Disability Support at Western Power

At Western Power we strive to ensure all people have dignified access to employment. By supporting and including people with disability.

By supporting and including people with disability, we make our workplace a navigable and welcoming environment for everyone. Western Power has a Disability Access and Inclusion Plan (DAIP) in place and commits to access and inclusion reporting within 5 years of each new DAIP iteration. The DAIP ensures that all aspects of our business has developed and evolved processes and systems, to ensure our customers (and employees) can access our services and information without hinderance or discomfort.

At Western Power, we strive to ensure people with disabilities have the same opportunities as other people to access the services of, and any events organised by, a public authority. Starting with Disability access, our planning for access is at the forefront of our commitment to inclusion, ensuring all forums are held at accessible venues with ACROD parking. All information provided at forums are produced to our style guide standards (that include DAIP recommendations) and ensures all communication materials are produced to these standards.

We have acquired a new tool to check web pages and content against international web standards, to ensure that we achieve WCAG 2.0 AA.

This activity forms part of the ongoing management and continuous improvement of our website and online portals, as we work towards improving the experience for customers with disability, as part of our business-as-usual practices.

We have developed new Depots in Vasse and Pinjarra and are proposing new Depots in Albany, Geraldton and Forrestdale. The design of all depots provides disability access to all facilities through inclusion of (but not limited to) provision of ramps to administration buildings, universal access toilets, wide walkway areas for ease of movements of staff. In addition, hearing loops for those from the deaf community, will be provided at the new Depots.

We utilise multiple community engagement techniques to ensure all people have the opportunity to participate in public consultation for major capital projects, planned works and emergency response including: Face to face engagement, Direct mail (letters), Phone calls, Advertisements in local papers, Posters, Brochures Local media, Social media, Relevant websites, planned outage notifications to impacted customers and 24-hour call centre (interpreter service).

This diverse range of methods attempts to ensure we communicate with customers in a manner that is meaningful and in a medium that is appropriate for our customers. It’s also anticipated that future technology projects, will enable us to be able to communicate with our in a way they think is the most appropriate. We will be able to capture this based on their preference

The creation of Focus Ability -our People with Disability ENG (Employee Network Group -is led by employees with lived experience as well as supporting allies, supported by strong senior advocacy from the executive champion and CEO (Chair of the D&I committee). Examples of activities are as follows:

Our partnerships with DES (Disability Employment Service) providers have created opportunities via our Disability Internships 12-week program, which provides meaningful work for jobseekers. A testament to the success of this pilot program is that one of the job seekers has been employed by our facilities management team.