Millwood Servicing, a fire safety and engineering company in Hackbridge, has been nominated for the Small Business Award at the DWP’s Disability Confident Awards for their work in supporting disabled people into employment.
Millwood Servicing, a Disability Confident Leader, helps support disabled people into work by offering taster days for recruits and works with them to introduce workplace adjustments.
The company has provided many opportunities for people with autism and neurodiverse conditions to become fully qualified fire safety engineers. Millwood Servicing also runs an internal campaign called “Zero2Hero” which is designed to provide enhanced support for employees to be trained as engineers.
Millwood Services are keen to change how their industry views disabled people and have led the way in training and challenging negativity.
The awards recognise how small businesses have adapted to ensure inclusion for disabled employees and will be judged by the DWP’s Disability Confident team.
Winners will be announced on 30 April, at Business Disability Forum’s Disability Smart Awards 2024 in London which will also be streamed online.
Other awards include the DWP’s Disability Confident Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Workplace Award and the Disability Confident Impact Award.
Minister for Disabled People, Mims Davies MP, said:
“These small businesses are the gold-standard for our Disability Confident scheme which is helping disabled people work and thrive in employment all across the country.
“We will all benefit from the trailblazing work of businesses like Millwood Servicing and the increased productivity and opportunity it brings to our economy and I am delighted their great work is being recognised.”
All nominees are part of the Government’s Disability Confident scheme which promotes and provides resources for businesses to think differently about disability so they can recruit, retain and develop disabled talent.
With more than 19,000 members and 11.5 million paid employees working in signed-up organisations, Disability Confident employers are leading the culture change in their own businesses and in their networks – promoting the benefits of inclusive recruitment and retention.
Disability Confident is just one part of the government’s work to boost disability employment, with 5.5m disabled people in employment in the UK, an increase of 390,000 on the year.
This is backed by one of the biggest welfare interventions in a generation – our £2.5billion Back to Work plan – which will support thousands of disabled people and those with health conditions to start and thrive in work.
