Season 7 • Bonus Episode

Develop skills in furthering disability inclusion in the workplace—irrespective of your title or position on an organizational chart.​ To be an employer of choice for people with disabilities, you must have a disability-inclusive culture. Tune in to this episode, recorded at DEAMcon25, to explore how to build a foundation or elevate your efforts to influence change and reduce the stigma that many people with disabilities face in their employment journey. Gain an understanding of the disability inclusion journey, from the role of an individual contributor to the enterprise, and learn from case studies that illustrate how to be a change agent in helping companies overcome various internal barriers to becoming disability inclusive.

About DE Talk

The DE Talk 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, equal employment opportunity initiatives, and insightful solutions that help infuse new life into your HR strategies.

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Episode Guests

Transcript

DirectEmployers Association (00:00):

Get ready! The DE Talk podcast starts now, insightful conversations and dialogue, helping you put the human factor back in HR.

(00:08):

We’re breaking down one powerful truth. Disability inclusion isn’t just HR’s job, it’s everyone’s job. No matter your role, whether you’re leading a team, managing projects, or contributing as an individual, creating a workplace where people with disabilities feel valued and supported is all about building culture. And it starts with each of us recorded live at DEAMcon25, Meaghan Walls and Andy Traub from the Center for Disability Inclusion shared how every person has the power to influence change regardless of their position on the org chart. In this conversation, you’ll hear inspiring stories that challenge stigmas. Learn the important distinction between self-identification and self-disclosure and walk away with practical steps you can take to create lasting impact.

Andy Traub (00:53):

The whole purpose of today is for us to really kind of understand a little bit more about, we all have our own opportunities within our businesses to talk about disability inclusion. Now, when we talk about inclusion in the atmosphere that we’ve been living in over the past five, six months, it kind of has a negative tone. But when we talk about disability inclusion, we’re not talking about ever talking about this being for charity. It’s about hiring really good qualified people and changing the lens in which we see talent. So it’s not only about hiring, it’s also about retaining. We’re going to talk a little bit more about that here in a little bit. But this quote is, I heard the first time when I was 15 years ago when I got in this space, and it’s resonated with me ever since. “Your organization, your department, or your team’s, words, attitudes, and actions impact my life more than my disability.”

(01:49):

Both ways for the positive as well as for the negative. And today, hopefully you’ll be able to a little understanding about that phrase and how you can apply that and hopefully being more on the positive side of things. Because reality is a lot of people are like, I don’t know what to do, so therefore do nothing. And that actually doing nothing is the choice. And then not doing anything actually has that impact on people. And so we’re going to go through some of that stuff this morning. But one of the things that we talk a lot about is the disability inclusion journey. Now, I love to sit there and say it’s as linear as what is on the screen. It’s not. We ebb and flow in different areas. One of the things that we look at is some organizations, some departments, some professionals. It’s not on my radar, I’ll be quite honest with you, after I was in HR at the time for 12 years prior to somebody telling me I need to go hire people with disabilities, wasn’t on my radar at all. So there’s this journey of where are you? Where’s your company? Where’s your department? As you go through this map, per se, a lot of organizations get stuck in compliance. How many of you in here are federal contractors? Okay, you got to a track, right? That’s where a lot of organizations say somebody’s looking at the numbers, and that’s all we need to do.

(03:23):

Other organizations like, look, let’s go past that and start developing some competencies. What do we know about individuals with disabilities? How do we retain them? How do we attract them to our organization? And how many, I mean, if you’re in recruiting or whatever, we hear all the time, I can’t find good people. Well, maybe the lens we’re looking at is dated and not necessarily one that we look at what people’s individual, what their competencies are and how they can actually benefit our organization. We get stuck on what they’ve got versus what they can do. Then from there, it’s like we developed some capabilities. It’s like, oh, maybe there’s an employee resource group that comes about within your organization, or we’re starting to have more and more conversations about disability inclusion. Maybe we start looking at our job descriptions and say, Hey, is there language in there that might actually exclude people from doing the work?

(04:12):

And then at the end of the day, it’s, Hey, we’re better because of the diversity that we actually have within our organization. Individuals with disabilities bring different perspectives. They bring innovation, and now we’re recognizing the fact that doing that work makes us more competitive in the market, which I believe everybody needs to be. And so that’s kind of a journey. And like I said, we’re going to walk you through some of that and hopefully we’ll actually be able to understand what maybe your next step is to move down the journey. So with that, I will turn it over to Meaghan.

Meaghan Walls (04:44):

Hi, I’m Megan. I’ll share a little bit more about myself later, but I’m excited to be here and for you all to think about what role you can play in your moving the disability inclusion culture along at your company.

