Why Equity HAS to be part of the Corporate Landscape

Good morning, everyone. This is Danielle, and we have Jessica this morning. Vida is off. off today. So we are talking about why equity has to be part of the corporate landscape. So what is equity? Let's define that first. And I'm gonna let you explain it.

Equity is giving everyone a chance that's, you know, and I don't want to use the word equal because it's a different thing.

It's everyone else a chance at the same level of growth productivity.

Yes.

That doesn't mean doing it the same way. It just means having the chance to accomplish things. And why are we talking about equity? There have been a couple major companies recently who are removing equity from the conversation because they don't think equity is important. And equity is absolutely part of the inclusion disability conversation in everywhere— accommodations, uh, accessibility, all of those things. Equity has to be a part of that.

Yeah, if you are not including disability in your policies, you are missing everything. There, there is no equity if you're not including disabilities, if you're not including how to make those accommodations, how to make that accessibility, if you're forgetting about that or trying to roll it under something else, it is such a huge conversation. It can't be rolled. It needs, it needs to be its own thing.

It has to be its own thing. And I saw an updated statistic, which I've been saying 6.5 million people are leaving the workforce in the next 5 years. They've actually recalculated over the last month to 10.5 million.

Wow.

10.5 million people are leaving the workforce. We don't even have a workforce coming up that is that big. And then if you're excluding somebody who's dyslexic, somebody who's ADHD, somebody who's autistic, somebody who's got epilepsy, somebody who's in a wheelchair, somebody who has autoimmune disorder, somebody who is a single mother. Because let me tell you, this equity conversation, a lot of single parents need that equity piece to— in order to be able to support their family.

Yeah.

And show up and be productive at work. Like, it's If you want a productive workforce and to actually have a workforce and not lose your business, equity has to be part of that conversation.

Yeah, otherwise you're going to have people— you're going to have more burnout and turnover because you're not making things to include equity, to have that, you know, accommodations, to have that accessibility. You're just gonna burn out people. And with, with the newer generations being much more aware and understanding that we have, you know, autism and ADHD and dyslexia and dyspraxia, fibromyalgia, yeah, list goes on, especially all these invisible disabilities that yes, we've been masking them all along. And it, it hurts us. It takes away that equity field. But now we're aware of them. And we know what works for us. And we're asking for that. We're asking for simple accommodations, change your lighting, let me wear headphones, let me have a schedule where some days I can work from home. And especially even for single mothers, some days working from home means they don't have to spend so much on daycare, or if their kid is sick, they can still work and be productive and be part of the team. You're— yeah, if you're forgetting equity, you're, you're wiping all that from the field.

Well, and the big thing is, and it's not just about providing those things in your business. Great if you have those things in your business, but the message is not there that it's there. And I think this is one of the biggest things that every business over 5 employees is not discussing enough right now, because you want to know what? The neurodivergent community isn't even looking to go into the corporate workforce at this point. And you want— why would we? We work for ourselves for a reason, because the corporate world has told us that we're not important, we're not good enough for them, whatever the thing is, when we are the, the smartest part of the workforce. And, and I don't say that just because I'm better than you.

No.

You want to test us and look at intelligence and education and growth and adaptability? The— your neurodivergent specifically workforce is that workforce. A neurotypical person can't learn a whole entire new position and be able to take on the whole entire workload for that position in less than 6 months. A neurotypical person takes 6 months to learn a new skill. A neurodivergent person, about 10 hours. And, and I really— and that is based on actual research. And I will tell you, so I'm going after my PhD right now, and I just completed 3 of my courses in less than a month because that's not hard. And there are other people like my cohorts in the class going, how did you just do that? I can't handle that. How did you just do that? Oh, I just did this. And they're like, But that's not a thing. Yes, it is when you're neurodivergent. And I am not as intelligent as many ND people are.

Mm-hmm.

Because I have multiple learning disabilities too. So I have some things to overcome. You want to talk to an autistic person and put them on your team and have them learn to be the strongest member of your team? Give them a few accommodations. Let them wear headphones. Let them work from home. And let them get agendas and transcription from a meeting. That is one of the most common things I talk about with my clients, agendas and descriptions and transcription of a meeting.

