Our new accessibility and language tools: creating a more inclusive online experience

Sellick Partnership has partnered with Recite Me to introduce new accessibility and language tools for our website. This will help us to deliver a more inclusive and user-friendly online experience for all of our clients, candidates and visitors, in line with our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion policy.

Visitors to the Sellick Partnership website will have noticed the recent addition of a new toolbar to our web browsing experience, presenting a suite of useful accessibility and language tools to make it easier for all visitors to get the most out of our site.

This new toolbar has been incorporated across the Sellick Partnership website through a partnership with Recite Me, a highly respected leader in cloud-based web accessibility software. We have added these features to ensure that everyone visiting our site - whether they are candidates, clients or individuals looking for information - will be able to get what they need, without encountering any barriers.

Here, we explore the benefits that the new Recite Me toolbar will provide, and the reasons why we have introduced these features as part of our companywide commitment to inclusivity.

How the Recite Me accessibility toolbar will help our users

The Recite Me toolbar functions can be accessed simply by clicking on the “Accessibility” button that can now be found in the bottom-right corner of each page on our website. By doing so, you will be able to instantly make use of a wide variety of tools to customise your digital experience.

The new accessibility toolbar includes but is not limited to the following features:

• Screen reading functionality, allowing you to hear the on-screen text read aloud.
• In-built reading aids and styling options, including options to change the size, font, colour and formatting of the text to make it easier to read.
• On-demand live translation, supporting more than 100 languages, including 35 text-to-speech and styling options.
• Fully customisable settings, allowing users to save their preferred configurations and utilise simple keyboard shortcuts across every page.

You can find out more about how each of these features work by consulting our Recite Me Accessibility Toolbar User Guide, which offers a quick and easy explanation of how to operate these tools to deliver a seamless browsing experience customised to your individual requirements and preferences.

Why have we launched this new accessibility feature?

It is a key priority for us to be able to offer a truly inclusive experience for all clients and candidates, and this includes making sure that every single site visitor is able to access our online content and services barrier-free.

More than 20% of the population may experience barriers when exploring websites due to having a disability, learning difficulty or visual impairment, or if they speak English as a second language. The introduction of this new toolbar is designed to address the needs of these users, and to overcome the disadvantages that they typically experience when trying to access content online.

Delivering tangible change to improve the inclusivity of our services was set as a key internal target for Sellick Partnership in 2021, making the partnership with Recite Me on this toolbar a natural next step. Recite Me is one of the world’s leaders in online accessibility solutions, providing support to millions of users in all industries around the world, and their personal assistive technology represents a gold-standard solution to the issues that people with disabilities experience daily when using the internet.

Ross Linnett, CEO of Recite Me, explains:

“It is important to provide an inclusive online experience, where everyone can use our digital world in a way that best suits their needs. As more organisations provide accessibility tools online, those who face online barriers can access information and services hassle-free. The digital world must be accessible for all.

“When I was diagnosed with dyslexia in university, I found it extremely challenging to read and understand online information. When the idea for Recite Me was born I felt empowered, like I had opened the door to a whole world of information, services and experiences.

“Recite Me’s inclusive software provides everyone with the option to customise their online experience to suit their individual needs. Our easy-to-use toolbar has a range of features to support vulnerable individuals and encourage active involvement in the digital world.”

Reflecting our broader commitment to EDI principles

The launch of the Recite Me toolbar also aligns perfectly with our long-standing commitment to the principles of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) at the heart of everything we do.

Since our foundation, we have worked hard to create a culture and business model that values and respects the unique differences we see in our colleagues, candidates and clients, and ensures that everyone we work with is treated according to the values of acceptance, fairness, inclusivity and support.

Launching the Recite Me toolbar is the latest step we have taken to embed these values at the heart of everything we do. Our other commitments include:

• Becoming a Disability Confident Committed (Level 1) employer, through our work to encourage employers to take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people.
• Signing up to the Diversity Dashboard initiative to increase our reach within underrepresented spaces.
• Signing up to the Business in the Community Race at Work Charter and the Race Fairness Commitment, demonstrating our efforts to tackle barriers that underrepresented demographics and individuals face in recruitment and progression.
• Appointing a team of designated Diversity Champions across the organisation, supported by our board of directors and senior management team, to be responsible for implementing our EDI strategy and instilling a diverse and accepting workplace culture.
• Regularly reviewing and updating our EDI policy to reflect the very latest legislative changes and our own evolving ambitions in this area.

Chelsey Saxon, Associate Director and our EDI committee lead, said:

“We are always looking for new ways in which we can take positive action to create a movement of change internally in the business. With that in mind, we also strive to look at new ways to encourage our clients to think differently about disability within their organisations too.

“With Recite Me, this will assist in creating a platform for applying for roles with ease and will ensure that people coming onto the site are able to navigate and reach the desired end result with ease."

Find out more

If you would like to learn more about our EDI policies as well as our efforts to deliver continuous improvement in this important area, take a look at our EDI policy hub, where you can see our company-wide Diversity & Inclusion Statement, or learn more about the various improvement initiatives we have taken to date.

You can also visit Recite Me’s site to find out more about this innovative software and the benefits it offers to people with accessibility needs. Or contact us for further information.