Workplace accessibility in India has long been approached as a matter of compliance—policies to follow, standards to meet, and disclosures to file. Yet this limited view overlooks a critical reality: accessibility is not a peripheral requirement, but a reflection of organisational intent and leadership maturity. As India seeks to unlock its full economic and workforce potential, excluding millions of employable persons with disabilities carries significant social and business costs. What is needed is a cultural shift that embeds accessibility into leadership priorities, product design, technology development, and everyday decision-making. When accessibility moves beyond checklists and becomes a shared organisational value, it can drive innovation, resilience, and sustainable growth.
In this context, Shilpi Kapoor, CEO and Founder of BarrierBreak, brings a perspective grounded in both advocacy and execution. A serial entrepreneur and globally recognised accessibility evangelist, she has spent over two decades building scalable businesses focused on digital accessibility. With a workforce where a majority are persons with disabilities, her organisations demonstrate how inclusion can be integrated into the core of business models rather than treated as an afterthought. An Ashoka Fellow and recipient of multiple national honours, her work spans policy, technology, and organisational transformation.
In this article, Shilpi moves beyond the language of compliance to examine what it truly takes to build a culture of accessibility in the workplace. She outlines why ownership must extend beyond HR or CSR teams to designers, technologists, product leaders, and the boardroom, and offers insights into the economic costs of exclusion, the market potential of inclusive design, and actionable steps for organisations seeking to make accessibility a driver of inclusive growth.
Building a Culture of Accessibility for Inclusive Growth
Accessibility in the workplace has always been a matter of adhering to compliance policies and is almost never about representation for the differently-abled. According to the 2011 Census, an estimated 26.8 million persons with disabilities (PwDs) are employable in India, out of which only 1 in 3 are employed. This huge gap in employment is the barrier that requires much discussion and deliberation to help India draw from a largely overlooked talent pool. Excluding millions from gainful employment results in enormous opportunity costs of lakhs of crores. It also causes a significant reduction in the annual GDP contribution of India, which it can ill afford. Inculcating a culture of accessibility into organisational culture is the only way to fully harness the optimum strength of India’s workforce and to also drive inclusive growth. Therefore, a cultural shift is what can transform accessibility from being an obligation to becoming a key driver of competitiveness and innovation.
Cultivating Accessibility Ownership Across Teams
India has laid down regulatory frameworks, including the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (RPwD, 2016), and also laid out guidelines like WCAG 2.2 to set essential baseline standards. This treats accessibility solely as a compliance task, which often results in missed opportunities. Accessibility needs to be owned, and not just by Human Resources or legal teams, but also integrated seamlessly across functions such as design, technology, product management, and even the boardroom.
Designers can prioritise accessible user experiences from the outset to make products more intuitive and inclusive, fostering greater adoption by diverse users. Technology teams can benefit from ensuring digital platforms meet robust accessibility standards, to go beyond ticking boxes to actually delivering accessible solutions. Meanwhile, leadership involvement ensures accessibility goals are resourced, prioritised, and aligned with the overall business strategy.
Large enterprises in India have already begun this journey innovatively. Several have instituted formal accessibility champions within teams and run ongoing training programs that build awareness and capability across employees. This decentralised ownership empowers every team member to contribute to an accessible workplace and an inclusive product ecosystem.
Inclusion as an Ongoing Innovation Investment
Inclusive leadership is crucial to sustaining accessibility as a cultural pillar. Leaders who view accessibility not as a one-time cost but as a continuous investment in innovation and growth are the real torchbearers in this battle. It also matters to make workplaces more accessible to foster greater employee engagement and retention.
From the market perspective, inclusion drives expansion into untapped customer segments, many of which include persons with disabilities and their extended networks. For instance, digital financial services, a critical enabler of independence for people with disabilities, stand to gain significantly from accessible product design. As India’s finance sector research shows, accessibility gaps currently hinder equal access to digital banking, payment gateways, and insurance platforms, often resulting in poor user experiences and reduced adoption by disabled customers. This lens of innovation also fuels organisational learning, unlocking new perspectives and creative solutions that benefit all users.
The Huge Cost of Exclusion
When accessibility remains a checklist obligation, the cost of exclusion mounts dramatically. Businesses that exclude millions of employable PwDs miss out on diverse talent pools that can spur creativity and problem-solving. Not only does it stifle innovation by limiting the breadth of perspectives involved in product development and service delivery, but it also misses out on newer and better methods of solving problems that they were unaware of, or even addressing.
Moreover, exclusion limits market reach. India’s disabled population represents a significant consumer segment with growing purchasing power, yet accessibility barriers prevent many from accessing products and services independently. This dynamic cuts off revenue streams and narrows market growth potential. From a socio-economic standpoint, exclusion perpetuates inequality and denies meaningful livelihoods and financial independence to millions, which is crucial for dignity and well-being. A country’s overall development slows when a large segment of its potential workforce remains sidelined.
While there exists a norm of overlooking PwDs in employment circles, we must express approval of the several Indian companies that stand out in embedding accessibility into their culture and their effects. For example, Axis Bank and the Reserve Bank of India have implemented digital accessibility by ensuring image descriptions, color contrast, and keyboard navigation conform to accessibility standards, setting laudable benchmarks in the digital finance space. Leading financial service aggregators and insurers run accessibility training and have appointed accessibility champions to institutionalise continuous improvement. Organisations such as Barclays India and HSBC have made all interactive UI elements fully keyboard accessible and properly labeled, facilitating access for employees and customers with motor impairments.
These initiatives demonstrate how embedding accessibility across design, technology, and leadership fosters inclusive innovation, driving both employee engagement and customer satisfaction.
Action Points for Businesses
To make a generational shift from compliance to culture, companies must make accessibility a core value that is owned by every department and team and make it a company responsibility rather than chalk it up to HR or CSR. Businesses must also create awareness and launch skill programmes while appointing accessibility champions to further this value. Leadership must actively involve itself in defining accessibility goals and enforcing better standards for the same. The impact of such changes must also be measured periodically using indicators such as employee inclusion data, market growth, and customer feedback.
Accessibility is no longer negotiable; it is, in fact, a strategic imperative that enables companies to unlock the full potential of India's workforce, empower millions, and capture emerging market opportunities. Shifting the lens from checklist compliance to cultural ownership is the only way to ensure accessibility drives innovation, engagement, and business growth for years to come.
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