Yep. Give them their tasks in writing.

This is not hard. This doesn't even require special software anymore.

No, at all. Sticky notes with I need you to do this.

A Post-it note, an email, a message on Slack or Teams or whatever your thing is. That's all they need. That's it. And it doesn't even cost somebody excessive hours to provide this. It takes 30 seconds.

Yes.

And I like when somebody sends me a voice memo. Send me a voice memo. I'll transcribe it. I'll use that. That works.

Yeah, I agree. I've done that in my own workplace because people started just doing calls and, well, I just need you to do this. Well, I just need you to put that in an email, please. Because believe me, my brain's gonna— we're gonna get off this call and I'm going to be emailing going, what did you say? Yeah.

But, and all of these things are Equity. This is— these are the equity things that we're talking about. Um, having, uh, during school vacations, allowing single parents to work from home. And even if that's the only time they work from home is during school vacations and when their kid is sick, and that's the only accommodation that you give them, it takes off so much stress.

I mean, I remember the days and I worked for companies and After calling in for myself being sick, and then my kid comes down sick, it's like, okay, I lose my job or I take care of my kid. And that's, that's a terrible choice.

Especially if you're a single parent.

Yeah. And I've, I've been there with a, with a very sick kid.

And, and, and it's a thing that really doesn't— this doesn't cost a company money. This really isn't a big deal, especially past COVID. This is not actually a big deal. Managers are making it a big deal, but it's not actually a big deal.

Yep.

So what things in equity— and you sent me a little bit ago that, that Einstein, Albert Einstein quote, everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it's stupid. In corporate culture, if you judge a person by what you— what you have, this out— very outdated idea of how things need to be done, and they fail, they're just gonna quit and not work for you.

That, or if you judge a person by, well, that's not the way you do it, but if it's working for them and it's getting the job done, And not hurting anyone, let them do it that way. Like, there's different ways to do things. And even, you know, even the way me or Danielle do things is not necessarily the way someone else is going to accomplish it. And it's, it's getting rid of those judgmental and those, well, this is my, my least favorite. This is the way it's always been done. Oh, I hate that saying.

I, I, well, we, the last person that had this position did it this way.

Yeah.

And do I look like them?

Yeah, am I that person? I thought you hired me.

Or better yet, a manager who's constantly questioning how you got this done. Not the end result. Are you happy with the new client I just signed you for XYZ? Well, yes, but how did you do that? That's not important. I did it. The end result is what you asked for. I completed and gave you the end result you asked for. How I got to it doesn't matter. And I think that, again, that's, that's an outdated way of thinking. And this is where corporate is failing because, again, 10.5 million people leaving the workforce over the next 5, 7 years, whatever it is, and you're neurodivergent, which— what I'm trying to remember the stats, that number just went flying out of my head. 1 in 20 people, something like that, is neurodivergent.

I think more than that.

Yeah, yeah. I don't remember what the stat is. It's really high. I think it might be 1 in 5 in my opinion these days. So you're cutting out at least 5.5 million people out of your workforce by, we're not gonna even look at you, we're not going to apply, we're not going to even try because why bother?

Yeah. And then if you look at, you know, the research I did is that looked into a work, You know, working age adults, 18 plus, in all kinds of fields, 73% have an invisible disability. Yeah. And that's more than just neurodivergent. That 73% of your workforce has some type of disability. If you are not talking disabilities and accommodations, accessibility, accessible— wow, my wording is—

Accessible.

My wording is not working. And, you know, just understanding people and being advocates, you are missing out more than half of your workforce and you are ignoring them.

And I think the bottom line is corporations need to get on board or they're not going to be a corporation anymore. And that's as easy because people with hidden disabilities are not even trying to go into corporate anymore because it's just too hard to scale all of that. So they're starting their own businesses. We're going to go back to 1800s where everybody is their own small business and there aren't going to be huge corporations. That is going to crash our economy.

