Mission impossible – a follow up!

Around 6 months ago, I wrote a blog post called Mission Impossible - Accessibility Job Roles.

In it, I pulled apart a real, advertised job role for a UX Accessibility Specialist at JD Sports. I was critical, pointing out why the role was likely an impossible task for the unfortunate soul who dared to take it on.

Well… It turns out, that sometimes when we think we are shouting into a void and nobody is listening, it's possible for people to hear us!

Aftermath

After hitting publish, Gavin Holland, the Global Head of UX at JD Sports, reached out to me quite promptly.

As the vacancy holder for the job role I'd just publicly pulled apart, I was expecting a pretty hostile interaction. For context, I hadn't met Gavin before. I didn't know who had written the job advert. I didn't know he was only 2 months into his new role. And, admittedly, in my frustrations with many different organisations, and the state of accessibility as a whole, I perhaps channelled a lot of it at this particular post.

However, Gavin was anything but hostile. He was warm, humble, keen to learn, collaborate, and to address the things I had complained about in my post.

Everything is better with collaboration

Over the coming weeks, I worked with Gavin to iterate the job advert. We went back and forth several times. We softened the language, adjusted the expectations, and aligned the capabilities with a more realistic framework, like the GOV.UK Accessibility Specialist role.

Another major sticking point of the role was that it was a 6 month contract. So, whilst we worked on the language, behind the scenes, Gavin was also working hard to build a strong case and convince senior stakeholders that the role needed to be permanent.

Gavin eventually succeeded. The role was turned into a permanent position, and the salary got a significant bump. Fast forward 6 months, and JD Sports have hired Andy Varley, an accessibility designer from Sage.

What I've learned from this

I think it's easy to see big corporations as faceless monoliths. In pulling apart the role in such a public setting, I'd perhaps forgotten the fact that even behind what we perceive to be poor attempts at accessibility by large organisations, there is still often a single human, who is genuinely just trying their best. We don't always know their constraints, their budgets, their challenges, or what they're up against. We just see what is often the best of a bad situation.

In getting to know Gavin a little better, it's clear he cares deeply about his team. This issue was born of a lack of expertise in this field, and not fully understanding the nuances of hiring in this area.

Final thoughts

Unfortunately, one organisation making positive changes has not fixed accessibility hiring as a whole. The problems I outlined in the original post about bloated responsibilities, underpaid roles, unrealistic expectations are still applicable to most accessibility roles I see. I'll probably be writing about them again next month!

But this particular story is a good reminder that calling things out publicly doesn't have to end in conflict. Sometimes it starts a conversation. And sometimes that conversation leads to a better outcome for the person who was about to take on an impossible job.

I'm really pleased Gavin reached out. And I applaud him for his approach to what was probably quite a confronting read. And, I'm genuinely pleased for Andy! I hope JD Sports give him the support, the budget, and the time he needs to do the work properly.

If you're reading this and you're in a position where you're writing job adverts for accessibility roles, please take the time to understand what you're actually asking for. Use the GOV.UK Accessibility Specialist capability framework as a starting point. Scope the role properly. Pay people fairly. And please, put the salary on the advert!

If you want to read more on this topic, you can check out Stop trying to recruit unicorns with acorns or the original Mission Impossible post.

Thanks,
Craig

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