Employers are failing to introduce new policies to meet new legal provisions on disability discrimination, despite widespread publicity about the recent changes.
New research has found that training and workforce communication are being neglected as the majority of firms have not acted on amendments to the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), which came into force on 1 October.
The poll of 125 HR professionals last month found that just one in three organisations had made any changes to policies or procedures to accommodate the legal updates.
Nearly a third of those questioned by legal advisers Consult Gee had not informed the workforce about the changes, or how to deal with them.
The new provisions require businesses to make reasonable changes to their premises to accommodate services for disabled customers.
However, more than half of the respondents admitted they had not undertaken any training on how to implement the necessary changes to comply with the new requirements of the DDA.
Milan Taylor, a director at the law firm, said employers were failing to meet the challenges of the new legislation.
“These results confirm that communication and training for employees on new legislative change remain a challenge,” he said. “The industry has known about the changes for some considerable time, so I’m surprised at the number of organisations that appear not to have pursued them proactively.”
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