Disability inclusion in the workplace | with Christabelle Feeney

You're very welcome to episode 68 of the Shortlist with myself, Johnny Campbell, CEO and co founder of Social Talent, where we discuss all things talent, recruiting and inclusivity. This is the 68th show, and as you probably are well aware, if you've been listening to the show live, because we do broadcast live, we're broadcasting right now on LinkedIn and on YouTube. And for those of you listening live, we always welcome your comments and questions and we'll make sure to address them to our guests today or on our podcast, which is available through Apple, Spotify and wherever you find your podcasts. If you've been listening to the show once, twice, three times, you'll know that diversity, equity and inclusion is a big topic for us. We talk about it a lot in the shortlist because if it's important, it's really important for every organization to thrive. And workplaces need to be environments where all people can feel comfortable, accommodated, and free from prejudice and discrimination. We all know this, but we know there's still so much to be done on this front, and it's crucial to dig into each specific cohort to understand the very unique challenges that different people can face when seeking opportunity. Because it's not all the same. There's not just the people we hire and then the diverse people. That's not how it works, right? Everybody. Everyone is different. We all come from different places and we have intersectionality of diversity as well, which is a big subject to contend with. But this week we're going to be specifically looking at De and I through the lens of disability. And to help us do this, we're delighted to welcome on the show this week Christabel Feeney. And Christabel is the director of Employers for Change at the Open Doors Initiative here in Ireland. And Christabel is going to be discussing with me how organizations need to become more accessible for people with disabilities, the importance of continuous learning in the organization, and how we can all better support individuals to maximize both their potential and also to create opportunity. Christabel, welcome to the show. It's great to have you. I was wondering if you might start by perhaps just introducing yourself, explain a little bit more about employers for change and perhaps why you're so passionate about this topic.

Sure. Thanks very much, Jonny. It's lovely to be here with you today. Just to begin, I always give a visual descript myself, just in the spirit of inclusivity. So I'm a white female with long blonde hair and blue eyes, and today I'm wearing a royal blue long sleeve dress and I have a poorly painted wall in the background. As Johnny mentioned, I'm the director of Employers for Change at the Open Doors Initiative and Employers for Change is an employer disability information service. So we would provide support and, and advice to employers on the area of disability, really to empower them to both recruit, employ and retain staff with disabilities. And this is a really, really important area. As you mentioned there, DEI is becoming more and more central in the conversations that employers are having. But sometimes disability has kind of been lost, I suppose, in that conversation. And when we look at Ireland, you know, 13.5% of the population are living with a disability as of the 2016 census. And yet, you know, a person with a disability in Ireland is half as likely to be in employment compared to a non disabled peer. So it's a really important topic and it's great to have the opportunity to be working in the area, but also to talk about it with you today as well.

Christmas, thank you so much for that introduction as well. In the spirit of that, I'm a white male sitting in a room with a black T shirt with a little green logo on my T shirt. I've got ginger auburn hair with my earphones in with a couple of movie posters in my background, which is my home office. And that's my background. For those of you listening, particularly on the podcast, or for those of you who aren't able to view us live and you know, when we talk about disabilities as well, Christabel, it's important for me just to remind our audience that disabilities mean many things. It's not just physical or visible disabilities. It's also the invisible disabilities, cognitive disabilities as well, that someone might have. And we're going to discuss that wider spectrum. I want to dig in and start Christabel, though, with a couple of new stories because it's something that thankfully, I guess, is in the news because the awareness is being raised. But we're going to ask now to cue the news for story number one. So Christabel, the first what I want to dig into is an article that was published recently by a lady called Larry Henneborn in Harvard Business Review in hbr, and it's entitled make it Safe for Employees to Disclose Their Disabilities. We'll share a link live on YouTube and LinkedIn for those of you who want to access it. And it's also available in the Show Notes or you can Google hbr Make it Safe for Employees to Disclose Their disabilities. And this article, Christabel, was looking at the kind of wider issues around employment and opportunity for those with disabilities. And it leans on a study for from Accenture that showed that just 20% of the employees in the survey who had a disability agreed that their workplace culture is fully committed to helping them thrive in disease. And that contrasted with a number that the authors got from the employers themselves, who reported something like 67% said they believe their company supports employees with disabilities. So there's a massive disconnect and it goes on to outline five core ways in which organizations can really help employees with disabilities. But let's start with perhaps the challenge and the disconnect between the impression of employers on what they're doing and then the reality for the individuals who have disabilities who are trying to enter that workplace or thrive in that workplace. Talk to me about your impressions of that disconnect. Is it similar to what you see in this article?

