ICT plays a pivotal role in the delivery of our services to customers and the working environment for our staff. It is therefore essential that we ensure that our ICT systems are as barrier free as possible for people with disabilities.
We recognise that improved accessibility of ICT for our staff will contribute to improved productivity and job satisfaction, helping us retain the talent we have in our workforce and assisting in our vision of being a great place to work.
We also recognise that accessibility is a driver for adhering to standards and best practice which bring focus to the quality of the ICT solutions we are designing, building and buying.
Background
Group IT in LBG realised that its Voice & Data Initiative (V&DI) would be, in providing new Internet Protocol (IP) telephones on the great majority of desks in the company, confronting non-disabled and disabled staff alike with desktop technology significantly different from the traditional telephone handsets.In particular the IP phones featured screens rather like, but larger than, those found on mobile phones.
A decision was taken to identify all staff who had some form of disability which might, without reasonable adjustments to the technology, compromise their ability to use the new phones successfully and master fully comprehensive phone operation.
Reasonable Adjustments identified
One of the key challenges was gaining an understanding of potential requirements and solutions for the disabilities, both from the perspective of alternative 'off the shelf' telephony equipment and assistive or adaptive technology that could be used in conjunction with the telephony equipment. Conversations with 3rd parties such as Cisco and the RNID demonstrated that there was a wealth of information available but it was not well advertised nor was it in a format that could be easily picked up by, say, a Line Manager not familiar with disabilities or ICT.
We established that the advent of IPT has really only introduced a handful of new desktop telephony reasonable, because the IPT phone incorporates a screen, sight of which is essential to comprehensive operation of the phone.
The balance of requirements for IPT Reasonable Adjustments is the same as the requirements which have always existed for disabled staff members using the telephone. Including:
* Extra amplification, for those with impaired hearing
* Textphone, for those with very little or no hearing
* Large buttons on the phone, for those a) with impaired manual dexterity and b) with impaired sight (sometimes)
* Headset switcher units, for those using a headset for dual purposes, i) to dictate to speech recognition software (required to work around conditions like dyslexia and RSI) and ii) to make and receive phone calls
The three requirements newly arisen with the advent of IPT are for:-
* Desktop IP phone with superior screen
* Blind-user training, to teach use of the IP phone via a combination of feel and memorised sequences of button operations
* PC Software which delivers phone operation via an associated Windows workstation and features screen-reading with audio output
One ground-breaking reasonable adjustment
Early in 2008 the IT team addressing IPT adjustments for disabled staff pressed Cisco UK for an IP phone which did not depend on sight of screened information for comprehensive operation. The enquiry was referred to Cisco Inc. in the US and this resulted in an introduction to a Cisco Partner called Tenacity Inc. which has written assistive software called accessaphone™ to run on a PC under Windows.
Tenacity's accessaphone™ exploits the advent of common IP networks for telephones and distributed computing. It runs on the PC and is used to operate a nominated telephone through use of the screen and keyboard. The nominated telephone can still be operated by using its screen, keypad and supplementary buttons, or calls can be answered and placed using the PC.
Incoming calls are announced by the PC using synthesised voice. Screened information on the phone is also presented on the PC screen and PC screen reading software converts this to audible output. Phone operation is accomplished by simple keyboard commands, e.g. the space bar is pressed to answer a call, Alt+D is used to dial a call.
It has taken a number of months to progress the deployment of accessaphone™ into the V&D network operated by IBM for LBG's use. There had to be due diligence over IT security clearance and proper testing. The product is now installed for demonstration purposes on a PC attached to the Bank's live network. All being well it will be delivered to staff who are blind or have severe visual impairment early in 2009.
Tenacity have advised that accessaphone™ has not been deployed anywhere in the UK to date. Its appearance in LBG will therefore be a first for UK industry.
Business benefits
The telephone is such a basic piece of office equipment that is easy to overlook how essential it is for many roles in an organisation like LBG. Furthermore, for some people the telephone is not just something they use whilst doing their job, it is their job, e.g. a telephonist in a branch.
Consequently if the move to IPT had made it difficult or impossible for people with disabilities to use their telephones then it would have impacted their performance, their efficiency and their morale. This in turn would ultimately impact our customer service and our competitiveness in the financial services market.
Beyond the human factors there is also a cost associated with disgruntled staff - they are prone to leave the organisation. Beside the financial and reputational risk of action under the DDA, it costs approximately £5,800 to recruit and train an office clerk.
The cost of the adjustments cited found by the review ranges between £30 and £600. It therefore has made financial sense to implement the adjustments for the staff impacted by the IPT rollout.