DE Talk | Improving Disability Employment Outcomes

Gaps in employment continue to exist for individuals with disabilities. The National Organization on Disability (NOD) has dedicated its existence to moving the workforce inclusion needle forward by creating resources like the Disability Employment Tracker, Corporate Leadership Council, and the Disability Inclusion Executive Briefing for employers to utilize. NOD President Carol Glazer joined the DE Talk podcast to discuss the organization’s history and how we can improve disability employment outcomes as a community of employers. Tune in to discover how far the disability employment landscape has come in the last five years and how employers have moved through the maturity curve past basic compliance to competency, creating inclusive workforces that attract all skills and abilities.

Subscribe

Apple • Spotify • Google • Stitcher • iHeartRadio • Stitcher • TuneIn • Overcast • Pocket Casts • Castro • Castbox • Podchaser • RSS Feed

…or your preferred Podcast provider

About DE Talk

For DirectEmployers, it’s all about valuable connections and meaningful conversations. This monthly podcast features honest and open dialogue between powerhouse industry experts on a variety of HR topics ranging from OFCCP compliance advice to emerging recruitment marketing trends, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and insightful solutions that help infuse new life into your HR strategies.

Hosted by Candee Chambers, Executive Director of DirectEmployers Association.

Episode Guest

Episode Transcript

Candee Chambers:

Welcome to the DE Talk Podcast. Tune in for dialogue between HR experts to amp up your HR strategies. Don’t worry, we’ll mix in a few laughs as we know you need it.

Hello, I’m Candee Chambers and you’re listening to another episode of the DE Talk Podcast. Season two has been filled with engaging conversations about the future of talent acquisition, whether it’s human or AI driven, disability education and accessibility, military caregivers, creation of strength based cultures, and most recently, an episode from our research team talking about employer branding and creative development. Today we’ll bring another element to the podcast as I welcome Carol Glazer, president of the National Organization on Disability or NOD, to discuss the work that they do representing America’s 61 million people with disabilities and the resources available to help employers put ability to work.

Of course, we couldn’t have this conversation without sharing a detailed look at the organization’s disability employment tracker, which works to benchmark a company’s performance in disability and veteran inclusion. I’m happy to call Carol her friend. And I’ve watched over the years as she has transformed NOD into the country’s premier resource on disability and inclusion through this disability employment tracker, its corporate leadership council and its pre professional advisory services helping companies with talent acquisition. DirectEmployers has been a partner of NOD, I always want to say NOD, since 2012. And I’m happy to say that we also participate on the corporate leadership council. But I’ll save that for later in our conversation. Welcome to the DE Talk Podcast, Carol.

Carol Glazer:

Thank you, Candee. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Candee Chambers:

I’m very excited about this conversation, I’m going to jump right in with some questions for you.

Carol Glazer:

Terrific, love it.

Candee Chambers:

I believe we met early on in my time at DirectEmployers. And I’m thankful for that because I consider you to be a friend and a true force in the disability and inclusion space. I want to start out by having you share a little bit about yourself. So tell me a little bit about your background and what led you to NOD all these years ago.

Carol Glazer:

I’ve really had a career fighting for social justice and it goes all the way back, albeit myself, I am a boomer.

Candee Chambers:

Me too.

Carol Glazer:

But it goes all the way back. There we go, like minded people. So you’ll understand some of the things that happened over those years that I’ll talk about when many people weren’t even born yet. But in the 1960s, I became active in the civil rights movement. And it was a time of reckoning for our country around social justice issues, around issues of race in class, about the right for people to speak out for or against policies they believed in, to hold our elected officials accountable for the things that got them into office in the first place. And in many ways, it was a very positive time for this country and for our democracy. So it was a privilege to start in the civil rights movement, and then move into the anti poverty movement, which really was a direct outgrowth of that.

Fast forward, and then there was the women’s movement. And I’ve always been privileged to be able to not only participate in those movements, but also to have them as part of my career. And most of my career was spent in the anti poverty movement fighting for neighborhoods that had been ripped apart in arson and in civil unrest in the 1960s. So that’s where I started going all the way back to the 1970s and the 1980s. Disability for me really came later in my career. I had two children, one of whom has both physical and intellectual disabilities. And that’s really what brought me to the disability rights movement. But that really wasn’t until 2005 when the opportunity came to come and help NOD, and I did that as a consultant.

Candee Chambers:

Wow. Okay. Carol, you just taught me some things. I have to tell you though, interestingly enough when I was in college, I think I was a freshman or a sophomore, and we had Phyllis Schlafly and Gloria Steinem come and speak. So I knew you’d know those names when you said women’s movement, my goodness. And I was a young college student and to hear two opposite views of what a woman should seek to do in their lives was really eye opening for me.

Carol Glazer:

Eye opening for sure.

Candee Chambers:

It really was interesting. So yeah, we’ll have to talk about that sometime outside of the podcast.

