4-minute read
You’ve probably heard or know the term accessibility.
But have you heard about universal design and why it’s good for you, your team and people with disability?
Universal design is when you make a deliberate effort to design something that every person in your team can use.
As a people manager, you can use universal design in many day-to-day tasks, such as when you:
Here’s our list of things you can do to apply universal design in how you manage your team’s wellbeing.
They’re quick to do and easy to put in place.
An agenda keeps meetings on track and shows respect for peoples’ time.
If you’ve got a 1-on-1 or informal meeting, an agenda can be as simple as a few dot points on what you want to discuss in an email.
If you’ve got a complex meeting, an agenda can make an unwieldy amount of information easier to process.
An agenda is helpful for:
An agenda is also great for some people with autism.
As some people with autism don’t like unexpected change, an agenda helps minimise unexpected discussions or changes to the meeting’s purpose.
Try to write up as much as you can directly into the body of the email instead of attaching things.
With headings and dot points, you can cover off a lot of info and no one needs to download or open anything.
Cutting down on attachments is helpful for:
There are always going to be times when you can’t turn your camera on, maybe from poor internet or technical glitches.
But at all the other times, ask if anyone in the meeting needs you to turn your camera on.
Some people may not feel comfortable having it on, but using your camera is helpful for:
In the Victorian public sector, many of us use the Microsoft Office suite daily.
But how often do you use the Microsoft accessibility checker?
It will highlight common accessibility mistakes and tell you how to fix them in Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Most of the time, the suggestions will not only improve the document for people with disability but make it better for everyone.
Some things it will pick up are:
If you’re making a video, create captions to go with it.
If you’re showing a video to others, turn on the captions even if you think nobody needs them.
Captions are helpful for:
Using captions means you’re increasing the likelihood of people remembering the information in the video.
We consulted with staff networks to check the language in this tool is appropriate and respectful.
For this tool, we consulted with: