Astriid + Business: The future of accessible and inclusive workforces.

Training for Employers

People with long-term and energy limiting conditions are an asset to the workplace. They’re qualified, highly skilled, and creative thinkers who add value to any industry or organisation, and they’re seeking meaningful work with inclusive employers like you.

Did you know that…

  • 92% of people with long-term conditions believe they have skills an employer would value if a suitable job were available?
  • 89% are seeking an introduction to employers who understand long-term conditions?
  • 75% seek out jobs that specifically mention flexibility over working hours and location in the job advert?

Making Employment Work For People With Long-Term Conditions Report (Astriid, 2023)

With Astriid Training, you're not just learning - you're leading.

You are investing in more than just a training session:

  • You’re investing in a culture of belonging.
  • You’re investing in a future where everyone gets a fair chance to thrive.
  • You’re investing in a workforce that reflects the diversity of your customers, your community, and the world around you.

 

We bring together lived experience, deep expertise, and practical solutions to help organisations become more inclusive, accessible, and future-ready.

What Makes Astriid Training Different

  • Led By Experts With Lived Experience – Our training is delivered by our team who live with long-term health conditions, and have faced numerous barriers to employment. That means every session is authentic, human, and grounded in real insight with lived-experience examples.

 

  • Built For Action, Not Just Awareness – We go beyond education to focus on implementation. Your team will leave with next steps, a deeper understanding, and a renewed sense of responsibility.

 

  • Designed For Your Whole Organisation – Whether you’re in HR, management, leadership or team operations, our training is adaptable, relevant, and impactful at every level of your business.

 

Most training ends when the session does. Astriid’s doesn’t.

As part of our training packages, we offer a long-term partnership. Like any meaningful change, it takes time, commitment, and collaboration. That’s why we don’t just deliver training – we work with you, helping your business grow into a truly inclusive, and accessible place to work.

Elevate Your Workforce Through Astriid Training

Our training sessions cover four key areas:

  • Accessible job design and job adverts – Including the benefits of flexible working and how this effectively opens your organisation up to a wider talent pool, key phrases to incorporate, and examples of inclusive language and writing descriptions that welcome people with long-term health conditions to apply

 

  • Inclusive interviews – Including how to create accessibility before and during the interview process, how to respond when a candidate discloses health related information, and examples of inclusive pre-onboarding and onboarding procedures

 

  • Supporting people with long-term health conditions at work – Including how to facilitate open communication and confident conversations about health, and examples of workplace adjustments that can support employees’ physical and emotional wellbeing

 

  • Inclusive language – Including the importance of using inclusive language and how to take the lead from individuals, and how our language use can debunk unhelpful or inaccurate stereotypes and take a more empowering stance instead.

 

All of our Astriid training sessions are delivered remotely via teams or zoom, and include time for group discussion and Q and A’s. 

Find out more about each of our training programmes here:

Inclusive Recruitment

If you are looking to attract diverse talent to your organisation, it’s essential that your recruitment processes are inclusive – they provide you with the first opportunity to showcase your offering to potential employee. From our lived experience, we know that the way your recruitment process is presented to candidates plays a huge part in their decision to apply or not to apply to your organisation. We have two sessions that are focused on:

  • Creating accessibility in job design and job adverts
  • Inclusive interview practices
Find out more

Supporting People with Long-Term Conditions in the Workplace - Workshop

The number of people with long-term conditions entering the workforce, and people developing such conditions during their working life, is increasing at a rapid rate. During this workshop, we will explore taking a person-centred approach to workplace adjustments, improving lines of communication between employees and line managers, adapting inclusion strategies to improve staff retention rates, ways of evaluating your current workplace culture and lived experiences of people with long-term conditions in your workforce, and plenty more.

Find out more

Supporting People With Long-Term Conditions At Work - eLearning Course

Workplace flexibility is crucial for attracting skilled people with long-term conditions to businesses. This training dives into the specifics in this area, highlighting reasonable adjustments that can break down access barriers, ways to implement personalised support for employees, and how to reduce the risk of masking or burnout to facilitate their wellbeing over the longer term – and can all be communicated online at a time, place, and pace that suits you.

Find out more

Inclusive Language Training - Empowering Employees With Long-Term Conditions

Do you know how to talk about long-term conditions in the workplace? Through Astriid’s Inclusive Language Training, you will become familiar with key terms and narratives surrounding long-term conditions, that are often omitted from traditional disability inclusion training, and how your language use and communication styles can empower employees managing such conditions in your workforce.

Find out more

Package options are available on request. Please contact [email protected] for more information on any of the training options listed above.

"I liked that it was delivered by a charity, with a really impactful backstory."
Employee - NHS Blood and Transplant
"I find there is a very emotional element to managing chronic pain and fatigue at work. Astriid’s training was the first time I’ve seen the emotional side of working with a long-term health condition discussed."
Bloomsbury Publishing
"Pippa delivered the session in a kind, open and really engaging manner and Kat was incredibly helpful in our ongoing communication and in organising the session. I learned a lot and could immediately use the advice in my day to day. I would recommend this training to everyone!"
Employee -Welsh National Opera
"The personal aspects shared by the trainer made the situation feel safe, seeing someone being vulnerable helps an openness within communication."
Employee - NHS Blood and Transplant

Meet the team

Catherine Hale

Head of Consulting
Catherine has ten years of disability inclusion leadership, policy and research expertise. She is a thought-leader in long-term and energy-limiting conditions in the workplace and Founder of Chronic Illness Inclusion.

Alison Clayton-Smith

Associate Consultant
Alison is an experienced Training Consultant, Facilitator and Coach with lived experience of chronic illness. She has worked in HR, and then Learning and Development for an international city law firm before freelancing mainly with top law firms and the public sector. Alison has an MSc in Organizational Behaviour and is CIPD qualified.

Steve Shutts

Charity CEO
Steve has led the Astriid charity since its launch by the founder, David Shutts OBE, in 2018. His career has been centred on business consultancy and marketing, and he now has responsibility for the development of effective corporate relationships.

Pippa Stacey

Communications Consultant
Pippa is a writer, speaker, and content creator who's named as one of the most influential disabled people in the UK. She has a particular interest in inclusive and sustainable employment practice for people with energy-limiting conditions like her own.

Katy Francis

Researcher
Katy is a keen researcher with experience in the non-profit sector. Her area of interest is in improving workplace accessibility for those with long-term health conditions. She is an advocate for disability inclusion, derived from her own lived experience and from her role in Astriid's Job Matching team where she helps candidates access meaningful work.