Carol Glazer:

Absolutely. I look forward to it., Candee.

Candee Chambers:

That would be fun. So we recently had you participate, or NOD participate in one of our reach out for happy hours, which is where our members learned that NOD is the oldest disability organization in the United States, which is a pretty incredible accolade to be able to tout. And I know it’s evolved greatly over the years. So why don’t you share a little bit about the history of the organization and what the initial glory was when it began.

Carol Glazer:

Yeah. And just to continue a little bit about my history because that is really becomes very tied with NOD’s history as well. When the opportunity for me came to come and work for NOD and I was initially enlisted as a consultant, I really thought long and hard about whether I wanted to live disability 24/7 because my son Jacob who is now 28 is somebody I’ve been fighting for his rights as a person with a disability, and have been an advocate for really since he was born. But when the opportunity came, I actually went home after talking to our vice chair of the board about the opportunity, I turned to on Geraldo Rivera’s expose of the conditions at Willowbrook State Hospital, one of the the famous institutions where I knew my son Jacob would have been sent had he been born 10 or 15 years earlier than he was. That’s when mothers had no other choice but to give up their children, for the most part, give up their children to go and live in these deplorable conditions that were, happily, that were brought to light by Geraldo Rivera, probably if I can editorialize on his last piece of goods.

And he did win a Peabody Award for that second, as well, he should have. But it really came clear to me that those mothers before me had fought for the rights that my child had to live with me at home. And it was really that night, and then watching that expose that made me realize that I had to go join that fight, to join with mothers and join with others to ensure a better quality of life for people with disabilities. And NOD as the oldest cross disability organizations in the country, there are others who have been around for longer, but they’re usually dedicated to one disability or another. But NOD was created in 1982, and that’s almost a decade before the ADA. So the disability rights movement following along in the wake of the civil rights movement, was really in its infancy at that point. And NOD jumped in, created by firebrand man who had been in a diving accident and become a quadriplegic at the age of 30. And took a lot of talent and drive that he had and channeled it into the disability rights movement and created it.

And in those early years, it was everything from fighting for curb cuts, fighting for access to buildings, fighting for access to churches and theaters, fighting for a good education. Deinstitutionalization, of course, was very much alive during that time. NOD came along as a bipartisan organization and really doing whatever needed to be done and whatever was important during those years of the disability rights movement. And it was a little bit after the beginning of 2000 that the organization looked around, used to do Harris gap survey by the firm of Harris Interactive and looking at the gap between people with and without disabilities and all kinds of quality of life indicators. The one gap that just kept repeating itself over and over is the gap in employment between people with and without disabilities. And our board, which is primarily a corporate board, corporate boards like focus, the board decided to divest of everything that NOD had done prior to that, and pretty much bet the ranch on the employment issue.

And that’s where I came along to help the organization really transform itself and it’s been more than a decade. This is a movement that is, in some ways following behind many other movements. And it’s been more than a decade, but I just have a feeling now that as a field and as a movement, we’re coming into our own, and we’re ready to tackle the employment issue.

Candee Chambers:

Well, you know what Carol, I think you’re right. And you actually have a very incredible board. You have a very well positioned, very supportive board. I’ve met several of them. Tom Ridge, a prior governor of Pennsylvania. You’ve got Robert David Hall and I used to watch him on, it was CSI, right?

Carol Glazer:

Yeah, it was CSI. He was the coroner.

Candee Chambers:

He was the, yeah, the coroner. I loved him then and I’ve met him now personally and he’s a lot of fun, actually. He’s got an ornery streak to him, but he’s just so much fun. And you can’t help but like that.

Carol Glazer:

That’s why we love him.

Candee Chambers:

Exactly. Exactly. And Luke Visconti, I remember being in a DiversityInc conference wave, or actually was another founder of Action Conference way back when. And he was the main keynote speaker from DiversityInc. How would you say that their support has helped guide your mission as it’s matured?

Carol Glazer:

Well, I love, Candee, that you’ve mentioned these individuals and who they are as people. Because first and foremost, this is a group of incredibly dedicated and committed people, many of whom have a personal connection to disability, in some cases because they have their own disability and other cases for family members. So they’re very dedicated, very passionate. And unlike what many corporate boards do, they do not check their incisive questions or sometimes tough questions, they don’t check them at the door. When they come to a mission oriented organization like NOD, they take those same tough questions and that same need for focus and need for results, they bring them to all the work that we do. But the most important part is that we laugh a lot. This is a board that loves hanging out together. They love having the dinners the night before the meeting. They enjoy being together. There’s a lot of laughs, there’s a lot of just fun. And it’s so important for an organization to have that in order to thrive and hold its board members.

Candee Chambers:

Yeah. And I think that adds to the trust in one another as well. Our board has a lot of fun together, but I think that trust and support needs to kind of go hand in hand. And it sounds like you have that as well.

