Employers have been urged to embrace diverse recruitment because of the strong link between workplace diversity and competitive advantages, by the Royal National Institute of Blind People’s employment campaign officer Philip Connolly.

Connolly tells Recruiter: “There is research done by people like Siperstein in the US that shows that if a business increases the diversity of its workforce it becomes more representative of its customer base and the community in which it resides.

A 2005 paper published by Gary N. Siperstein and other researchers at the Centre for Social Development and Education of the University Massachusetts shows that 87% of US consumers prefer to give their custom to firms that hire individuals with disabilities.

Connolly says: “That translates into increased customer loyalty and in these fickle times customer loyalty counts for a lot, the overall turnover of the business improves with customer loyalty.”

The RNIB’s hire vision campaign invites HR professionals to learn ways to make a workplace more accessible to blind or partially sighted people.

However, Connolly says it is good examples set from within the business community that are often the most convincing for employers: “You tend to hope that if they [businesses] wont listen to charities, at least they’ll listen to their peers.”

He continues: “I think in the modern era there’s more blind and partially sighted people involved in more diverse occupations,” but he is worried that this progress may be halted.

“Particularly in these hard-pressed times I’m very concerned that the focus on young non-disabled people or graduates with degrees but no jobs will squeeze the ability of our own clients to compete in the labour market even more.”