Australia Post has launched its Access and Inclusion Plan 2023 to 2025, outlining specific commitments to help improve and improve the experiences of Australia Post team members, customers and communities over the next three years.
Building on its commitment to support people with a disability, the new plan is its first to include specific actions to support carers. Other commitments include ongoing and increased representation of people with disability through groups such as the Australia Post Stakeholder Council and Accessibility Matters; enhanced accessibility options across post offices, websites and mobile apps; and ensuring 90% of customer-facing team members complete disability confidence training by 2024.
At Australia Post, 5.6% of team members identify as having a disability and they have an average tenure of 16 years. Australia Post has also completed the Disability Confident Recruiter Program run by the Australian Network on Disability and ensures its marketing is accessible to people with disability.
Previous accessibility action plans at Australia Post have helped increase the representation of people with disability in decision-making processes through the creation of the Accessibility Matters Employee Reference Group in 2019. In addition, the appointment of Dr Ben Gauntlett, disability discrimination commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission, to the Australia Post stakeholder council in 2021 has amplified the voices of people with disability, helping the organization better understand the needs of stakeholders.
Susan Davies, executive general manager at Australia Post, said, “I am extremely proud of the progress made so far and excited to see what the new plan would achieve. Over the past 10 years, our accessibility and inclusion plans have helped us create truly meaningful change and improve our team member and customer experiences. We’ve introduced new tools to better assist our team members, such as our workplace adjustment guidelines and digital passports so people can confidently record their adjustment needs, and haptics on our scanners, ensuring our many delivery team members who are deaf have the tools they need to get the job done.
“We’re also focused on improving accessibility for our customers throughout the communities we serve. We’ll soon introduce a new point-of-sale system to improve the in-store experience and we’re continuing to improve accessibility on our website and in our app so that more people can access our information and services. I am really excited to extend our new plan to include specific meaningful commitments for our team members who are carers by 2024. This action came directly from our accessibility matters employee reference group feedback and the many team members we have who are parents of children with disability. There is always more to do and while this plan helps us articulate what we want to deliver over the next three years, we are always looking to improve and enhance the experience for people living with disability.”
Kate Havas, carer, Australia Post team member and former co-chair of Accessibility Matters, said, “I’ve been at Australia Post for 10 years, and the amount of change we’ve achieved thanks to accessibility plans has been incredible. We’re now at a point where many parts of the business are driving change and coming up with new ideas to help the broader community as well as support team members. Having been closely involved in the consultative approach of Accessibility Matters to create change for our team members with a disability and advise on our overarching approach, I know how much we can achieve. Carers are such an important part of supporting people with disability and it means so much that Australia Post has included us in this new plan because it will make a real difference to people’s lives.”
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