Carol Glazer:

Very much.

Candee Chambers:

And that’s incredibly…

Carol Glazer:

And respect.

Candee Chambers:

…rewarding. Yeah, and respect, exactly. So let’s talk about, you guys have so many services and I think the important thing, I want to talk first about your corporate leadership council which we’re a part and I’m really excited to be part of that. And I know you’ve got several events, and obviously they’ve been kind of hampered with, with the pandemic, but I know things are still moving forward. Why don’t you tell me a little bit more about the corporate leadership council, like how many employers participate, what the benefits are, and how other employers can get involved.

Carol Glazer:

It’s a group of 50 employers now. It’s a group that has grown over the last several years, when I say there were about 20 members. So we’ve more than doubled and we now seek to yet double again-

Candee Chambers:

Oh, wow. Okay.

Carol Glazer:

… to 100 companies over the next three to five years.

Candee Chambers:

Okay, so less nose.

Carol Glazer:

It’s a place where not only is there a lot of networking, a lot of opportunities for people to learn from each other, people to profile their own work and to listen to the profiles of others and learn from them, to get free consulting services from us. Our professional services staff is among the best in our field and we provide some of those services for free for corporate leadership council members. Complete download of the Disability Employment tracker, which I know we’ll talk about a little bit. But it’s a wonderful tool for a company that wants to measure its own progress in disability workforce inclusion. There’s access to our members only portal on our website.

But I think the most important thing that the Corporate Leadership Council does as a group is we have the difficult conversations, we have the conversations that people are sometimes skittish about talking about openly, yet we need those conversations because disability is still shrouded in stigma. And there’s so much attitude change that has to happen before, I think, people with disabilities are treated like every other member of society. So we have those difficult conversations. And the other thing we do is we talk about what’s next. And in such a rapidly evolving field as we are in, we together, DirectEmployers and NOD, working with employers to help them build a disability inclusive workforce. We always want to talk about where the next innovation is going to come up. And that’s perhaps along with a difficult conversation. I see that as one of the most important reasons for a company to get involved with our corporate leadership council.

Candee Chambers:

We’re starting a disability round table masterclass, and we’re focusing on major disabilities each month of the year. And that’s one of the things that I’ve been talking about is asking those difficult questions, having the ability to ask, and I’m putting this in quotes, you can’t see it, but “the stupid questions” And not be embarrassed because you don’t know. And I think that that is the most important piece, I think, of the corporate leadership council, because you can ask people and they’re not going to laugh at you. And you can just say, “I need help. And I know I don’t know the right answer to this, and please forgive me if I say this wrong or whatever,” without being made to feel like you’re not a good human because you don’t know any better. But I think that’s what people need. That’s what employers need is to have a resource where they can ask the dumb questions.

Carol Glazer:

Exactly Candee. And I think the good news story for our team is that we’ve managed to attract a group of employers that is incredibly generous with their time, that understand the questions that you’ve just raised, and understand that people with disabilities have not been seen nor heard from in most of modern society. If you’re a wheelchair user there were no curb cuts. And again, if you had a mental health or another invisible disability, you were often sent away to an institution. And so for most of modern history, we don’t have a lot of experience, direct experience with disability. So there is a lot of questioning and uncertainty and just sort of basic edetate questions. And the good news is, I think that there are a group of employers that have been through it, that have come out the other side, that have done it well, and they are very, very happy to share their experiences, and take others by the hand and help them on this journey.

Candee Chambers:

Well, you know what, Carol, this is one of those situations where I say, what if things can improve for other employers, then we all win. Because it doesn’t have to be us against them. We want every employer to hire more qualified people with disabilities. So that’s where that exchange allows everybody to win, and I think that’s the real benefit in all of this.

Carol Glazer:

And some of the fiercest competitors, we have some on our board. Some of the fiercest competitors will join together, take each other by the hand and lead down this path of exploration and sort of this voyage of discovery. And they understand that while they may compete in the marketplace, and in some ways they compete for talent, they can also attract better talent by making the pie bigger and working together to attract even more people with disabilities into the workforce.

Candee Chambers:

So let me ask how do they reach out to NOD and let you know if they have an interest in getting involved?

Carol Glazer:

Sure, go to our website, www.nod.org. Go to corporate leadership council, and it will take you right to the place that you can sign up or reach out to one of our staff to learn more about the council.

Candee Chambers:

Or they could always contact us here at DirectEmployers-

Carol Glazer:

Or contact you for sure.

Candee Chambers:

Yeah, exactly. All right. All right. Well, probably one of the things that I really want to have you talk about is probably my favorite tool that you guys offer and that’s a disability employment tracker. And it’s a free tool.

Carol Glazer:

It’s a free tool. One of the only thing that’s free.

Candee Chambers:

I know. My goodness, it’s one of the most beneficial tools that is out there. And we encourage our members constantly to take advantage of this each year. Can you tell us when it was first introduced, what its purpose is and how it differs from other similar tools in the industry? Because we all know that there are some out there. So tell us all about the disability employment tracker.

