Accessibility at Wickes
At Wickes, we are focused on and committed to creating an inclusive and welcoming environment for all of our colleagues and customers. We believe that everyone, regardless of ability, deserves access to the products and services that we provide.
Shopping with us
Our goal is to identify and remove barriers, ensuring that every interaction—whether in-store, online, or through our customer service team - is as seamless and user-friendly as possible.
Online
Our design team is committed to ensuring we adhere to best practice in our website design.
Wickes is committed to making sure we avoid using colours that may make reading text difficult, e.g. white on a yellow background.
We are focused on ensuring that we adhere to best practice around font sizing.
Alt text will be available for all website imagery and banners. Alt text is a brief text description of an image. Alt text is read by screen readers (or other assistive tech) to provide information about the image's purpose to the reader.
In-store
Our store planners commit to providing accessible store layouts, facilities, and services for customers with mobility, sensory, or cognitive impairments.
At Wickes, we offer training and communications to our staff that will support them to understand and accommodate the diverse needs of our customers, some who may have disabilities or additional needs, with respect, empathy, and professionalism.
Customer services
Our deaf and speech-impaired customers can use Relay from BT to contact us via phone. You do this using the Relay app or a textphone.
Depending on what you need to contact us about, you can phone, email or type messages to us using livechat. Get in touch.
We commit to actively seeking feedback from our customers to improve our offerings and address any challenges that they may experience.
We are dedicated to making accessibility a core part of our customer experience and welcome any feedback to help us better serve you. If you have questions, suggestions, or need assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact our customer support team or speak to a member of staff in-store.
Championing awareness
Our Colleague Ability Network
Disabled does not mean less able. We want to give everyone opportunities to thrive and support colleagues to make the most of their ability.
The Wickes Ability network is made up of colleagues across the business who are committed to making a difference and help the business create an environment where everyone can be themselves. The Ability network champions each colleague’s own ability to ensure they reach their full potential, promotes education about disabilities and highlights opportunities where the business can continue to improve accessibility to colleagues and customers
Employment of disabled persons
All of our employment policies and processes are designed to ensure that anyone with a disability is treated equitably. We regularly review our facilities and working practices to ensure we cater for people with special requirements or disabilities.
Applications for employment by disabled persons are given full and fair consideration having regard to their particular aptitudes and abilities. Line managers are given support and coaching to help understand mental or physical health and wellbeing conditions so they can make suitable adjustments to ensure their colleagues can perform at their best and feel at home at Wickes, including any colleagues who may have become disabled during employment.
You can see our current vacancies here.
Please let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments or support within the application process by visiting us here.
Our partners
Wickes is proud to be a member of the Business Disability Forum, the leading business membership organisation in disability inclusion. We work in partnership with them to remove barriers to inclusion.
Wickes is also a member of the Government’s Disability Confident Employer Scheme, which encourages employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people.
We work with Leonard Cheshire, a charity that provide support to people with disabilities to live, learn and work as independently as they choose whatever their ability. We support Change 100 - their flagship programme of paid summer internships, professional development and mentoring for talented university students and recent graduates with any disability or long-term condition.
Wickes is also proud to support the WorkFit scheme. WorkFit is the Down’s Syndrome Association’s employment programme which brings together employers and job-seekers who have Down’s syndrome.
For more information on how we prioritise inclusion and diversity, please see our Responsible Business page.
We do not tolerate any kind of disability discrimination
We focus on ability and not disability, ensuring that all colleagues are able to flourish.