Bnode. Digital done right.

It depends on whereabouts in the country you are.

If your business or organisation is based in West Yorkshire, Chris will be only too happy to deliver Training or Workshops at your site or a venue of your choice.

Otherwise, in-person training is by arrangement.

Or, training and workshops can be delivered remotely, across the UK and beyond.

Contact us to find out the cost for training or workshop delivery to a UK-based business or organisation, as it depends on your exact requirements.

Chris and Bnode have worked with diverse businesses, organisations and initiatives to deliver mentoring, training and workshops.

Chris and Bnode worked with TSL Kirklees, in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, to deliver workshops.

Chris worked with the Neurodiversity and Entrepreneurship Association (NEA) in West Yorkshire as part of a programme funded by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, delivering mentoring and workshop presentations.

Bnode is a Good Business Charter (GBC) Accredited small business, and believes in raising awareness of and encouraging ethical business practices within other businesses and organisations.

Chris Naylor, the MD of Bnode, has been a vocal champion of Accessibility, Diversity and Inclusivity for many years.

Gaining an ethical business accreditation is an excellent way of demonstrating your good business credentials to your suppliers, customers, clients and stakeholders.

Chris will help you to communicate those values and credentials effectively, too.

The cost of accessibility for businesses and organisations can be understood in two ways:

1. The costs of actually implementing accessibility features,
2. The costs of not being accessible.

While there are upfront costs associated with making products, services, and digital spaces accessible, these are often outweighed by the long-term benefits, including increased revenue, improved brand reputation, and reduced risk of legal issues.

Inaccessible websites and services can lead to significant lost sales, as customers with disabilities may be unable to complete transactions or access information. For example, a report by UpsideLab found that £17.1 billion in revenue was lost in the UK in 2019 due to inaccessible e-commerce sites.

That directly affects your bottom line, whereas other costs are harder to quantify.

Hidden costs also include the damage done to a company’s reputation and brand image by inaccessible products and services, potentially leading to decreased customer loyalty and difficulty attracting new customers.

The answer is pretty simple – basically, so that anyone and everyone can read them.

Accessible solutions simply work better, for everyone.

Besides that, the harsh reality is that, in most cases, if you aren’t accessible your customers will go elsewhere rather than complain or bring it to your attention.

Microsoft’s Chief Accessibility Officer, Jenny Lay-Flurrie says, “If you don’t know it’s accessible, it’s probably not.”

In other words, don’t leave it to chance.

More than two million people are living with sight loss in the UK, severe enough to have a significant impact on their daily lives.

Can you afford to exclude them?

Adobe says that:

“An accessible PDF is a document that is universally easy to use and meets established accessibility standards. It enables most people to view, read, or interact with your document. Since your audience may include people whose vision, hearing, mobility, or cognition is impaired, your document must support assistive technology like:

– Screen readers
– Text-to-speech programs
– Braille displays

And more…

The more accessible your PDF is, for example, the easier it is to hear on a mobile device. Or view it with a screen magnifier. Or fill it out without a keyboard. Actually, this increased ease of use benefits everyone in your audience, regardless of their various abilities.

Compared to regular PDFs, Accessible PDFs prioritise inclusivity and provide an overall improved user experience for individuals with disabilities like visual impairment or reduced motor skills.

Source: Adobe – What is an accessible PDF?

Add accessibility tags to PDF files to make sure that people who use screen readers and other assistive technologies can read and navigate a document with Tables of Contents, hyperlinks, bookmarks, alt text, and so on.

Accessibility tags also make it possible to read the information on different devices, such as large type displays, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and mobile phones.

(Source: Microsoft – Create accessible PDFs)

Bnode will check and review your PDFs against accessibility standards.

We run each PDF document through Adobe Acrobat’s accessibility checker and the PAC3 PDF checker, as well as doing manual checks using JAWS.

Where necessary, we run Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on an individual PDF.

All appropriate Structures and best practices are also applied throughout the PDF document to ensure that standards are met, including manual checks and verification.

The PDFs are then returned to you, by uploading them to our central document repository for you to download and use, along with a compliance report for the document if one is needed.

Making your website accessible is crucial for inclusivity and compliance, and also making sure that everyone can access your information, products and services online, including people with disabilities, UK wide and beyond, because some other jurisdictions have legal requirements for website accessibility as well as the UK.

It also offers business benefits like a wider audience reach, improved user experience, and better search engine optimisation.

An inaccessible website costs you money and loses business.

In 2016, a survey found that more than 4 million people abandoned a retail website in the UK because of the barriers they found, taking with them an estimated spend of £11.75 billion. In 2019, that lost business, known as the ‘Click-Away Pound’, had grown to £17.1 billion.

69% of participants in the survey who had access needs said they will simply leave a problematic inaccessible website straight away.

Did you know that the online spending power of people with access needs in the UK is now £24.8 billion? Those figures underline the fact that the commercial incentive for making the online shopping experience as easy and accessible as possible is greater than ever.

Source: The Click-Away Pound – The Click-Away Pound Survey

We’ll work with you to audit and assess your existing website and make recommendations for improvements that you or your web developer can implement.

If a completely new and fully accessible website is required, Bnode is your ideal partner for accessible website design and development.

After the audit, Chris can also train you and your employees, members of staff, stakeholders or volunteers on the principles and best practices of accessible and low carbon websites.