Andy Traub (05:00):

And my name’s Andy Traub, I’m the director of corporate disability inclusion for Center for Disability Inclusion. Everybody is responsible for disability inclusion within the organization. We’re going to give you some tips and some tools that you can actually leave here with today, no matter what title you are on, what things you can actually be able to do. Alright? But here’s one of the interesting parts. We get asked a lot, what the heck’s a disability? What constitutes a disability? So we’re going to go to ADAAA definition, is any condition that an individual has long-term or intermittent that impacts any one of these major life functions. So we’re talking, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating and working.

(05:58):

You have to have two out of these or a combination of these. It’s any one, short-term, long-term, or intermittent. Now, I am an individual who suffers from migraines. Anybody else? My fellow migrainers proud. So when I have a migraine, thankfully they’re not all the time. So it’s intermittent. I don’t know when they’re coming. Well, I’m getting better at understanding maybe when they’re coming, but when I have a migraine, the number of these things actually are impacted are huge. So I can’t see because one of the nice 10% that gets the auras, I can’t see. I lose vision hearing, oh my land. I can’t get into a quiet enough place. Eating, no thanks, because what goes down must come back up. Sleeping, can’t do it when I’m in that much pain. Walking, I think I’m ok-ish, but when you can’t see, that’s not a good thing. Lifting, no way.

(06:56):

I’m not lifting anything. My head will explode. Bending over, not going to happen. Speaking, I actually lose word find so I might have something in my brain. It’s like I want to say something, but I can’t. From here to here, it gets lost. Breathing learning’s not going to happen. I’m just going to the deepest, darkest, quietest, coldest place I can possibly find. Reading, not happening, concentrating, thinking, communicating, working, all the, I mean, one condition that’s intermittent can knock me out of many of those things. So there are currently right now over 500 different diagnoses that can actually be considered as disability. And so the good and the bad about that is, is we’re actually adding to that number all the time. Past couple of years, anybody remember this thing called a pandemic? Anybody? Maybe you’re not old enough. I don’t know. But anyway, no, I’m just joking.

(07:56):

Long COVID is a thing. We don’t understand it completely, but people, you get COVID, some people get COVID and they have impact. COVID in itself can be a disability or disabling condition because of what it actually provides. So who does this impact? A lot of people actually think, and the funny thing is, a lot of people when we say disabilities, what do they go to? People which wheelchairs? Maybe somebody who has some other sort of assisted device that you can, in my eyes, I can tell that person has a disability, but in reality, most everybody who has a disability, over 80% of those individuals with disabilities have invisible disabilities and they look like anybody in this room. So understanding the fact that disabilities are not necessarily somebody who has an assistive device. It’s people who are looking normal, right? Normal. One of the things we’re going to talk a little bit about today is the difference between self id, federal contractors.

(09:03):

Raise your hand again. Self id, right? Part of your world. Self ID is an administrative function. It’s checking, making sure I get enough check marks to validate my numbers. That’s all. Self-disclosure is the ability for people to actually bring their whole self to work. Self id. I’m going to mail it in. It’s anonymous. You don’t need to know my name. You don’t need to know who I am bringing something. And oftentimes it’s because I need some sort of accommodation, and it may not necessarily I’m going through an accommodation process, but I may actually need to have a discussion with Megan, my boss, about my migraines. If I get a migraine and I get the auras, I got a clock in my head of about 45 minutes before my world gets incredibly rough and I better be in a dark deep hole. Certainly not driving and I’m taking medication, but I’m disclosing to Megan, my boss. The ironic part about it is, is that I’m an HR guy through 30 years of HR. We’d love to think that people would disclose to us. They don’t anybody know. Why wouldn’t you disclose to HR? Anybody?

(10:23):

Okay, maybe discrimination, possibly. What else? If I’m an individual and I need to tell somebody about my condition, why wouldn’t I tell HR? Huh? Pride. Pride could be another one. The other part about it’s HR represents some mothership. If I’m telling HR, I just now told the company, I may not want my stuff to be aired. So how do I actually have conversations? I might tell Megan, but I’m never going to tell HR. Here’s the funny thing is I’ve had migraines since I was 19. I never checked the box in self ID that I’m an individual who identifies as an individual with disability. Every one of my managers I ever had knew that I had migraines. I never checked the box. I wasn’t sure where that was going to go. Alright, so there’s a difference between disclosure and self ID. If you’re running self ID campaigns, great. You got to do it for the federal compliance and creating a culture where it’s okay to talk about it is a big deal.

Meaghan Walls (11:20):

So along with the self-disclosure, self ID conversation, who does this all impact? Right? Bottom line. There’s a huge talent pool out there in the disability community. You all know that or you wouldn’t be here listening to us and learning how to potentially increase that culture so you can be better employers of choice for people with disabilities. A really important consideration in that. Why aren’t people not disclosing? Why aren’t they sharing this information with me? Why aren’t they asking for what they need? It’s important to reflect on how we to disability that we can see detect that’s visible to us versus disability that is not, and making sure that we’re bringing the same level of empathy to someone who’s asking for extended time, for recovery from surgery or for flexibility in their schedule so that they can manage their diabetes with the same level of empathy that we’re responding to someone who’s requesting a leave so that they can have some hospitalization treatment for an eating disorder or increase therapy appointments for their mental health.

