Positively Purple 2023

At Atos, we are once again coming together alongside the global community to put a spotlight on the experiences of people with disabilities and celebrate the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPWD) on December 3, 2023. We are proud to support this day and the #PositivelyPurple movement, a global initiative to raise awareness and celebrate the achievements of people with disabilities in the workplace. #PositivelyPurple also encourages employers to create more inclusive and accessible work environments for people with diverse abilities.

While there is a lot more work to do when it comes to creating accessible environments for all, tackling stigma and discrimination and driving awareness and education, IDPWD marks a time for us to look back on our work in the last year in furthering the accessibility and disability inclusion agenda and look forward to the opportunities in the year ahead.

As an Employee Experience Consultant and Chair of the Atos Adapt ERG (Disability Inclusion Employee Resource Group), I have witnessed first-hand how our company values diversity and inclusion as a key driver of innovation and performance. 

We have continued to deliver our Adapt Round Table sessions about accessibility and disability, engaging hundreds of employees, concluded the pilot of our Adapt Buddy Scheme, which encouraged conversations about the intersectionality between cultural backgrounds and experiences of disability and most recently supported in launching our internal Movember campaign to put a spotlight on men’s health, engaging people from all levels and regions of the organization. 

All of this has resulted in success externally, with Atos Adapt being shortlisted for Outstanding Disability Network of the Year at the European Diversity Awards and British Diversity Awards and being listed in the Global Diversity List.

While the remit of our ERG is to drive positive impact in disability inclusion for colleagues internally, our efforts would not be as impactful without sincere support from our leadership and key stakeholders across the business. This is why one of the highlights of the last year is seeing such a strong commitment from our leadership and key allies, these include:

• The former CEO of Atos Tech Foundations, Nourdine Bihmane, making a public commitment to support self-ID (voluntary reporting of one’s disability status), awareness and training and improving accessibility at Atos as part of the Valuable 500. 
• Rik Robarts, Head of Global Strategic Sales & Executive Sponsor of Atos Adapt, publicly sharing his experiences on International Day of Sign Languages and Trudy Fountain-James, General Counsel North America, inspiring people globally by openly discussing her neurodiversity.
• Launching our Atos DNA sessions, accessibility and disability inclusion are now showcased to colleagues globally, thanks to the strong partnership between the Global DE&I Team (led by Larisa-Doria Vancea), the Global Accessibility Team and Atos Adapt.
• The continued hard work of our Global Accessibility Team, headed by Neil Milliken, opened up to hundreds more contributors dedicated to driving accessibility throughout our business. This resulted in Neil Milliken, Alexandra Nothnagel, Mark Wilcock and Beatriz González Mellídez being recognized for their efforts by the IAAP. 
• Atos forming a partnership with the Special Olympics, highlighting our commitment to an inclusive digital world accessible to all through adapted digital solutions for all types of disabilities

I could go into many other highlights, but then this blog post will probably end up being a book! The important thing for me and colleagues across Atos to recognize is that we have laid some solid foundations in cultivating and maintaining a safe, supportive and sustainable environment for people of all abilities. The first signs of this are evident from reviewing our Innovation & Disability Inclusion Event 2023 where Neil Milliken, Trudy Fountain-James, Sarika Saxena, Alexandra Nothnagel, Alexandre Arnaud and Joseph Lafauci spoke openly to our leadership about their disabilities/neurodivergence and how assistive technology supports them in reaching their potential at work. 

We still have much more work to do and I’m excited for the year ahead. One of the things I am most looking forward to is launching our Global Reverse Mentoring pilot initiative, where colleagues with experiences of disabilities will be paired with Executive mentees to have conversations about how we can enable further inclusion, accessibility and openness within our organization for colleagues of all abilities. Senior leader support is crucial for any cultural transformation to encourage self-identification and openness from colleagues and this program will contribute towards that element. For more information, please see my and Neil Milliken’s Leader-to-Leader conversation as part of #PositivelyPurple. Any colleagues who would like to take part in the scheme, please get in touch!

That’s all from me, it was great to have this opportunity to celebrate achievements made through working together in partnership and I look forward to the opportunities for disability inclusion in 2024!