Carol Glazer:

Yeah, thank you, Candee. We developed this tool, the tracker is a survey, it’s got about 100 questions on it, takes about two hours to complete. The results are confidential, they’re sent to each individual employer along with a scorecard that tells you where you are, and stack up against the others in the pool is a benchmarking tool. And we developed it about nine years ago, because we, again, I think the disability rights as a pursuit, and disability as a diversity segment, we’re sort of the new kids on the block. We haven’t been at the diversity table for very long. We’ve been left out in many respects. And as we try to catch up, it becomes really important to be able to speak about measurement and numbers, and to be able to talk about disability inclusion as a business imperative, and not simply as a social justice issue. But as an issue of talent, and what a company needs to do to attract the very best talent of every skill and every ability.

And so we thought it was important to speak not only subjectively, about workforce inclusion, but also to give employers a quantitative measure of how they stack up. And businesses love competition, they drive on it and they’re certainly used to it. So our theory was if you develop a benchmarking tool that allows companies to measure its progress against that of other companies, and over year, over year, they can measure their progress along their own trend lines, that we would be able to advance the field a lot more quickly. We started this years ago, we had 20 companies, and then 40 companies for a few years. And then in the last three or four years, we’ve had more than 200.

Candee Chambers:

Oh, wow.

Carol Glazer:

That gives companies a terrific quantitative measure. It’s not NOD coming in and say subjectively, even though we think we know what’s needed. but it’s not just us coming in and subjectively giving our views about what an employer needs to do. It’s purely quantitative, it’s all about the data.

Candee Chambers:

Okay. So they get a scorecard, like a benchmarking scorecard, then what do they do with those results? And what do you do with those results?

Carol Glazer:

Yeah, that’s a great question. So in this for call, we look, and you asked Candee, what makes us different from other similar kinds of tools, this is strictly about workforce. It’s 100% devoted to disability workforce inclusion, and practices that relate to talent, practices that relate to people, practices that relate to climate and culture, and strategy and metrics. And all of those areas are profiled in a scorecard that an employer gets after taking the tracker and getting the results back from us. So you get to see along all of the questions in the survey or in a scorecard around all the different areas of workforce inclusion, you get to see how you stack up against the other 199 companies who take the survey.

Candee Chambers:

Oh, wow.

Carol Glazer:

Companies will still often look at the sector in which they operate. And so we have an ability to slice up the data and compare you if you’re in manufacturing and want to see how you do against other companies in that sector, you can get that assessment from us as well. So it’s a snapshot of where you were at any given point in time against others in the pool. Over time, what a lot of companies do is because enough of the survey stays the same from year to year, a company can chart its own progress and its own trends year over year. A lot of companies do that. And you can use it as a way of developing your own strategy, you can use it as a way of gaining buy in for your agenda from other parts of the company, from senior leaders, from those in a position to allocate dollars to disability inclusion.

So it gives a company its own trend, and then its status against others. And then finally for us, and this is the most exciting part for me, is it gives us a sense of what’s happening in the whole field. So when we take the 200 companies and we aggregate those results, and we look year over year at what’s happening in this marketplace, we can start seeing where the trends are. And what we’ve been able to do now, and this year I’m so excited about the latest development with a tracker, is that we’re adding outcome measures. Self ID has been the outcome measure that we have looked at year over year. It’s what federal contractors care about, and what everybody cares about. How many people in your workforce, what percentage is willing to come forward and identify as having a disability?

Candee Chambers:

Well, you know what, yeah, I think that honestly, Carol, I think that the most important piece of that is building the culture so that people feel okay with saying, “Yes, I have a disability.” That’s the holdup. And I had to self-identify a few years ago when I went to Cardinal Health, and that gave me real heartache. Because I knew if I was going to lead the compliance group, I had to say, “Yes, I’m a person with a disability.” And I had a real hard time with it. Because I live with a condition, I don’t like the word disability myself. It’s kind of like everybody has their own terminology, whether it’s race and ethnicity, gender now, everybody has their own terminology. And I just live with a condition. And so I think that was a real challenge for me. But if your company is open and accepting, and makes you feel like you’re no different from anybody else, that makes all the difference in the world. It really does.

Carol Glazer:

Exactly. I think you’ve really put your finger on something important and so I’ll give you a data point. 65% of the companies who took the tracker survey last year reported that they had a self ID campaign going on at some point in the year. And that’s a big number, and it’s expensive. Self ID campaigns are very expensive. Less than 50% of the companies who have the self ID campaign, reported increases in self ID as a result of the campaign. So you’ve got expensive campaigns, almost two thirds of the companies in the pool mount them and fewer than half report success. Now, why is that? And it gets back to what you were talking about, Candee. It’s about trust, it’s about does an employer only come forward and want to know who I am once a year during a campaign or does an employer really want me to bring forward who I am, help me get the accommodations I need, not judge me and not negatively sanction me because I have a disability.