(12:25):

And so as we think about empathy in the workplace, it’s a huge tool to build that culture and be able to have some of those conversations. To Andy’s point, I have also had migraines for a long time and the reason that I might disclose is not necessarily to request an accommodation, but if I’m in an environment where I want the people around me to understand what it looks like if I’m suffering from a migraine and what our dynamic might need to shift for a little bit so that communication’s open and we can continue to function and work as a team. So I want you to understand me better, not just to be able to check the box and kind of move forward with that. So up until this point, what you know about me is that I presented at NILG and I’m the CEO for CDI and that I get migraines, which really doesn’t tell you if I’m actually qualified to be up here with Andy having this conversation with you.

(13:28):

We talk a lot around the analogy of the iceberg because it parlays so much into that 80% of disability types are non apparent, which means they sit below the waterline. Only 13% of an iceberg at any point in time is visible above the water. So when it comes to our identities, what you know on the surface is I’m an average height, middle age-ish, I don’t know, female with shoulder length brown hair, and I’m wearing a blazer and black pants and the other three kind of pieces of information that were already shared. But what you don’t know is that my passion for this work started when I was really young and when my mom opened a medically based childcare and it immersed me in this world and I developed a passion for barrier removal to participation in schools in our communities and workplaces. And that fueled every direction that I took for school and for work. Certified a coordinator and an assistive technology professional. I also am a mom and to two very spunky girls, a wife to someone from Boston, anyone from the East coast in this.

(14:45):

I’ve lived with regular migraines since I was a teenager. I have a daughter with a DHD. I’m also really good at puzzles like the big ones. It’s kind of a happy place for me. I have four dogs, maybe too many and 32 houseplants. Also maybe too many, but they make me really happy. But all of those pieces, unless we’ve got a culture to have those conversations and find those places of connection, you’re not going to know those things. So we have to build a culture where we can get below the waterline so that we can have authentic conversations and build those supports.

Andy Traub (15:23):

One thing about that is the fact that when I mentioned the fact that we’re not disclosing to HR, we’re disclosing to supervisors. If you work in an organization, you need to make sure that your supervisors understand how to actually receive that Megan’s point with the empathy and what can I ask? What can I not ask and how do I actually have those discussions? And then what do I do with it? So make sure your supervisors are trained. Even just basic awareness, right? It’s like, oh, by the way, Megan tells me she’s got migraines. I can’t go necessarily in the break room and mention it to John. Hey, do you know Megan’s got migraines? No, you can’t, right? So making sure that we’re aware of how we respond to those. So who am I below the waterline?

(16:09):

I’m older male. How about that? I have a very high forehead. My kids refer to it as a cul-de-sac. I’m wearing black in Arizona. Don’t whatever anyway, in a suit, wear glasses. That’s me right below the waterline. I mentioned I have a 30 year career in human resources. Past 15 years I have been in the disability inclusion space. I was voluntold to get in it and was so intimidated by it. I actually started looking for another job, but I was the director of recruitment for theater chain. Some of you might be familiar with AMC theaters, and I was tasked with hiring people with autism 15 years ago when autism was just on the radar. So that’s how I got into this space and it’s changed my entire career and passion and all that stuff. I’m an avid runner. I love the fact that we put this together.

(17:02):

They are like, Hey, you’re an avid runner. Actually I’m not, I don’t really like to run all that much, but we’ve done 41 out of 50 states and that’s basically me chasing my wife through the woods or on the trails or whatever. So that’s how I end up doing 13.1 miles. She stops at 13.1 miles. Actually, she stops at 13 waits for me so I can come and catch up with her. But anyway, so that’s how I got to be a runner. I was diagnosed with migraines in 91, survived a significant heart attack. If anybody’s familiar with the heart, there’s a widow maker artery. I was, I’m blessed to be here by 5% of that. And you’re like, I wonder what 5% of a widow maker artery is. I can tell you I researched it. If you take a human hair and slice it, lengthwise 33 times, three of those strands equal 5% of what the widow maker artery.

(17:50):

So it was very small. So I’m super excited to be here. I’ve struggled with mental health most of my life. Anxiety and depression are my two biggies. It’s really kind of a bad combination. Can only treat one at a time. I have a significant hearing loss in my left ear. Remember that lady I chased through the woods yesterday? We celebrated 26 years of marriage and she’s like, you can’t hear. You’re not hearing me. And I’m like, I literally cannot hear you. She goes, you’re not listening to me. She’s a medical professional. I had to go to an ENT. I get tested. Guess what? Left ear significant hearing loss. And by the way, guess what range I’m losing? Hers.

