This week Microsoft is recognizing the UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities, according to Brad Smith, president and chief legal officer of the company. In a blog post yesterday, he outlined how the company fosters inclusion. The theme this year, as set out by the UN, is “inclusion matters: access and empowerment for people of all abilities.”
Here are some of the ways in which companies can include people of all abilities, according to Smith.
• Building an inclusive and diverse culture: “We cannot serve effectively people with disabilities if we do not have a diverse employee population and inclusive culture that ensures that we reflect and understand the needs of all customers,” says Smith. This means employing people with disabilities and giving them the tools to succeed.
• Designing with disability in mind: Over the past two years, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has fostered an engineering culture where disability is kept in mind, says Smith. “We understand that people interact with our products in diverse ways. We therefore need to design products to ensure that the diversity of these needs is reflected in our product planning from the start,” he says.
• Partnering with others: Smith says that partnering with non-governmental organizations that specialize in working with people with disabilities helps the company understand how to meet needs of those members. “This dialogue, user testing, and feedback are all helping us to develop better technology,” he says.
