New plan to build a disability confident culture at Medibank

Medibank has launched its second Accessibility and Inclusion Plan (AIP), outlining the company’s new and ongoing commitments to better support its people, customers and all Australians living with disability.

Medibank CEO David Koczkar said that with approximately one in five people living with disability, the health company is focusing on removing barriers that exist for people with disability so that everyone has equal access to better health and employment outcomes.

“Our plan over the next three years reflects the discussions we’ve had with colleagues with disability, carers of people with disability and community partners to better understand where our focus should be.

“We want to be an employer of choice for people with disability. We want employees with disability to not only join us at Medibank but stay and build their careers here. Creating an inclusive, safe and disability confident workplace is a priority for us,” he said.

Medibank’s new Plan outlines actions focusing on four key areas:

1. Creating an inclusive, safe and disability confident workplace
2. Ensuring an equitable and accessible customer experience
3. Establishing strong, mutually beneficial relationships with community partners
4. Governance and reporting on our accessibility journey with our people, customers, and community

“Since launching our first plan in 2018, we’ve made significant progress to create a disability confident culture. But we have more to do.

“We’ve been working closely with Get Skilled Access to deliver immersive experiences to our senior leaders, bespoke face-to-face training and development workshops as well as online training for internal recruitment teams,” he said.

Other achievements over the past four years include:

• Improving recruitment processes to make the experience more accessible for all potential candidates with disability
• Developing the Sunny app for 1800RESPECT, in partnership with Women with Disability and an expert advisory group of women with disability, to help women with and without disability to recognise, respond and get help if they are experiencing violence or abuse
• Improving support to employees with caring responsibilities including employees caring for a person with disability
• Partnering with the Australian Network on Disability to support students and jobseekers in their internship and mentoring programs