Candee Chambers:

Well, I’m a real fan of bringing your whole self to work. Whether it’s whatever characteristic a person might have as part of themselves. I’m a huge fan of bringing your whole self to work. So let me ask you about one other piece of the tracker, once the tracker’s completed, the employers that participate are considered for the NOD Leading Disability Employer Seal and also the Disciplinary Top 50 Companies for Diversity Programs. So why don’t you tell them that designation, what those acknowledgements mean and how they get there.

Carol Glazer:

Sure. Diversity Inc has made taking the tracker survey a requirement for any company that wants to be considered to be in it’s tough 50 companies for diversity. It’s kind of a coveted award. And I usually, until the pandemic, they held a gala at Cyprianis in New York, with a red carpet and everything. And it’s wonderful. It’s a wonderful celebration of the beauty of diversity. It’s just wonderful. I feel very privileged to have been able to go and to announce the top 10 companies for disability every year. Wow. So that’s DiversityInc.

What NOD does, though, with tracker takers who will opt in, most tracker takers will opt in, is we award the leading disability employer feel to the top core tile of all companies who take the track. And we only award it to the top core child because we want it to be competitive, we want to only reward the very, very top companies in disability workforce inclusion. And we knew if that was our goal, we had to be pretty selective. And we knew that we could not make the award to any more than 200 companies are taking it, no more than 50 will win the seal. So by definition, it’s very competitive, and accepting that it is employers a goalpost for those who really want to be leaders among their peers.

Candee Chambers:

So Carol, is there any requirement to take the tracker or to be considered for any of these awards? I mean, does it have to be a company of a certain size? I mean, can any company take it?

Carol Glazer:

Any company can take it. It usually winds up and as long as you have the investments and system that it often takes, for example, if you want to the number or percentage of applicants for jobs who have a disability or disclose a disability. And of course, as federal contractors are required to ask, it turns out that it’s larger companies often who have the capital to invest in those types of self applicant tracking systems. But more and more smaller companies are doing it. And more and more smaller companies are taking the tracker. And that’s a very exciting development for us. Because we know that’s where so many of the jobs are, it is in smaller businesses. And it’s nice to have a free tool that we can offer to a smaller company who doesn’t have the investment it takes to get highfalutin when it comes to the disability workforce inclusion.

Candee Chambers:

Oh, yeah, yeah. When I look at where we were 20 years ago to where we are today, the improvements are massive. I was just having a conversation right before we sat down to do the podcast, I’m that person that no matter how good you are, you can always be better. And no matter how good companies get at building their culture, creating disability inclusion, creating diversity inclusion. And to me, disability inclusion is part of the bigger diversity in inclusion piece.

Carol Glazer:

Yeah. And it’s heartening. And I don’t know if this has been your observation as well, Candee, but we’re seeing some spillover from the heightened awareness of inequities in this country around race and around class. We are also seeing a heightened sensitivity, especially when you combine that with a greater acceptance of telework now, which is something that we in the disability community have been fighting for for years. Suddenly it’s become, oh, yeah, of course. Before it was no, you have to look people in the eye. You have to have human contact. Now its, “Oh, yeah. You want to telework? Fine.”

Candee Chambers:

Do you know what… Oh, go ahead.

Carol Glazer:

Yeah. No, go ahead. Go ahead, Candee.

Candee Chambers:

I was just going to say when the section 503 regs, the regs were updated in March of 2014, I sent a letter to the OFCCP and recommended that they put something in their FAQ’s about remote work and listing jobs for remote workers. And I still have the email. And I said, “Remote work is absolutely perfect for people with disabilities, especially people who need additional care to get ready and things like that.” Because there are those folks who are perfectly capable of working but just their caretaker has to be considered as well. And for remote work, it’s brilliant. It’s brilliant. So hopefully, that will be another big improvement as a result of this pandemic that has certainly changed our lives.

Carol Glazer:

Yeah. I do think it’s one of the silver lining there. I think you have smaller things like people who are blind who are saying for the first time they can read a menu in a restaurant because the pandemic necessitated scanning the menu into your iPhone…

Candee Chambers:

Oh, I think that’s brilliant.

Carol Glazer:

And then you can use a screen reader. Who thinks about what it is like to walk into a restaurant and have to have somebody else read the menu to you? And that’s what independence is about. It’s not having to have that. And so yeah, there are so many unseen advantages or silver linings, I guess, that the pandemic has brought. And one of them I think, is just a heightened awareness of inequities generally, not just around race, but general.

Candee Chambers:

All right. I wholeheartedly agree, I really do. Let’s talk about another service you offer. And it’s called the disability and inclusion executive briefing. So that gives you a customized plan based on your tracker results, why don’t you tell me a little bit about that program, Carol?