(18:31):

I’m like, we got a choice here. If it’s you either got to stop working on that side or start working on that side and get me evened out. But anyway, that puts us in marriage counseling. But anyway, it is all good. It’s all good. I was diagnosed with early macular degeneration. If I live long enough, I’ll be like my uncle who basically couldn’t see anything. So I’m trying to absorb as much as I possibly can this time, and this is going to sound weird, my life was radically changed last year. I was so excited when I was diagnosed officially with ADHD. I’m like, thank you. Now I understand why it is that I paid more fines for books. I didn’t read anything past page one at the library. For those of you, there used to be a library you go to. Anyway, I’ll date most of us in the room. But anyway, so to Megan’s point, we all have stuff. A lot of those things. My dance card wasn’t getting full until I got older. So it’s an interesting part and we’re going to talk a little bit about that here in a second. But that disability identity, again, the top of the iceberg, what you see that’s self id, what’s below is self-disclosure. There’s a lot that’s packed underneath that. Anyway,

Meaghan Walls (19:52):

Yeah, we started off this session talking about mindset because a lot of culture shift is not just acknowledging where we are and where we want to go and what’s in the way, but where our mindset is along that journey as well and around accommodations. There’s mindsets all over the map from, oh, this is such a headache. There’s so much paperwork. It’s so formal to on the other side of things from the employee being like, I don’t even know who to ask or what the process is or just what their overall experience is, good or bad. And so this slide that’s up here, it was actually created by GAO and really just in terms of framing a mindset around accommodations, I could talk about this forever, but what I’ll say is that in the accommodation piece, that helps create equity in how people have tools to do the things that they need to do for their work.

(20:46):

If we make that our minimum expectation, this is just the standard. Everybody’s going to get the tools that they need to be most successful in their job. It gives us space to look at some of those accommodations in the light of how could they become best practices? How can we integrate these into our culture so that it’s more streamlined or people don’t have to make as many accommodation requests because we’ve started to build some of these elements in. And so if we then do that, it gives us some space to really build a culture of disability inclusion and really have a more accessible culture and environment and policies and practices. Here are a couple of questions. Show of hands. How many of you in two seconds could tell me where your accommodation policy is?

Andy Traub (21:37):

Raise your hands. Come on. Come on.

Meaghan Walls (21:40):

Okay, small handful, maybe two handfuls. How many of you could in two seconds start being able to tell me what your accommodation process is step-by-step? Even fewer hands. How many of you know the exact person you need to talk to get that process started?

Andy Traub (22:01):

HR

Meaghan Walls (22:02):

Right? But ideally, everyone’s hands would go up because that means the information is out there and well communicated. And it’s part of just general conversations. It’s not so hard to access. There are a lot of things that you can do. So some examples that help make that accommodation piece more of a just cultural norm and less request to get what you need. You want to share what some of the partners we’re doing?

Andy Traub (22:34):

Yeah, so some of our partners, I mean the fact that we don’t know, and to Megan’s point, we may not necessarily know where the accommodation piece is. We don’t know how to access it. Now why would I actually do that? I don’t know what’s going to happen if I’m an employee, but there are some organizations out there who normalize the accommodation piece. So one of our partners went through and said, look, what are all those people? When you get onboarded, it’s like, Hey, I want a certain type of keyboard. I want a certain type of mouse. I want a certain type of headphones or headset or a type of desk or a type of chair. What they did was like, Hey, let’s just put that in a catalog and just say, look, if you want any one of these things, just order it. And you don’t have to go through that accommodation process because it’s like what tools are going to help you be successful in the work that employer hired you to do?

(23:29):

And so they just kind of put that together. Now, there’s certain things that if you’re outside that catalog, you might have to put in an accommodation request, but for the most part, a lot of those initial requests are in this catalog. We also had a partner that took that catalog one step further and actually created an accommodation lab. And it wasn’t necessarily, they didn’t call it the accommodation lab, but they took a lot of those chairs. They took the keyboards and that sort of stuff in a room. Because by the way, there’s so much space at times in a lot of our businesses now because we’re a lot of remote work. But people can come in and try it. Okay, I can sit in this chair, I can try this keyboard, I can try this other technology. I can try the headsets. I like this versus, well, it didn’t work, so now I got to go back and forth so people can actually go to the business and actually try it out in a lab.

(24:17):

The other thing is that we also have a lot of people medical documentation that makes everybody kind of cringe, right? It’s like they’ve actually stripped away a lot of that medical documentation just because of the fact it’s like, look, I hired you. You’re probably managing a lot of processes. Why would I make you go prove it? That you have a condition? And oh, by the way, if you are actually hiring veterans, for them to actually try and get into a doctor can be months down the road. If I’m asking for accommodation, it’s not like, Hey, I think I might need an accommodation in January. No, I’m asking because I probably have a need right now and some essential function of my job is not being done well. And oh, by the way, if you’re my boss, you probably already should know that. It’s like, so what tools can I actually provide to you?

