Employers and recruiters must have access to a single central point of information to learn about providing barrier-free recruitment if it is to become a reality in the UK, according to Richard Toy, operations director for SkyBlue Recruitment.

SkyBlue recently became the first recruitment agency to achieve an increasingly recognised standard for demonstrating an organisation’s commitment to providing barrier-free recruitment for disabled candidates.

Confusion and conflicting information about workplace requirements, such as health and safety regulations, muddy the waters and there is no one clearing house for expert guidance, Toy told Recruiter. As a result, what Toy referred to as “the fear factor” prevents more well-intentioned employers and recruiters from incorporating barrier-free recruitment practices in their organisations.

Toy was speaking to Recruiter at the BT Tower celebration of 12 months of the Clear Assured standard. More than 1,300 organisations have achieved the Clear Assured standard, which states their commitment to identifying and removing barriers from recruitment policy and which was inaugurated a year ago.

Unfortunately, Toy pointed out, disability is not the only equality strand suffering from hazy information. “I would like to see the disability situation nailed, and then what are we going to do about all areas of the equality strands?” he said.

Perhaps the Department of Work and Pensions would be the appropriate agency to provide the focal point of information, Toy suggested.
Milton Keynes-based technical recruiter TXM Recruit has begun the process to achieve the certification. TXM business development director Andrew Midgley also attended the celebration, and said that too much emphasis to date had been placed on employers’ coercing recruitment agencies to adopt barrier-free recruitment principles by threatening to deny them work.

“That’s the wrong way to do it,” Midgley said. “We believe it is about embracing best recruitment practice. Then it becomes more than a tick box exercise. Our philosophy has always been to provide the best qualified candidate. Now we will be able to further understand how to best represent candidates from the wider community.”

Midgley added that the biggest challenge now to offering barrier-free recruitment would be to get all of their clients to “sign up” to the practice.