding a special prize to recognise companies chosen by disabled people themselves for exceptional practice around services, employment or products.”