Carol Glazer:

Sure. If you’re at the entry level and you’re not at the point yet of making an investment, you can learn a lot from the scorecard. But what the scorecard doesn’t give you, that is the tracker scorecard, what it doesn’t give you is a plan with priorities with short, medium and longer term goals. It doesn’t give you quantitative goals to set things off. And many companies find it helpful to have us come out and sit with them. And oftentimes groups of people that they gather then include legal ramifications, as well as HR and DEI. But that can bring people together and use the tracker to set a plan in place. And that’s really what an executive briefing is. It takes the results and translates them into a customized template really, for a plan for a company. Not expensive.

Candee Chambers:

It’s a personalized name for that particular company then, right? And you say there is a charge, but it’s not expensive. So that would be probably money very well spent.

Carol Glazer:

It is money well spent. It can save other money. I just gave you a piece of data about tracker campaigns, I mean, about self ID campaigns and you can save a lot of money by investing in other types of activities that promote trust among your workforce, that will help people feel safe coming out and identifying with a disability. So it can keep you out of trouble in some way, prevent investments that might not yield results, while also giving you a positive plan for the future.

Candee Chambers:

Well, sounds like a no brainer to me. So I’m going to make sure that we really push this in our disability round table masterclass and also in our E news for our members. And we’re going to push this even more this year. We always kind of try to take care of our friends at NOD, and I know you guys do the same for us.

Carol Glazer:

I hope your employers know how wonderful you are, Candee. Your leadership, and it’s a very human, very empathetic, but very insightful kind of leadership. I hope your members appreciate what they have in you, and in the organization. And the talent that you attract.

Candee Chambers:

Oh, well, I couldn’t do it without the team that we have at DEI. I’m pretty fortunate. but thank you very, very much for your kind words, That was unexpected and very much appreciated. So I wanted to mention we, and I don’t know if you read our Week In Review I hope you do, but recently in one of our blog posts we featured the Disability Employment Maturity Curve. So if you were to break down the demographic from exploration to competitive advantage, what stage would you say that most employers that you work with start in initially?

Carol Glazer:

Yeah. And the other beauty of having the aggregate results that we have in the tracker is we can look at the field as a whole. And I can tell you that the four stages are exploration, compliance, competence, and competitive advantage. And I’m going to say three or four, as late as three or four years ago, most companies were somewhere between exploration and compliance. It wasn’t that long after the 503 rule change had been put into effect. So it’s taken some time as a field for companies to move from exploration to compliance. But I think where we are today is much closer towards competency. And that is beyond compliance, we’re doing more than just checking boxes, we’re doing more than simply setting goals for ourselves. But we’re moving to a place where it’s a C-suite topic, where there are ERG’s in place that have the resources where they can really get some things done. Where there are specific hiring targets, and specific relationships with the disability sourcing agencies that can help you meet your talent needs. All of that goes into competence.

And I’m thrilled to see as many companies as we have, that are moving much closer towards competence. Where we have to go next, of course, is sometimes a disadvantage. When a company understands that this is not just about inclusion, because it’s a good thing to do. But where they understand that it’s an important investment to make in a skilled and able workforce. And that’s where you get the competitive advantage.

Candee Chambers:

It increases the bottom line, and that’s right there a $1 value added to your bottom line. And that’s a competitive advantage.

Carol Glazer:

Yeah. HR has the head so often been relegated to being a cost center and not a revenue center-

Candee Chambers:

A necessary evil, as I said to someone earlier today.

Carol Glazer:

A neces-what?

Candee Chambers:

A necessary evil.

Carol Glazer:

A necessary evil, exactly. You’re not going to put a lot of time and money into it. But I think more and more companies are seeing acquisition of diverse talent as a bottom line issue. And we don’t even have to prove it, we don’t have to spend a lot of money showing the correlation anymore, the correlation between profitability and doing the right thing by your workforce. As that comes more common and more accepted, we’re going to see more and more companies moving higher up the maturity curve.

Candee Chambers:

Well, it’s funny because years ago it used to be, well, disability wasn’t really important to the C suite until if it was a male, his wife developed breast cancer, or if it was a woman, she developed breast cancer or had a family member with some form of disability. But that is gradually changing, and it’s not something that the people in the C suite are ignoring any longer. At least, that’s what I’m seeing. And I received questions all the time about ERGs. And I always talk about having an ERG where you don’t just limit it to people with disabilities, for instance, or just veterans or whatever, but include advocates of those various characteristics. and I have lots of huge story or wonderful stories to tell with our disability advocates network that we had at Cardinal Health and people that were part of the organization and asked me about recruiting diabetics, because they knew I had diabetes. And it’s interesting how much information sharing goes on in those types of organizations, and the activities that people in the ERGs can take on.

