City, University of London, School of Health Sciences, Disability and Social Inclusion seminar invite you to seminar, Assessing the efficacy of the Two Ticks ‘Positive About Disabled People’/ Disability Confident scheme
Speaker: Dr Nicolas Bacon, Professor in Human Resource Management at Bayes Business School, City, University of London
Online Event, Via Zoom
To book a place please email Doria Pilling: d.s.pilling@city.ac.uk for a link to the seminar. (Please note you need to be signed in to a personal or professional Zoom account if you do not have a City University email). Please state if you have any special requirements
Nick Bacon will discuss his and colleagues’ research exploring the efficacy of employers’ equality certifications, focusing on the UK government’s Two Ticks ‘Positive About Disabled People’/ Disability Confident scheme. Drawing on neo-institutional theory concepts of policy-practice and means-ends (de)coupling, they developed a framework comprising excellence, symbolic, ceremonial, and goal-oriented scenarios by which to evaluate certifications such as Two Ticks. Their analysis of nationally-representative matched data suggests that Two Ticks certification was largely symbolic, with certified workplaces not adopting more disability equality practices, and not employing proportionately more disabled employees. There was also very little evidence they provided disabled employees with better experiences of work regarding job discretion, work-life conflict and well-being, than non-certified workplaces. The findings call into question the efficacy of Two Ticks certification and question the role of similar equality certifications in helping address labour market disadvantage.
Nick Bacon is co-author of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Disability report Ahead of the Arc’: a Contribution to Halving the Disability Employment Gap (2006), and a founder member of Disability@work. His recent publications have explored disability employment outcomes by firm size, during the great recession, and considered the impact of working from home.