June 2019
About Parkinson’s
Parkinson’s UK is a Parkinson’s research and support charity in the UK. The charity’s aims are to improve the quality of life for people affected by Parkinson’s and find a cure for the condition. It funds research to find better treatments and improve the understanding of Parkinson’s and its causes. The charity offers support and information to people affected by Parkinson’s, including families, friends, and carers.
The challenge
Parkinson’s UK employs people diagnosed with Parkinson’s and others with learning and physical difficulties that may make day-to-day work more challenging. Parkinson’s UK has 500 members of staff across the UK in 3 different office locations, as well as home and remote workers. The teams were divided, with approximately 40% being office-based and on-premise, and the other 60% remote workers working from home. This caused challenges for team collaboration and IT administration.
The solution
Parkinson’s UK decided to deploy Google Workspace with the help of Netpremacy. Their mission was to better equip their workforce with collaborative tools to improve efficiency and enhance communication between colleagues, including between office and remote workers. A key reason for implementing Google Workspace was the accessibility features that Google Workspace provided, making it easier for some of the team at Parkinson’s UK to work effectively.
Some of the tools the team benefited from were; voice typing within Google Docs and Slides, select-to-speak, Chromevox (a built-in screen reader) and using high contrast mode to help prevent eye strain, headaches, and migraines due to glare.
Google Workspace can be personalised to suit the needs of the individual, especially Gmail. This became especially useful when introducing people with Parkinson’s to the applications. People experiencing involuntary movements in their hands may accidentally click when using a mouse. To minimise issues caused by this hover actions were turned off, helping to reduce the risk of accidentally deleting or actioning emails.
Why Netpremacy
Working with Netpremacy ensured Change Management and Training were delivered to Parkinson’s UK for a successful Google Workspace go-live, and in-depth and advanced training was provided on the accessibility features.
Netpremacy’s trainers spent time on-site providing classroom-based training sessions, remote sessions for those harder to reach, and individual support before, during and after the deployment of Google Workspace. Through this continuous support, Netpremacy’s trainers were able to help individuals who have Parkinson’s, learning difficulties, and visual and hearing difficulties to discover more about the accessibility features available through Google Workspace, Google Chrome and Chrome devices.
“Netpremacy’s dedicated training team helped us get up to speed on how to use Google Workspace but also ensured we made the most of all the excellent accessibility options that Google Workspace has. This has enabled our teams to continue to work effectively whilst providing for specific learning or physical needs.”
– Shaun Le Geyt, Parkinson’s UK
These features have seen people who may usually struggle with working on computers grow in confidence as well as work better with their teams to save time and help others who are affected by similar conditions.
Implementing Google Workspace meant that the teams at Parkinson’s UK were able to work in a more collaborative environment, no matter their visual, hearing or physical difficulties, supporting accessibility in the workplace.