Yeah.

The way it is right now, and the world is going to have to rethink how it operates. Nobody wants that. You want your $50 million paycheck every year as a CEO, CIO, CTO, whatever you are. You want to keep that? Then start looking at your disability, your advocacy, your equity, your inclusion, accommodations.

And my other thing too is, is stop hiding your own disabilities. Because believe me, even in those top executives, stop hiding. Be, be what you want to see and talk about it. And the more we talk— just talking about it creates community and creates acceptance. Like—

Talk about it. Is your CTO— okay, your CIO or your CTO, your tech officer, I guarantee you that person is somewhere in the hidden disability neurodivergent scale. You want to know how I know that? I ran teams of tech people, teams of them. And there wasn't one neurotypical person on any of those teams. I worked in marketing, marketing to tech people, IT people, developers. There wasn't one person in that whole entire community of 5 million people that I used to be a part of that was neurotypical.

Yeah, my, my own son works as, you know, a data engineer, and he's You know, came on fully disclosing and started talking with his whole team, and now the whole team's like, oh, maybe we should go get tested.

And if you have moms that work there, whether they're single or not, you need— they need to be part of this conversation. If you have single— any single parents, if you have somebody with aging parents, So the Gen X generation, me, we are now dealing with our parents who are aging and needing help and having doctor's appointments and surgeries and all of these things. We need, even if we're not neurotypical, hidden disability, any of that things, we need equity, inclusion, accommodations to be the caretaker of our aging parents.

Yeah. Yeah, in this day and age where both, you know, husband and wife, we need to be working, we're forgetting that, and, you know, in times past, the women are, you know, would be able to stay at home and care for the elders and care for the kids. But now with our economy today, everyone has to work to get by. And so what's happening to the kids? What's happening to Grandma and Grandpa who are aging? We can't just throw them in homes like that. Companies need to realize their yeah the work life balance. The that if you're going to say oh we support a work life balance then do it. You need to have these equity conversations. You need to have these accommodations and accessibility to allow people you know either the time off or. Or the, you know, the work from home options to help take care of these life happenings.

Absolutely. And this conversation goes so much deeper than just people who with disabilities, it goes so much deeper. And corporations need to start having it because we're just in it. I hear, and I've been at 4 networking events in the last 2 weeks. And I am hearing C-suite people, top-level managers, we can't hire, we can't hire, we're not finding our people, we aren't able to hire, unable to hire. This is why. Because people aren't even trying to look. And then you're disqualifying people who are trying to look because they don't fit your antiquated outdated, ableistic idea of hiring.

Yeah. Or, you know, you've got these tech jobs that are 100% able to be remote worked, but then you're telling people must be in office. It's like, why?

Yeah, the in-office thing. Once a month. Okay, I, I'm fully on board with that. Absolutely. Because I understand that you want to foster a community in your business. Great. Once a month max.

Max.

I worked with companies where we would get together once a year and that worked great. Once a year, that was it. That was amazing. There's no reason for— unless you're in manufacturing and you have assembly lines, or are—

Or service industry.

Yeah, yeah, there is no reason why if you have people who work in an office sitting at a computer, every one of those people can work from home.

Yes.

Now, there are some people that don't want to work from home. They'd rather work in an office because their home drives them crazy or a million reasons. Great. They can be your office people. There are people willing to do that. But if somebody is not and wants that accommodation, which I don't see that as an accommodation, I just see that as seriously, why are you putting me in an office when I don't have to be here? I get somebody in an office and they've proven this a million times. Somebody who works in that physical office space, especially cubicle world, Is 80% less productive. 80%.

I, I don't get much done in a cubicle. Too much. Yeah, too much noise.

So how is it productive? And I'm going to talk a neurotypical person. A neurotypical person is still getting up and going to the bathroom multiple times a day because they can't stand sitting still. A neurotypical person is going to get coffee. A neurotypical person is— their neighbor stopped to talk to them in the cubicle or at the water cooler or whatever, and they talked to them for 15 15 minutes, once an hour for 15 minutes, and then they're going out for lunch, and then they're ducking out early for a doctor's appointment, and then they're done for the day. That's it, they're done. A person who works from home has 2-minute travel, has 12 drinks on their desk.