(25:12):

And so a lot of that medical documentation’s been pushed way down to, except for very extreme circumstances that need to happen. So anyway, so those are a couple of things. If you know where your policy is and maybe you have some sort of insight into that policy, take a look at it from that lens. It’s like, are we making people jump through hoops? If I sit there and say, Hey, Megan, I need some sort of accommodation. I was trying to be my 21-year-old self and leg out a double when it should have not even been a single in softball and I hurt my back. How long do you think I’m going to be willing to wait? Not very long because my back hurts and if I can’t work, I’m taking leave. It just doesn’t work out for everybody. So being able to sit there and understand that accommodation piece is a significant part of that inclusive culture, and you can actually use the accommodation to help drive culture more into the framework of the DNA of the organization.

Meaghan Walls (26:11):

Just to add to that, for some of the stories that he was sharing, right, this, how did that partner identify the chairs, the desks, the headphones, the mouses, the keyboards. They followed the data. They looked at the trends of what they were getting a ton of requests for, and they said, oh man, we’ve got in this job role, we’ve got this percentage of people that are asking for a different type of headset than the one we just give them. So maybe we should give them a choice of what headset works for them when they onboard, and then there’s one less accommodation request to be made. So tracking your accommodation requests and looking for those trends is going to help you identify those pools of pre-approved accommodations that you can talk about at onboarding and give people those options. Because if you have to wait two weeks for the right headset and you’re not able to answer those calls and do those things, that’s two weeks of lost productivity in that role. So we can speed up all of that in that process too.

Andy Traub (27:10):

Yeah, and I think the other part of that is the fact that if you’re actually trying to collect that data, don’t stop at HR. There’s one other department you probably absolutely a hundred percent need to be talking to anybody. Got an idea? It is a two letter acronym and probably drives most of your company. IT. IT gets more accommodation requests, but they don’t come through as accommodation requests. They’re like, Hey, I might need this new software. Can you help me do this or do that? And they’re actually probably providing that accommodation without even thinking about it because it’s IT, right? So make sure when you’re collecting that data, you do engage your IT department. Now, there’s a lot of things that we hope you take away from it, but this is one of those pieces that’s going to be really important is the askjan.org, the Job Accommodation Network.

(28:07):

If you’ve not used it before it, what an amazing resource they know. I think they know everything. I mean, I’ve called them more times. I actually got my own personal designated rep when I was at AMC because I was calling ’em all the time. But it’s a great resource. You can shoot the QR code. The interesting part about it’s is we were talking about accommodations. Most accommodations cost nothing or nearly nothing. The other one is maybe the $500 range, maybe 30%, 38% of those accommodations costs that, and then a very small percentage are above that a thousand dollars mark. And if it’s above that a thousand dollars mark, there’s other ways to actually be able to pay for that and that sort of stuff. And so anyway, job accommodation network, super important. Make sure you take that with you.

Meaghan Walls (28:57):

So we’re going to go in during a few examples of how initiatives or some requests turned into best practice and all the different roles that had to come together, all the different people that had to collaborate. So as you’re thinking about, well, this is my role and who else is on my team or what other department do I need to get involved so that we can move this forward? So your kind of self-reflection as we go through these examples is thinking about within your role, where do you have influence? Whose ear do you have, what things do you oversee that you can start to dig into, review, make recommendations around? So in one of my previous roles, I oversaw a rehab therapy department for a pediatric center. And so I had on my team, physical, occupational speech therapists, therapy aids, I had feeding therapists and we were in housed within the full facility.

(30:03):

And so there were classrooms and there were nurses for the medical needs, and there’s other administrative staff that is all kind of involved. And I had a professional colleague come to me and say, Hey, my friend’s son, he was 20. So he was part of the transition program in the high school, grown up and spent some time in that specific organization and as a child and a teenager, and they said he really loves kids. He really wants to be a therapy tech. So that’s an assistant, that’s someone who helps get things set up and clean stuff up and motivate the kids. And every therapy clinic that we’ve gone to has said, sorry, he needs to have his high school diploma. Well, if you know anything about the transition programs, they get a diploma, a non-traditional diploma when they turn 21, but they wouldn’t even talk to him.

(30:56):

They wouldn’t consider him because of that. So we talked about it and where he needed support and communication, things like that. He has paired with a job coach. So that person I had, the recruiter that worked with him and the job coach, I was technically the hiring manager, the classroom staff that he had to communicate with to get the kids to and from the therapy sessions, my therapists that were helping direct him, guide him, receiving his support, our administrative staff who’s at the door to let him in, check him in the clock in and out as an employee. And the job coach worked with each of those different entities for the strategies that he needed. He had a cart that he moved supplies around on. He had a checklist so he knew what his different duties were. The clinical staff knew how easily to prompt him through if he was kind of getting fixed or stuck on a particular activity of cleaning or organizing or setting things up.

