All of Us: Supporting MAC's disabled and neurodivergent employees
18 Nov 2025News Story
At MAC’s heart is a focus on accessibility and inclusion, strongly linked to our core values of celebrating diversity in all of its many forms and creating equal opportunities for everyone. This means that we are committed to fostering a welcoming, accessible working environment for employees with lived experience of being disabled, d/Deaf, neurodivergent or those with caring responsibilities.
To examine and improve on how we hire and support disabled and neurodivergent team members, MAC created All of Us - a 2-year project offering training and support across the whole workforce, to both disabled and non-disabled employees. The project, taking place between 2023 and 2025, also culminated in a set of defined recommendations to ensure current and future team members have everything they need to succeed at work.
Why did we do the project?
According to the Arts Council report Making a Shift (2017) disabled people are less likely to be employed. Those who are in employment are more likely to work part-time, earn less and be underrepresented in senior positions compared to non-disabled people. This is particularly concerning for disabled people in the arts, as 'the pattern of moving from one employer to another often found in career progression routes in the arts is more difficult and risky for disabled people.’
Considering that 17.8% of people in the West Midlands (roughly 518,000) identified as disabled in 2021 - a figure higher than the England average of 17.3% - MAC feels a particular responsibility as a Birmingham arts organisation and employer to be the most welcoming and accessible workplace we can.
The project
Project-managed by independent consultant Emily Jones, All of Us began by looking at how current disabled and neurodivergent staff view MAC as a workplace. Over the course of several months, Emily conducted anonymous surveys, focus groups, 1-to-1 chats with team members and reviewed published reports on disability and caring in the arts.
Following reports containing recommendations for senior management and further consultations with specialist organisations, freelancers and MAC board members, to date, the project has inspired the following organisational changes:
- The creation of the Wellbeing Champions: 3-4 paid roles promoting positive health and wellbeing within the organisation
- A new process for requesting workplace adjustments
- Disability awareness training for all new staff
- Coaching training offered to managers to help them support disabled colleagues, and 1-to-1 coaching for disabled colleagues to help them approach any barriers they might be facing at work
- The creation of a simple writing guide
- The adoption of plain English, emojis and a more friendly tone in ‘all staff’ emails
- Hidden Disability sunflower lanyards being made available for staff
- The introduction of fidget toys for staff to borrow
- Sharing information about accessibility tools with staff
- More detailed accessibility information for MAC's recruitment process being added to the website
- More opportunities created for staff feedback
One key change to come out of the All of Us project is MAC's five new team promises, which reflect our commitment to becoming the most welcoming and accessible workplace possible. Created by the MAC staff body, the 5 promises are:
Team promises
1. We have empathy and respect
- We care, genuinely
- We actively check in on colleagues, no matter what their role
- We accept people as they are, and assume they have good intentions
- We are patient with each other
2. We think about others
- Our actions take other people's needs into account
- We are friendly and support each other
- We work together in one big team towards the same goals
3. We communicate clearly
- First, we listen
- We communicate in a way that works best for the other person
- We are mindful of how our words affect others
4. We challenge
- We stand up for each other
- We seek people who are different because it makes our team stronger
- We work to remove barriers so that everyone can succeed
5. We learn together
- We are always learning about each other and how we experience the world
- We are open to questions, and aware of personal boundaries
- We all make mistakes, we learn from them, and do better
Feedback and next steps
"Thank you for making MAC a more inclusive place to work!"
"I feel very supported, respected and cared for by my colleagues and managers."
"I don't know if I would have got the same support in other venues and am truly grateful to my colleagues to management."
"While the reasonable adjustments policy is a great step in the right direction, a wider work culture which embraces and accepts different flexible working patterns would be a bonus."
Staff survey responses, September 2025
While the project has definitely produced tangible, positive change, we recognise that this is only the beginning. All of Us has produced some insightful data and testimonies about how we currently do things at MAC. However, we understand that achieving a work culture of trust, compassion and support across a large organisation is a long-term, ongoing process. Going forward, some of our imminent priorities are:
- To keep improving communication across the organisation and to improve understanding between teams, e.g. through job swaps
- To look at more options for hybrid working, make rotas more accessible, examine freelance contracts and create overall improvements to our recruitment and induction process
- To create a quiet room and to make staff areas as warm and welcoming as possible
MAC would like to extend a huge thank you to Emily Jones and Holly Mulhern, Director of Governance & HR at MAC for leading All of Us, and to every team member who took part in the project. Special thanks to Elizabeth J. Birch for hosting the staff focus groups.
All of Us was generously supported by Art Fund’s Reimagine Grant programme.
