Forrester Partners With Work Without Limits To Increase Employment Opportunities For Job Candidates With Disabilities

Career Climbers / 25th May 2022

Forrester (Nasdaq: FORR) has announced the company has joined the Work Without Limits Business Network to foster greater employment opportunities for candidates with disabilities. As part of its diversity and inclusion (D&I) journey, Forrester’s hiring initiatives focus on attracting talent from all backgrounds — including racial, ethnic, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, veteran, and ability. According to the World Health Organization, more than one billion people — an estimated 15% of the world’s population — live with a disability. In addition to recruiting people with disabilities, the network will provide Forrester access to disability inclusion consulting services and training, service organizations, and relevant events to advance disability employment.

Work Without Limits — an initiative of Commonwealth Medicine, the consulting and operations division of UMass Chan Medical School — is a network of employers, educational institutions, employment service providers, and state and federal agencies working to ensure that employment for people with disabilities equates to those without disabilities. Its programs and services are geared to meet the needs of businesses that actively recruit people with disabilities, individuals with disabilities seeking jobs, and the employment providers that serve them.

“Organizations must step up and contribute to impactful opportunities, events, and inclusive change for individuals with disabilities,” said Bonnie Rivers, director of employer relations at Work Without Limits. “We are pleased to partner with Forrester to help them attract diverse candidates with disabilities across all levels of employment.”

In addition to advancing D&I at its own firm, Forrester is committed to producing research to help business and technology leaders build more inclusive experiences for their employees and customers. Forrester also finds that accessibility is a core element of firms’ comprehensive diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy. Globally, 36% of companies have executive-level commitments to create accessible digital experiences. Forrester’s research about digital accessibility and inclusive design best practices helps leaders navigate and better serve the needs of individuals with disabilities.

Noteworthy research includes:

• Prioritize Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion (DEI) In Design Teams To Create Inclusive Experiences. Learn why DEI in design teams matters and discover best practices from design leaders committed to creating diverse and inclusive design teams.
• The Billion-Customer Opportunity: Digital Accessibility. Making digital products accessible can improve customer experiences in unexpected ways, boost employee productivity, and appeal to values-based consumers.
• Get Accessibility Right: Recruit People With Disabilities Into The Design Process. To yield innovation, companies should recruit people with disabilities to participate in design research — instead of approaching accessibility from a compliance-driven perspective.

“Attracting talent from all backgrounds and perspectives is one of our key recruitment priorities,” said Julie Kelly, VP of talent acquisition at Forrester. “We look forward to collaborating with Work Without Limits to maximize employment opportunities for people with disabilities and play our part in addressing the barriers keeping them from finding work.”