Welcome to Freeney Williams
Freeney Williams Limited is one of Europe’s leading disability and diversity consultancies. We work extensively in all sectors to achieve long-lasting and self-sustaining change designed to meet the needs of employers and service providers in the real world.
Freeney Williams enables organisations to successfully:
- employ and retain a diverse range of people as effective members of the workforce
- develop and sell products or services that are accessible to all customers
- meet their duties under the Equality Act and other anti-discrimination legislation, including the Human Rights Act
- develop inclusive cultures which facilitate good practice and which can embrace, and profit from, diversity
- meet and harness the needs of an ageing population.
New online, interactive workshops
Working remotely may be the new way of working, but it means new challenges for everyone.
To address these challenges we have developed a number of online interactive workshops on issues which are key to this new way of working. Each workshop is limited to 15 participants, designed to be highly interactive, supported by a workbook and helpline, and facilitated by specialists in their field.
Download the workshop details:
Working from home: for Managers. Developing emotional resilience and mental wellbeing for your team
Download the Managers' workshop details (Word)
Download the Managers' workshop details (PDF)
Working from home: for Team Members. Developing emotional resilience and mental wellbeing
Download the Team workshop details (Word)
Download the Team workshop details (PDF)
Disabled customers, customer care and Covid-19
Download the Disabled customers, customer care and Covid-19 workshop details (Word)
Download the Disabled customers, customer care and Covid-19 details (PDF)
Having sensitive conversations in the new ways of working
Download the Having sensitive conversations workshop details (Word)
Download the Having sensitive conversations workshop details (PDF)
Managing misunderstanding and conflict arising from the new ways of working
Download the Managing misunderstanding and conflict workshop details (Word)
Download the Managing misunderstanding and conflict (PDF)
Unconscious bias and decision making arising from Covid-19
Download the Unconscious bias and decision making workshop details (Word)
Download the Unconscious bias and decision making workshop details (PDF)
For further information please contact info@freeneywilliams.com or call us on 01273 327715
Services
Everything we do is designed to help organisations answer three fundamental questions:
- “How do we make it easier for more people to work more effectively within our organisation?”
- “How do we make it easier for more people to access our goods or services more often?”
- “How can we enhance organisational reputation and business opportunities?”
We are used to recognising, understanding and meeting the needs of clients in a wide variety of settings with different commercial, economic or political constraints. The company operates throughout the United Kingdom, with several consultants regularly working overseas.
The Click Away Pound
One key aspect of our work over the last 15 years has supported business in ensuring the accessibility and usability of their websites and apps. Every year, over 70% of the sites we've checked have been assessed as 'red' on our traffic light system, presenting businesses with issues of brand and PR damage, commercial loss and legal risk. Its hard to understand why things haven't changed over the years so we decided to try to quantify the commercial implications of excluding customers with disabilities.
2016 Click-Away Pound survey
We looked in detail at the fast-growing online retail sector, to explore the online shopping experience of people with disabilities and examine the cost to business of ignoring disabled shoppers. The 2016 findings were startling:
- 71% of disabled customers with access needs would click away from a website that they found difficult to use
- Those customers who clicked away had an estimated spending power of £11.75 billion in the UK alone, around 10% of the total UK online spend at the time
- 82% of customers with access needs would have spent more if websites were more accessible
The first Click-Away Pound made some sizable waves, drawing interest from the EU, the UK Minister for Disabled People and the business world, along with attention in print, broadcast and online media.
2019 Click-Away Pound survey and report
In 2019 we wanted to see what had changed. Had business listened? Had online shopping become any easier for people with disabilities? This new report publishes the 2019 survey findings and compares them with those from 2016, and the results are not encouraging.
In 2016, the survey found that more than 4 million people abandoned a retail website because of the barriers they found, taking with them an estimated spend of £11.75 billion. In 2019, that lost business, the ‘Click-Away Pound’, has grown to £17.1 billion.
- The 2019 Survey shows that nearly three quarters of disabled online consumers (69%) will simply click away from web sites that they find difficult to use due to the effect of their disability. That represents 4.9 million online shoppers with a collective purchasing power of £17.1 billion, which is around 10% of the total UK online spend.
- 83% of participants with access needs limit their shopping to sites that they know are accessible and 86% have chosen to pay more for a product from an accessible website rather than buy the same product for less from a website that was harder to use. Again this shows little change from 2016
- Most businesses will be unaware that they are losing out because only 8% of disabled customers who have difficulty using a site will contact the site owner copared with 7% in 2016
One section of the report is new for 2019; CAP Focus takes a closer look at the telecoms sector. Following feedback from the 2016 Survey, we also asked users about their experience of reCAPTCHA.
As in the first survey, we encouraged participants to add their own comments about their online experience and these are cited in the report as reminders that the accessibility and usability issues highlighted here can have a very real and personal impact on the individual.
Is it time to change the law?
The report asks, if there has been so little improvement for disabled people with access needs who use websites and apps, is it time to change the law?
Find out more and download the 2019 Report on the Click Away Pound website.