(31:59):

But every single person on that list from the recruiter, the job coach, hiring manager, the clinical staff, the classroom staff and the administrative staff, every single person had a role in helping make that a successful experience for the employee. The kids loved him. They were more motivated. He was someone closer to their age that they knew from growing up. He was excited to be there. He was an extremely diligent, detail oriented person. So everything was really clean, but it took the whole team to make that impact for the organization. So regardless, and that’s across what, five different kind of departments. So there’s a lot of opportunity for bringing people in for a common outcome.

Andy Traub (32:43):

Interesting thing when you actually start talking about teams and we’re talking about disability inclusion, that sort of stuff, you’re going to actually find a whole lot of people who are actually very passionate about this. How many of you actually been put on a team because you’re voluntold to be on a team. You’re like, we have to meet every week. And then suddenly you’re not meeting for every two weeks and then it’s maybe every three weeks you keep kicking that can down the road, right? It’s like, I don’t want to be on that team. The flip actually happens when you’re talking about disability inclusion and being able to create access within organizations. People are very passionate because they get it. And so when you’re working on a team, it’s a lot of fun. Real quick, the AMC focus program is, if you go to their website, it’s F-O-C-U-S stands for Furthering Opportunities, Cultivating Untapped Strengths.

(33:35):

It’s been in place for the past 12 years now, 13 years, maybe 14 years, 14 years. Anyway, that was all done with collaboration within AMC, right? So I’m the director of recruitment, my job, but I also had to bring in marketing. I also had to bring in my other recruiters. We had to bring in HR, we brought in communications, we brought in the theater teams, we brought in general managers. We had to train everybody in the theaters. We had outside people come in and join the task force. I mean, honestly, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And so the teams evolved, but they all took their piece and go, I can do that. And they do it with excellence versus me trying to draft something like, I don’t know how this is going to work. Hey communications, here’s what I need to have happen.

(34:22):

They do it and we’re done. If you look at that program now, we’ve been informed it’s over 20,000 people have gone through that process worldwide. So sustainability, it’s also the part of the team is the fact that it’s not on Megan. If Megan leaves the organization, Megan now takes that and all the momentum dies. It also gets spread across the team. So here’s our case study real quick. I was working with a manufacturing organization. Their mechanics are also the ones who actually have to run the machines and take ’em down and fix ’em and all that stuff. One of the applicants, it was a mechanic in the military and he kept Apache helicopters flying in the desert, kind of a technical piece and not a small feat. However, when he was on deployment, he was in the back of a Bradley vehicle that hit an IED.

(35:18):

He suffered a traumatic brain injury, two years of rehabilitation and gained himself back together in the workforce. He’s like, I want to go back to work. I’m ready. He applied for the job as a mechanic of this manufacturing facility. The interesting part about it is he blew every aptitude test out of the water. I mean, amazingly goes through the entire process, goes through the interviews, all other stuff, and he gets hired on. He’s there first day he’s gotten met the people and that sort of stuff. He goes to stand in front of the machine and his brain, the way it healed itself, he can’t remember simple steps, five steps to start up the machine. So the supervisor’s like, well, okay, that’s fine. I can help you. Every time they turned the machine off, he had to have somebody come help him. He just could not remember what it was.

(36:06):

And she’s like, this is not sustainable. End of the day she goes home, she happened to have some teenagers in the house that were doing a report and she looks down and lo and behold, there’s three by five cards. Well, guess what? Grabbed five of those suckers. Step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. She put a hole in it, put one of those super cheap rings and hung it on his machine before he got there the next day, you know how many times he had to have somebody help him start his machine? Super guess anybody zero, right? But then they’re like, wait a second. That’s really good idea to put those steps on. Why don’t we do that for all of our machines? So now they’re doing involved. And so you had your HR team was involved, you had the supervisors there, you had other mechanics that were involved. You had frontline people, you had your safety teams.

(36:58):

And what started out as five three by five cards with a ring in, it evolved into full blown, anybody working, manufacturing, anybody familiar with manufacturing? So startup lockout, tagout processes, shut down processes all on the machine. And somebody is like, why don’t we add pictures? So they added pictures to the narratives and now the posters are there in multiple languages and they shorten their onboarding to where the mechanics are now able to be onboarded on multiple machines in less than half the time, which they did before. So one accommodation was good for one individual can be good for everybody. It’s a different way of providing tools.

Meaghan Walls (37:46):

The other thing with that is in addition to the onboarding, they now had a streamlined process for cross training. So less gaps in shift coverage if they needed coverage on different tasks or machines. And I think, here’s the thing that struck me when Andy had first shared this example, I dunno, a year or so ago was that that manager had a fork in the road, finished that first day, and it’s like, oh my gosh, 15 times. We’ve had to go through and support him or the person at the mechanic at the station next to him. She could have gone home and she could have been like, I’m not doing this. This is done. This isn’t going to work. And terminated him. Or she could think outside the box and go down this route of thinking about and being inspired by the things around them to put these things in process and completely different outcomes for the organization. So it’s like she had this choice and that moment of influence for her turned into a huge initiative for the company.