Candee Chambers:

I just think that there’s so much to be learned from each other, like we talked about earlier. And so hopefully we’ll move forward…

Carol Glazer:

And you know what? I have a psychiatric diagnosis, I was diagnosed eight years ago with post traumatic stress disorder. It is something that I sort of combated for a good part of my adult life. And it’s very common, as it turns out with mothers of children who have chronic medical issues, and were in and out of the hospital a lot as I have been with my son, Jacob. And when we talk about what’s coming as the issues of concern in the disability field, I think mental illness is very fast becoming one of the big ones. And I use the term mental illness intentionally. We tend to talk about mental health, and there’s a difference between mental health and poor mental health and a diagnosable physical mental illness. And I think part of the reason we talk about mental health is it’s less stigma-

Candee Chambers:

Exactly what I was just going to say.

Carol Glazer:

I’ve done a lot of writing about this because parental PTSD, it’s a diagnosis, about 30% of all children in this country will have some type of acute medical issues for which they’ll be hospitalized. And half of their mother will have either anxiety or depression, or combination, or post traumatic stress disorder. It’s a phenomenon that we’ve become increasingly aware of during the pandemic, because so many women are caregivers and they’re trying to work at home at the same time. But it’s really been sort of a little known phenomenon. And many of us who experience it feel ashamed or we feel that it’s nothing compared to combat trauma. You look at veterans who are coming back from the wars, and they’re the ones who really have trauma. My son being in and out of the hospital doesn’t measure up. Well, you know what, it does and it takes a toll.

Candee Chambers:

And it’s a personal thing. I mean, it’s like, you have a car accident and get post-traumatic stress or TBI. I mean, it’s just on how you respond to various things that you have to face or that you have to deal with. So that’s why I say some of the disabilities that we’re focusing on this year are meant to help employers know how to address various issues like post traumatic stress or traumatic brain injury. So wow. So let’s skip forward here, we just signed a letter of support with NOD for a research proposal. And hopefully, you can share a little bit about the potential research opportunity and what that would mean.

Carol Glazer:

Well, we’re so excited about this, Candee. I was so thrilled that DirectEmployers signed a letter of support for it. This was a five year research grant. And we have gone in with a proposal joined with Syracuse University’s the Burton Bladder Institute, Peter Blanks is a very well respected disability employment researcher. And Doug Cruz, who is at Rutgers University also has done some tremendous research. And the opportunity here is to link practices to outcome. Meaning we pretty much have a good idea of what we think work in order to expand your disability workforce, and to better support those with disabilities who are already there. But we have no definitive way of pointing to the practices that this is the outcome. And that’s the benefit of research. This is a five year grant, so we’ll be able to go in and look through the tracker of the companies who have good outcomes, and be able to correlate the practices that lead to those outcomes.

But it’s only a correlation. So we will not be able to say for sure if you have a centralized accommodations fund, you’re going to get more people coming forward asking for accommodation and therefor performing better. We’ll just think it’s true. And we can see some correlation. What this is going to enable us to do as a field is what so many other fields have done, whether it’s education or healthcare, you have actually we talk a lot about evidence base, this is going to enable to feel, for the first time ever to accumulate the data and draw the correlations, I don’t want to use research terms, but causation. And really show if you do X, you’re going to get better engagement, better advancement, longer term retention, and better connection with people with disabilities to apply for your job. And that’s what employers want, they want definitive data.

Candee Chambers:

Yeah, exactly. And I tell our members all the time, you are legally able to focus or target your hiring on people with disabilities, because disabilities don’t discriminate. You’ll find every protected class in the disability space, every single one, every single one, and you’ll get veterans too. I mean, you get every single category. So this is just going to be a shout out again, to get in there and take that disability employment tracker, because even future results could rely on what you find. So I think you’re in a similar situation with NOD as I am with DirectEmployers, what would you share as far as the next steps for NOD? What’s next on the horizon for you guys?

Carol Glazer:

Well, we have eight years worth of data from the tracker now. And that data is a goldmine in being able to advance the state of practice for employing. And so we are redoubling our efforts to take that data and really start pushing out what we can learn from the data that help employers better pinpoint their investments in disability workforce inclusion. So that’s one big piece. And that’s where this research grant system and other research that we’re doing in partnership with a wonderful HR data analytics firm called Talmetrics. The second thing that we want to do is we really want to double, we want to get to 200 companies taking the tracker beforehand. And we want to get to 50 companies in our Corporate Leadership Council to 100. It’s a very small number when you think of the Fortune 500, or the fortune 1000. And relatively, of course, this was very cost effective and relatively inexpensive way for companies to advance along the curve.

So those are the two big ones. We want to deal with the digital divide, which has become clearer now during the pandemic. And with an increasing reliance on technology, we’ve seen the limitations of Zoom and other technology that are likely to stay after the pandemic. And we want to deal with mental illness in the workplace because we know that’s going to be on the rise as well.

