Podium Place BY ROSALIND TULLOCH
T
he unavoidable shift to home working that the country has experienced over the last few weeks, has had a positive effect on the way employers and businesses see flexible working situations. It has firmly cemented that working from home is a viable option, that working flexible hours is a realistic request and that the need for office-based work is not as important as they once thought.
This in turn opens up a much wider talent pool of potential employees to businesses, and allows employers to focus more on a candidate’s skill set, rather than getting hung up on where they need to work from or what hours they need to stick to. Liz Johnson is the former Paralympic champion behind the disability consultancy The Ability People (TAP). TAP works with companies in the UK to improve the recruitment and retention of disabled talent in order to close the disability employment gap and to educate workforces on inclusivity to help change the culture in the workplace. Liz has now launched a new jobs platform to empower the disabled community and connect disabled workers to freelance job opportunities. The new website, called Podium, is the UK’s first jobs marketplace designed to cater
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for disabled talent. The platform is unique, free to use and open for freelancers to create profiles, helping to showcase the untapped skill sets of the disabled workforce all in one place. When a disabled freelancer creates their profile they will also be asked to nominate a charity or community organisation that will receive 20% of any fees accrued through the site. The Podium marketplace allows companies to advertise projects and search for professionals within the community of disabled freelancers who can take on the work. Likewise, freelancers can search for roles which suit their needs and set their rates through bespoke profiles. They can also contact employers directly about available roles, providing increased agency in the job hunting process.