Hey, stop calling me out.

I don't have any right now. My husband took all my cups away and I have to go get them.

Ah.

Goes to the bathroom once every 3 or 4 hours. Then they remember that they were supposed to get up and move around and go to the bathroom. They'll work right up until 5 PM.

Mm-hmm.

Might take an hour lunch. Oh great, I'm gonna take an hour lunch and go to a doctor's appointment, whatever. And then they work until 10 o'clock at night. Now, for the people doing that, that's not healthy life balance. And as a life coach, please talk to me and we'll talk. But your people are working on an average— and I read this study a couple weeks ago— an extra 4 hours a day when they're remote. 4 hours of productivity.

Mm-hmm. Oh yeah, I get so much more done if I'm working remote versus if they were to put me in an office because of people coming by wanting to talk about this or that or other. And yes, it may be work talk, but still, it's like I'm not getting my job done. It's their job they want to talk about.

And there's a lot of things like that. There's so many of those things that people aren't considering in the equity and accommodations and accessibility conversation.

Yes.

And that's for your neurotypical people.

It's for everyone.

Accommodations, you do, you're going to have somebody who's maybe in a wheelchair and you have to buy them a special desk. You're going to have somebody who needs a major accommodation, but those are the major outliers. All of the rest of the accommodations— agendas, transcription, written tasks, tests in writing, things like that— should be for everyone, not just your disabled people.

Well, you got to think about it on the— like, if you have a painter, you're not expecting them to figure out how to reach. You're going to accommodate them and give them a ladder or scaffolding. Accommodations are normal things out there. If you have, you know, a package carrier, you're not going to have them carry 100-pound packages all the time. You're going to give them a dolly to pull the packages. Accommodations are normal.

And they're— yeah, they're normal, and they should be talked about.

Talking about a conversation.

Do you have an elevator in your building? That's an accommodation.

Yeah.

Do you have lights that turn on? That's an accommodation. Do you have air conditioning? That's an accommodation. Why are anything— why is anything else looked at as something special and out of the ordinary and horrible and taxing for a business to look at or think about giving.

And we have to give doctors' notes and—

No, most everything. None of that stuff makes sense. I mean, honestly, none of that stuff makes sense when it's called being a— trying to think of the nice way to put it. Only the not nice ways are coming out.

Being a Being a human.

Being a human. If you're a manager who refuses to give an accommodation for doing an agenda, honestly, and I already have this turned on on our YouTube channel, you're an asshole. An agenda should be a basic. If you're a bad enough manager that you can't have an agenda because you don't want to be accountable, You're a horrible manager. That's it. Because that's reasonable.

Like, I had, I had a person come to me tell me they got written up for taking notes during a meeting.

I have a client who's gotten in trouble for taking notes in a meeting because she takes notes and she doodles in the middle of her notes. And that wasn't acceptable to them. So they wrote her up. She actually lost her job. She is working with. She has a lawyer that she'll. It's not a problem because we we called whatever they're called and we went. This is what just happened. They're like, wait, what?

Man, I doodle all the time.

You want to know why somebody may do that to help them?

Because it helps.

Uh huh. Hello. Um, but knowing that anything that you do to block somebody's request to be productive makes you the terrible manager. Not talking about the fact that, oh yeah, we can do that. Oh yes, we've got all of these things set up for somebody with a disability, and you could call it that, but they're reasonable accommodations for everybody in your workforce, not just somebody who's dyslexic or ADHD or whatever. Agenda, right?

I mean, why, why require it to come down to being proving you have a disability to get help? Everybody needs a little help every once in a while. Everybody. And so if you have these accommodations, whatever you want to call them, available for anyone, be like, hey, I really could use an agenda, or hey, I could really use someone to, uh, you know, give me in writing or check in with me weekly Why, why make it that it's disability related? Just let people ask for some help. Because on top of it, the equity of getting a diagnosis to say you have a disability— I mean, I wasn't diagnosed till late, and I was asking for help all along, and then realized, oh, that's why I'm asking for this help. Oh, that's why I have such a hard time reading a book. Like, it's not that I'm stupid. It's just my brain processes different.