The Census 2021 showed the population of England and Wales growing to 59.6 million. That’s the largest it’s ever been – up from 56.1 million in 2011.

White people make up the majority of the population.

81.7% (48.7 million) of residents are White.

‘Non-white’ residents, i.e., Black, Asian, Mixed Race and other ethnically diverse people make up the remaining 10.9 million (18.3%). That’s up 4.3% on the last census in 2011.

The largest ethnic minority group in England and Wales remains as Asian, including Asian British or Asian Welsh. 9.3% (5.5 million) of all residents are Asian, up from 7.5% (4.2 million) in 2011.

This ethnic group includes people from Bangladeshi, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani and any Other Asian backgrounds.

Black, including Black British, Black Welsh, Black Caribbean or Black African is the second largest ethnic minority group. 4% (2.4 million) of the overall population are Black. Up from 3.3% (1.9 million) in 2011.

Mixed Race/Multiple ethnic minority group comprises 2.9% (1.7 million) of the overall population. Also up from 2011, when it stood at 2.2% (1.2 million).

The biggest increase is in the ‘Other Ethnic’ group – doubling from just 1% (564,000) in the 2011 Census to 2.1% (1.3 million) in the 2021 Census.

Focusing on first language and languages spoken, 5.1 million residents in England and Wales speak English as a second language or don’t have it as their main language, and 160,600 speak no English at all.

Statistically speaking, Polish is the second language of England and Wales. Over half a million (612,000) stated that it was their main language. Romanian is in third place, at 472,000, which has grown dramatically since the 2011 Census, when only 67,600 of those in England and Wales named it as their main language, moving Punjabi to fourth (288,700) and Urdu to fifth (267,600).

Looking at working age, just over 62% of the White population of England and Wales and 66.5% of the ethnically diverse population are of working age.

For people aged between 25 and 49 years old, the ethnically diverse working age population is much higher – just over 58%, compared to nearly 51% of the White working age population.

Younger people aged 16 to 24 (i.e. Generation Z) make up just over a fifth, (21.3%), of the ethnically diverse working age population, compared to just under 16% of the White working age population.

This is important because it shows you who your available talent pool is and how you can be more inclusive and diverse.

Research shows that our workplaces are becoming increasingly multigenerational and there are things employers can do to ensure that workplaces work for people of all ages and are more inclusive for all.

As the BITC Factsheet says:

“Employers [must] ensure that UK workplaces are equal for everyone, regardless of background. Employers can then sense check the efforts that they have in place to ensure our workplaces are reflective of the communities in which we operate. Most importantly, in the midst of a world shortage of workers and the skills that are required for the future, it becomes crucial that our workplaces have curated an inclusive environment where people from all backgrounds can work and progress. We know that tackling race disparities in the UK across the labour market, through improved participation and progression, has the potential to add £24 billion a year to the UK economy.”

An understanding of Diversity and Inclusion allows employers to further understand and relate to their communities, as well as “the how and where to source and retain talent”, and “put in place structures and procedures” like those outlined in the Business in the Community’s (BITC’s) Race at Work Charter “to create the right environment to best attract talent and become inclusive employers”.

Source: Business in the Community – BITC Factsheet Regional Insights on Race Yorkshire and the Humber PDF.

According to Acas, “Diversity is the range of people in your workforce. For example, this might mean people with different ages, religions, ethnicities, people with disabilities, and both men and women. It also means valuing those differences.”

Don’t forget that diversity also encompasses neurodiversity too.

A diverse workplace brings a wider range of perspectives and ideas into your business or organisation, leading to increased innovation and creativity.

When employees feel seen, heard, valued and included, they are more likely to be engaged and voice their opinions and ideas, be highly motivated, and more productive.

They stay longer with the business or organisation, too, as when employees have a sense of belonging and a great employee experience they don’t want / need to leave because they have true job satisfaction.

For employers, monitoring and recording ethnicity data within the workplace is important, as it establishes a baseline and measures the progress you’re making. It’s also a crucial step towards a business or organisation being able to report on ethnicity pay gaps and what they are doing to close them.

Do you want to be more inclusive – both online and in your business, towards current team members and potential new employees?

Bnode can help, through training and workshop delivery. Ideally suited to support your business or organisation with Inclusivity Training that enhances your reputation and demonstrates that you’re an inclusive business or organisation that’s great to work for or be associated with, Chris delivers training and workshops in-person and remotely.

Provide diversity and inclusion training for all employees or volunteers.

Then, after you’ve put the training into practice, focus on three key things – your policies, communication, and culture – to create a more inclusive workplace.

Address and remove any barriers that might disadvantage certain individuals or groups.

Inclusivity Training brings many benefits.

Training is a valuable tool for creating a more equal, respectful, and inclusive workplace or culture within your business, organisation or initiative.

By enhancing awareness and understanding of inclusivity, as well as practical skills, Inclusivity Training helps businesses, organisations and individuals foster a culture where everyone feels valued and included – whether they’re employees, volunteers or other stakeholders. This leads to a more productive, innovative, and positive working environment.

Ultimately, the main benefit of Inclusivity Training is that businesses and organisations with inclusive cultures are more likely to do better – meeting financial and performance targets, and have better overall business outcomes.