Candee Chambers:

Yeah. I’ve reminded our employees every month at our monthly staff meetings to take advantage of our EAP. And I constantly tell them, “I don’t see the results, I see the numbers, and they have increased.” But it’s for employees, it’s for families, and it’s free. So if you are having issues with, I know I’m very extroverted, but I don’t deal with anxiety or depression, but, boy, I can see that if you already, and even if you don’t, you might get to a point where you just have to talk to somebody or something. And there’s no shame in that. And I think that that’s where I try to remind people, take advantage, get the help that you might need. Because sometimes it’s just having somebody to listen and to just say, you know what, you’re not alone.

Carol Glazer:

Yeah. If you’re in a position in a company where you’re responsible for the EAP, or you’re investing in the EAP, make sure that people in the EAP are adequately trained to diagnose mental illness, to know where to get them. They are not necessarily going to be the psychiatric help that you need or the psychotherapeutic help that you need, psychopharmacological, that’s a big word for medicine.

Candee Chambers:

Yeah, it’s one of those words that they write it out and it’s like, okay, how do I say that again?

Carol Glazer:

Right. But so fortunately it’s very inexpensive to treat mental illness nowadays between therapy and between medicine. The EAP cannot really take care of all of those needs, but they certainly if they’re well trained, and they can recognize and spot and diagnose, they know where to send you. Just make sure that they’re adequately trained.

Candee Chambers:

Yeah, get you the help that you need or at least direct you in the right area. Well, Carol, this has been so much fun connecting today. We do a fun activity at the very end of our podcast, and to end it on a high note. So we like to incorporate a little fun in the mix of education.

Carol Glazer:

That’s good. Well, I’ve been having fun. I don’t know about you Candee?

Candee Chambers:

Oh, I have. I am sitting here smiling to myself. But I’m going to ask you five rapid fire questions. So I’m going to just ask you a simple question and all you need to do is just say the first thing that comes to mind. Are you ready?

Carol Glazer:

Yeah.

Candee Chambers:

All right, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned in life?

Carol Glazer:

You got to go slow to move fast.

Candee Chambers:

Oh, I like that. Where do you derive inspiration?

Carol Glazer:

My son Jacob who tests as mildly mentally retarded on standardized IQ test, but he’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever known.

Candee Chambers:

I knew you were going to say your son. I knew that. So that’s good for you. Okay. Early bird gets the worm or complete night owl.

Carol Glazer:

Anybody who knows me, and you’re one of those people Candee and will see through email, you know it’s night owl. Unless you want to call that early in the morning.

Candee Chambers:

That was a good answer, that was a good answer. I like that. What’s your favorite thing about your career?

Carol Glazer:

The people. And Candee, this is another one for later but I was sent in 1985 to hire Barack Obama to work for the Any Poverty Organization that I worked for. I sat across the table from him and I offered him a job and he flatly turned me down because he said he had bigger plans. And I got to tell him that story in 2013.

Candee Chambers:

Seriously? Oh, that’s…

Carol Glazer:

People like that, in my life and I was so fortunate.

Candee Chambers:

Oh, that’s great. That’s a great story. I like that. I like that a lot. So last but not least, are you an introvert or an extrovert, Carol?

Carol Glazer:

Are you kidding me? I haven’t stopped talking on your phone call, what do you think? You and I are the same.

Candee Chambers:

Exactly, we’re both extroverts. So that’s probably why we get along so well.

Carol Glazer:

Yeah, I bet it is. I bet it is for sure.

Candee Chambers:

Oh, gosh. Well, thanks so much for joining me today, Carol. It’s been a pleasure participating in NOD events and becoming a part of the corporate leadership council. And as a person with an invisible disability myself, I see your work is truly inspiring and done in a manner…I mean that, I really do. And the work that you do is done in a manner that allows us all to learn from one another and grow together as a community.

Carol Glazer:

…And you’re not even reading that.

Candee Chambers:

Bits and pieces. But you guys offer so many opportunities to advance disability inclusion for employers within their organizations. And for those who are listening, I highly encourage you to connect with Carol and the team at NOD to do just that. If our listeners would like to connect, how can they get in touch with your team, Carol, to start those conversations despite quarantine?

Carol Glazer:

www.nod.org

Candee Chambers:

Okay, all right. I strongly recommend that they do that. And we have a lot of people that ask a lot of questions about what to do with regard to employees with disabilities, or how to learn about disability etiquette. And I know that Howard Green is one of my favorite people on the earth. And he’s now retired but still doing some consulting for you. And I know that he did training for the United Nations on disability etiquette, correct?

Carol Glazer:

Yeah, he did. For sure.

Candee Chambers:

Yeah. So this is the group to talk to folks. So all right, Carol, I’m going to let us end up with that high note. And I truly loved this Carol.

Thank you for tuning in for another episode of the DE Talk Podcast. Stay connected with DirectEmployers on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and be sure to subscribe to the podcast to receive notifications of new episodes each month.