And better yet, don't even make us ask for these accommodations. These are good for productivity. They're good for growth. They're good for accountability for every single person on the team. Managers need more accountability than anybody else on your team, believe it or not. And the thought process— again, the antiquated thought process that managers should be left to manage their team. However, Is outdated. It's time for that to go. Managers should have accountability agendas, things in writing, transcriptions saved and recorded and kept so that when somebody— when an employee says XYZ and they come to HR, you have proof for that immediately.

Yeah.

And if you don't want that as a company, well then, I hope your doors close soon. And let me tell you, the millennials and the Gen Zers are hoping your doors close soon, and they're going to help that along by not even applying to work for you because you aren't offering basic human support.

Yeah, exactly. They are much more aware of what's going on, what's going on with themselves, what's going on even if they don't have a disability themselves, about the The, you know, justice to other people and being a good human.

There is the emotional intelligence of these younger generations. The Gen Xers did a really good job of raising the next generations to have better emotional intelligence than we were ever allowed to have. And while they drive us Gen Xers, they are driving us a little insane because the— yeah, but we've taught them To expect better for themselves.

To be better humans.

Better humans.

To understand each other, to not judge, to be open-minded and welcoming. And that's what organizations should want, to have that equity, to be welcoming to everyone.

Absolutely. So how can you be— bring equity back into the conversation? these corporations and there's a huge organization last week that released something about removing equity. Jessica and I were like, are you kidding me? I wrote an article that day about why this is an issue. There has to be more conversations like that. We have to be talking about all of this more. As corporations, you're going to have a better workforce if you start talking about it and saying, we offer these, we are willing to have these conversations. If you bring somebody like Jessica in to do her wide survey to see what your company needs as a whole, whether they're just have disabilities or not, just as a whole. And remember, 73% of your workforce has a disability. So why aren't you looking at investing in those who work for you to make them better, to make them more productive? You want more money. You want to You want to survive the apocalypse that's about to come to the workforce. And it is going to be an apocalypse.

Yeah.

And I sit back as somebody who left corporate, and I go back in and I consult often in corporate. And I do— I'll do 2 or 3 contracts a year in consulting. And we go, this is why I don't work in corporate. Holy crap. This is why I like the money. I do like the money. But man, this is why I don't— why I started my own business. Because you suck. And this is why you're having issues. And this is why you keep having to hire consultants to come in to figure out why things aren't working right, because you aren't offering basic human services. And this is a harsh conversation for a reason, because there's so much not being done. And all you gotta do is have a conversation about it and have a public conversation about it.

Yeah, I think it comes down to human resources need to remember to provide human resources.

Yeah, human resources' job is to work with the humans in the business, not some weird bottom line that they're trying to hit that they can't. And they're always questioning and hiring a new consultant to figure out why they can't hit this bottom line. Why can't we hit this bottom line? Why is this an issue? Why is this an issue? Because The human piece of your business is gone. I hope that you understand what we're talking about. If you have questions and don't understand what we're talking about and want to learn more and want to know how to make your workforce stronger, better, more accommodating, ready to grow, and ready to accept those people coming into the workforce that you're because you're losing so many people, give us a call. Message us. We are happy to talk with you and help you figure out where some of the issues are here and how you can work better with your workforce and again, be a better human business. So if you have questions, please let us know. We're always available to talk and we look forward to having more of these conversations because these are our soapboxes and they're soapboxes for a reason because I work with people every single day who are working in corporate who are They feel like that fish asking to be— to climb a tree when all they needed was somebody to write down what their tasks were for them. So let's do better. Let's do better. That's all it comes down to. And let's talk about doing better.

Yep.

Have an awesome day, everybody, and we'll see you next week.

Bye.