Andy Traub (38:52):

So humor me for literally, I’m going off script boss. One minute. Not even that. Grab your pen that you’re taking all these amazing notes on because the content is so good. Grab your pen, grab a piece of paper. I want you to draw me a star. Alright, time’s up. Hold your star up,

Meaghan Walls (39:12):

Show your team or your table.

Andy Traub (39:13):

Show the people at your table. Don’t laugh at people’s stars, by the way, it’s rude. Other people, I’m pretty sure went to art school and it’s already some celestial thing. So how many of you drew something that actually you feel represents some 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 pointed representation? Something you see in the sky? Raise your hand. I had one person actually draw Lady Gaga one time. How hard were the questions? The task was draw a star. That person actually had autism, it was neurodiverse and they processed what I said completely different than everybody else did. So to Megan’s point, if I sit there and I look at individuals and I have these, are we quick to pull the trigger to go? Not a good fit out, not a cultural fit, not can’t do the job, or we’d actually step back, slow down for a minute and go person made it all the way through every interview, made it through all of our assessments. How is it that it didn’t work? Maybe it’s the way we present information. Maybe it’s the way we look at people differently. Maybe it’s like we need to take a step back and go, you know what? I could have gotten everybody to do something closer to what I expected to say. Can you draw me a representation of something that you believe is a star in the sky? We’re probably going to get pretty close. I had one manager and I asked the question, how do you know if people are understanding what you’re saying?

(40:50):

How do you know? Ask questions. Make sure they understand what you’re saying. And if they’re off, now’s the time to figure it out. One manager’s like, well, the outcomes will tell you, I don’t know about you, but my company pays me and supervisors way too much money to manage processes and to get to a certain outcome. Not to be able to sit there and say, oh yeah, by the way, he missed it. So when we’re talking about accommodations and that sort of stuff, make sure it’s sometimes just the accommodation itself is us presenting information in a different way.

(41:22):

Some other organizations that we’ve actually had that partners we work with, they’ve also looked at partnering with wellness programs to make sure that they are, I’m not having to necessarily work with the accommodations component, but we’re actually talking about mental health and wellness. May is mental health awareness month. And so being able to have those discussions. So we normalize it, bring in resources. How many of you have any EAP for your organization? Raise your hand. Anybody know if your EAP is being used? Exactly right, but I’m talking to colleagues all the time. Are we presenting mental health, mental illness in our space? Some organizations have created task force around this whole accommodation and the ADA piece. It’s like, Hey, let’s do an audit. Let’s look at not only our physical, by the way, ADA is not just about your physical space, it’s also about your technology.

(42:17):

So let’s create a task force, let’s do an audit, and then we start working together as a team to be able to go about doing that. Whether it be guest facing, customer facing, or internal. Too oftentimes all of our stuff, we are like, okay, our customers, they can access this stuff. What about your internal tech stack? Is it accessible? Having disability awareness campaigns, just to help highlight some of that. If you have somebody who’s in leadership who might be completely transparent and say, Hey, I’m an individual with a disability, and they’re willing to tell their story is amazing. How that changes the culture within the organization. So being able to have disability awareness campaigns and that sort of stuff. Then if you’re going to do a disability awareness campaign, be authentic. Alright, don’t go grab a wheelchair from someplace. Put somebody in it and it’s an old wheelchair.

(43:03):

I mean it’s like quite frankly, everybody knows that’s staged. If you have people who are working in your organization, celebrate ’em. If they’re interested in the work that they’re doing, have a best practice of playbook. Talking about accessibility, one of the things we get a lot of information or people ask us about is event accessibility. Things like this. It’s like, how do I put on an event, whether it be something to this scale or what about my teams calls? What do I need to think about on teams? Or how many of you actually gotten on a teams call where it’s like maybe it’s a lot of people pouring on and you hear ding, ding, ding because everybody’s popping in. That is so that’s distracting for a lot of people. Mute it once you start to, you can still see people coming in, but you don’t have to have the audio piece to that.

(43:57):

Turn on closed captions. There’s closed caption function, making sure people understand how to get close captioning on those platforms. And then we actually had one partner last year came up with the fact that they actually did a company-wide mental health day. Y’all get kicked out, booted out. The idea was and still is because doing it again this year is for people to go do self-care. What does that look like? And so they actually set up a page on their intranet and ask people to send in pictures of what self-care looked like for them that day. The entire company is, it’s during the week, not on a Saturday, it was during the week. They came from the day, go do self-care. We had people that are fishing. We had people who were sitting by a pool in the pool, people reading books, people out walking dogs, people, whatever self-care looks like.

