Our Accessibility Roadmap

Accessibility

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Comment from our CEO

Accessibility is not a nice to have, it's a business imperative. That's why ensuring we are an accessible organisation is a key part of our company strategy.

We believe that enabling and empowering our people, and the partners we work with, is vital - and that means everyone, regardless of whether someone has disabilities or a long-term condition and regardless of whether this is visible or invisible - every individual should find it easy to connect and contribute.

We have a clear action plan to achieve change and our aim is simple - to design accessiblity into every project and initiative from the start.

We are making progress, but we know there is still more to do. Colt's Accessibility Roadmap demonstrates our commitment to an inclusive environment where everyone can thrive and where everyone has a fair chance to develop and progress.

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Keri Gilder

Chief Executive Officer

Our sponsors

Accessibility makes the workplace more inviting and inclusive for people with disabilities. I believe everyone benefits when we focus on accessibility. That's why it's so important that we ensure Colt is accessible to all.

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Ashish Surti

Executive Vice President - Technology & Security

We recognise the importance of making products, services, information & opportunities, accessible. The link between accessibility and wellbeing is clear and we are committed to promoting accessiblity for all our stakeholders.

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Caroline Griffin Pain

General Counsel

What do we mean by accessibility?

Accessibility is the practice of making information, activities, and/or environments sensible, meaningful, and usable for as many people as possible.

It encompasses physical and digital spaces and the way we communicate with internal and external stakeholders. It also looks at the employee and cutomer experience.

How we built Colt's Accessibility Roadmap

Step #1: Network launch

In 2020, we launched our Disability Accessibility Network (DAN) to ensure that we support persons with disabilities within Colt, raise awareness and consult on matters that impact them.

Step #2: Feedback mechanisms

Developed feedback mechanisms on our corporate website and intranet, to gain input from employees, external stakeholders and customers. Our Accessible Spaces forum was created to consult with employees on the accessibility of our physical spaces. Our facilities team (WPS), H&S, DAN & DE&I talk about how accessible our physical spaces are.

Step #3: External expertise

In 2022, we consulted external accessibility specialists to review our current state against best practice.

Step #4: Stakeholder engagement

We conducted 10 hours of stakeholder interviews with people from across the business. Feedback highlighted low maturity in relation to accessibility, but outlined some quick wins and longer-term actions.

Step #5: Build the roadmap

With these insights, the ESG team and other stakeholders built Optimising Accessibility - Colt's 5-year roadmap.

Optimising Accessibility at Colt

Our goal is to optimise accessibility. This is a journey for our business as we take steps to build accessibility into our Employee and Customer Experience. These are five key areas:

Strategy & Governance

Includes strategic intent, reporting, policies and building accessibility into our supply chain.

Employee Experience

Remove barriers & ensure we can support employees who need it, as well as build accessibility into recruitment, onboarding & development.

Awareness & Skills

Engage the whole business on the need for accessibility whilst building deeper accessibility skills for key teams.

Brand & Reputation

Ensuring our brand and marketing is accessible in order to remove any barriers with our key audiences and raise awareness externally.

Customer acquisition

Build out our roadmap to ensure we incorporate accessibility considerations into the customer journey.

Our 5-year journey

Year 1

Foundations

Build accessibility into procurement process

Agree digital accessibility principles and developer guidance

Develop assistive technology strategy and approach to deployment

Deliver role-based training plan

Review of onboarding

Build into new intranet

Business wide awareness campaign

Year 2

Embedding

Trial automated accessibility testing

Devise approach to tracking workplace adjustments

Embed accessibility requirements into Project Management Office

Continue to embed across supply chain

Optimise accessibility across external comms

Embed accessibility community of practice

Enhance data collection to track progress

Year 3

Strengthening

Build out roadmap to optimise accessibility in the customer journey

Deliver next phase of role-based training

Deepen awareness across the business

Enhance and scale accessibility testing

Year 4

Advancing

Ensure all high volume sites and portals meet accesibility standards

Continue to embed accessibility within the employee and customer lifecycles

Collaborate with supply chain to influence accessibility across the industry

Year 5

Optimising

Perform maturity modelling exercise to understand progress

Devise further plans to close any gaps working in consultation with persons with disabilities