#PurpleLightUp at Virgin Media

#PurpleLightUp

Today, on International Day of People with Disabilities, Virgin Media is turning purple in support of the #PurpleLightUp campaign.

We’re joining businesses, charities, universities and governments around the world to celebrate and recognise disabled people across the globe. Disability is at the core of our commitment to transform lives through digital technology and we’re lighting up purple to demonstrate our support.

All employees have been invited to come to work in purple and enjoy the purple cakes, beetroot salads and violet lattes on offer. At Virgin Media HQ we’re lighting up our building purple inside and out while we host a live panel discussion with senior leaders, line managers and key disability influencers on how we can continue to have Confident Conversations about disability at Virgin Media.

We’re also delighted that Josh Dennis, Customer Transformation Executive in our Virgin Mobile team, features in a TV advert produced by Channel 4 in support of #PurpleLightUp. See Josh talking about his experience in the workplace here and you can also read a blog from Josh here.


Partnering on Disability

Last year with Scope we launched #WorkWithMe, our commitment to support 1 million disabled people to get into and stay in work by the end of 2020. We’re funding Support to Work, a new bespoke employment service offering advice and guidance for disabled people applying for jobs through a 12 week programme and a range of online advice.

We’re also asking businesses to come together to create more inclusive workplaces for disabled people. Together with Scope we’re asking businesses to sign up to our #WorkWithMe pledge to demonstrate a commitment to thinking and acting differently about disability at work. We are also running a series of roundtables and bringing businesses together to discuss how we as employers can remove the barriers disabled people face getting into and stay in work. This forum provides a place to talk openly about existing challenges in promoting a positive culture around disability, establishing executive accountability for disability and ensuring structures are in place to share good practices and learning with other businesses.

We’re also a proud partner of the British Paralympics Association and supporting the ParalympicsGB team to be their best on the road to Tokyo 2020.

Ultimately by working together we can create an environment where disability is properly represented on the business agenda and the barriers to work for disabled people are removed for good. We are also transforming the way Virgin Media supports disabled employees and customers. For our employees today, we have sent companywide communications encouraging them to take a look at our disability guides – we want to ensure we are equipping our people to become more disability confident and ensure they have the tools to provide workplace adjustments for their teams. Today, we have also launched our first employee disability network, to provide an inclusive support platform for disabled employees and enhance our work to transform the disabled employee and customer experience.