(44:50):

They were actually creating a catalog basically of things that you can do to help with your self-care. So those are some of the things that they were actually able to do with the collective input from teams within their organization. Alright, these are three questions that can make a huge difference and I love the fact that the lights are bright. So you can probably see Megan blush when I say this is the fact that she asked me these questions and it was the first time in my career that actually somebody asks the question, when do you work best? How many of you actually have your businesses open? Nine to five or eight to five or whatever typical, raise your hands. Come on. The expectation is you’re supposed to be working your best between nine and five. How many of you actually work better early mornings? How many of you’re early morning risers? Like, man, I get up and I’m in the ground running. I don’t like any of you. No, I’m just joking. Just joking.

(45:49):

I like you. Exactly. Dirty laundry. Don’t tell us anyway. But then how many of you actually are night owls? It’s like you get me dinner beyond, I’m like, I can send emails whenever we work differently. So different times, just being able to understand your team. Then there’s the other part is how do you work best? I am old school and I like to have interaction, right? It’s better for Megan and I to have a face-to-face conversation, whether it be Zoom or whatever, or even a phone conversation. Then her to send me an email. Remember when I told you I had ADHD and I only can, I can’t even read the first page and go, I don’t know what I just read. You know what a long email looks like to me,

Meaghan Walls (46:36):

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Andy Traub (46:38):

Exactly. I sent you an email. How long was it? It was long. Okay, I didn’t read it right. So now we actually, but if you do have to send long emails, break up the information, break up the titles, put bold letters, put bold words and put headers in there. Use different colors, something to change the dynamic or here’s a really brilliant idea, break it up by different topics and send a different email so it actually comes in as a subject line so somebody doesn’t have to go through. And what was that email again? Email communication, being able to, how do you work best? And we have some people who are fantastic, they’re readers, I’m not. And then how do you communicate Best falls in line with that as well.

(47:22):

If some of you using texting, you can actually do voice to text. If you use teams, you can actually shoot a video, short video and send it off to somebody on your team. That way it’s just a different way of doing things. I really don’t like to write either. So anyway, voice to text. Getting to know your team will allow you to actually engage them, but it also will help you create a culture of inclusion because we all work differently along the way. As I mentioned, attitudes and that sort of stuff in our departments are words, attitudes, and actions impact my life more than my disability. The question is, when you see somebody with a disability, do you do this? Some of you might actually know somebody who might actually be like this. All right, what’s your next step? What’s a takeaway that you might actually have? What is your next step? And come up with one thing. And maybe the thing is just ask a question about the accommodation policy. If you don’t know, come up with one thing.

Meaghan Walls (48:26):

Yeah, we’ve got a whole bunch of things coming in. Ask better questions. Auditing processes, communicating with the team, doing manager training, being vocal when there’s something going on. Close captioning and meetings promoting that. What’s good for one can be good for all. Form an employee resource group. A lot of the work that we do is with the employee resource groups because lots of different people from different perspectives all coming together and driving. Some of those initiatives that Andy was talking about, mental health day, the best practices, the ERGs were driving those.

Andy Traub (49:08):

So here’s some other things that you can actually do is we all have biases, right? Many of us probably been through personal bias training. This is a training that’s out. That’s very good. Harvard put it out. It’s called Project Implicit. It’s kind of eye-opening. I would encourage you to do that if that’s another one is Employing Abilities at Work Certificate. It’s 10 hours. How many people in here are HR or need certification hours? All right, it’s free. 10 hours. It’s really good content. I help write it. But anyway, you can go out there and you can find that it’s a start and stop. You do get a certificate at the end from Society for Human Resource Management. And again, it is 10 hours of free credit. You don’t have to be in HR to take it.

Meaghan Walls (49:58):

No,

Andy Traub (49:59):

Anybody can take it. You just go log on, use the QR code and you can get it and it’s free for everybody. Mental Health First Aid certification from NAMI. Some of you may be familiar with that. I’d encourage you to look at that as well. Maybe that’s your next step, but at the end of the day, whatever your next step might be is going to help you move down that disability inclusion journey.

Meaghan Walls (50:24):

Yep. And about 17% of you said, looking at company policies, about 17% of you said looking at doing something related to the accommodation process. And then 12% of you talked about spearheading or advocating for awareness and education. So write that down, that sheet that we gave you, it’s also in the documents. When you put it down on paper, you put it out there in the universe, you’re more likely to go have that conversation. Who do you need to talk to? What question do you need to ask just to even find out more information? Think about both yourself, your department, your organization. It’s all business conversations to help you drive your disability inclusion efforts. We love helping businesses figure out what their journey is.

Andy Traub (51:09):

Thank you for the work that you do, and we appreciate the opportunity to be here. So thank you very much.

DirectEmployers Association (51:15):

Thank you for tuning in for another episode of the DE Talk podcast. Stay connected with DirectEmployers on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, or subscribe to receive updates straight to your inbox by visiting DirectEmployers.org/Subscribe where you’ll receive notifications of new episodes, webinars, events, and more.