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Global provider of integrated facility and aviation services ABM has launched a Pan-Disability Team Member Forum - as part of its drive to deepen its commitment to creating inclusive venues and workplaces.

The forum is a network of disabled team members working alongside identified champions across the business and industry and aviation divisions in the UK. The forum will provide a more formal structure to ABM's corporate commitments to the Valuable 500 - a global business collective made up of 500 ceo's and their companies, innovating together for disability inclusion.

Jim Niblock, managing director for ABM Aviation UK says: "The forum is a crucial step towards our goal of providing increasingly inclusive places of work and leisure, not only for our own team members but for our clients' team members and customers.

"By giving disabled team members a voice at the highest levels of the organisation, we will be working together to create a strong and diverse talent acquisition pipeline for people with disabilities and identify more opportunities for enterprise-wide initiatives to support them."

Delivering on these objectives will include identifying technology, data, and innovation to ensure ABM services deliver industry leading accessibility and inclusivity.

John McPherson, managing director for ABM Business and Industry UK added: "The forum will be the driving force in escalating the fantastic work already being done at ABM and implementing new ways for us to lead the industry towards better practice. An example is the enhanced training currently being delivered across divisions on topics such as hidden disabilities and how it feels to be a carer.

"It's important to us that all our team members are able to act with empathy towards everyone they work with or meet on a daily basis and it will be forum team members driving these initiatives with the leadership going forward."

The launch news coincided with the 2022 Purple Light Up event, held annually in December - the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disability. Purple Light Up is a global movement that celebrates and draws attention to the economic contribution of the 386 million disabled employees around the world.

As strategic founding partner to the Purple Light Up Movement, ABM's Pan-Disability Team Member Forum will provide a year-round focus on planning annual events to support the Purple Light Up.

www.abm.co.uk