Yeah, it is. And actually they were the figures that really jumped out at me was the discrepancy between that 67% and the 20%. Because that's something that we see in quite a number of organizations and companies where the perception, I suppose, of maybe top level management and directors is not equating with the reality on the ground. A lot of organizations have been really proactive in assessing the diversity of their organization, but they may not just have gotten as far as that inclusivity piece on their DEI journey. So we would always say to an organization both from a disability perspective, but even more broadly from a DEI perspective, it's really important for employers to continuously assess and look at the culture of inclusion internally. And that means engaging with your staff, because if you're actively engaging with your staff, then your perception and the reality shouldn't be that far apart. And even like when we're talking there, like this article obviously looks a lot around disclosure. If we're actively having those conversations, people will be far more comfortable in sharing that information and ensuring that they have a disability, because there's that safe space that's been created within the organisation. There's an active element on the employer and the manager's part. But sometimes it's. Look, sometimes for organisations it isn't that they aren't trying, it's just maybe that they just don't fully understand that just because you're a diverse organisation does not necessarily mean that you're inclusive. And sometimes, as you've mentioned earlier, Jonny, about disability, even there's such diversity and disability itself that we might as an organization think that we're inclusive, for example, of people who are wheelchair users, but that does not mean that we're inclusive of disability in its totality. So really understand that not all disabilities are physical, not all disabilities are visible. That actually how we even communicate on a day to day basis has a huge impact on an impersonate a person's feeling of really belonging within the organization. So during COVID 19 that might have been things like, you know, if you're having remote work meetings that it's live captioning things that people hadn't really thought about before or it might be just having some type of etiquette on your call so that people know that they shouldn't be speaking over each other. Or even the times of the day that you're having those meetings can make a huge difference to a person. That's neurodiverse. So really it's about employers needing to broaden, I suppose, broaden their minds and keep an open mind about what disability is in order to build on that inclusivity piece.

Yeah, I think you're right. The element around disclosure is important. The article called out 76% of employees with disabilities in the survey reported not fully disclosing their disabilities in work. And the author herself is someone who had worked at Accenture and had has Ms. And didn't disclose it I think 10 years and so she was part of that and felt and lived it herself. But the article does go on to discuss five different ways that you can perhaps do different things to be more inclusive. And I'll discuss them in just a second. But come back to one of your comments. Christabel before our call I had a great call. I had a call with a good friend of mine in Canada who haven't seen in, gosh, seven or eight years and he, he has hearing difficulties and we, we, you know, I sent him a Zoom link and again, I've begun to learn this this year, but I'd forgotten in that instant. Instance, Zoom is not friendly for somebody who's deaf or has hearing issues. And you know, I should have known. But Google Meet, for example, is a better format because Google Meet auto translates the transcription live for somebody who's hard of hearing or is deaf. And that's a much better tool. It's so simple to switch from a Zoom to a Google Meet. But again, if you're not aware that that is a thing for somebody who has hearing issues, you might not know to switch, you might not know to offer. But these things, perhaps to your point, it's not that employers don't want to help, it's often they're just not aware of those issues. And even the article itself had talked about, you know, being supportive around. Don't change the time of a meeting or the place very quickly because somebody with a disability, property, cognitive disability, might not, might not be aware or be able to change their schedule as fast or might not be as comfortable. And when you talked about the example of wheelchair accessibility, funny we had an issue this, this this month we were filming brand new content for our platform to share more of these stories with our, our audience, the recruiters and managers and interviewers of the world. And we wanted to film some folks in the UK and one of those was a wheelchair user. Could we find a studio in London that was wheelchair accessible? You think London, London's huge. It's cosmopolitan, it's fantastic. A central look then centrally located studio that has a ramp. Turns out nearly all of them were on the first floor and they didn't have a lift, they had no ramp access. It was, was so disappointing to see in 2021 in such a cosmopolitan city. It was so difficult to just find a studio where somebody could, who's a wheelchair user could, could access this facility. So I think it is but stepping into somebody else's shoes. So I want to ask you, you know there's, there's five points here and we can go through them in just a minute. But you points, did any stand out to you as. Yes, that's my experience. That's a really, that's a key thing for organizations to do. From the list that were shared on this article.

Yeah, there were actually. And just to say to that point Johnny, just about the studio in London as well. We really need to move in Ireland, but globally as well to the social model of disability and that will make a huge difference. And the social model of disability is understanding that the disabling factors for a person with a disability isn't being a wheelchair user. So actually when we talk about our buildings, it isn't the person having a wheelchair that's actually the disabling factor. It's how we built that building. So we need to be better as a society in questioning ourselves and how are we disabling other members of society in both the structures and the attitudes that we have. But that's just one quick point, sorry when you mentioned about studio because that is shocking and it's also demoralizing for a person in this day and age that it's so difficult for them to be a part of something that is so easy for non disabled people to be a part of. But in terms of the disclosure and the article. I thought one of the really important pieces in that was the role models. And there was a campaign and a discussion that was titled nothing about or you have to see it to be it. And I think that's really important in any equality issues that we discuss at any point in time. We know that role models are key to really increasing representation, but also empowering a person to feel like they belong and they're part of an organization or a community. So I think ensuring that we have people with disabilities in those senior roles and at the decision making table is really, really important. And that even comes back to that point of nothing about us, without us, like there's, there's no justification for having DEI policies being created without the people who they affect being involved, being involved in that conversation. So that's really important. The other thing that jumped out at me was the, the ergs as well, I think were brought up. I think that was mentioned. But even in terms of the role models and the ergs, it's really important that organizations, while ERGs are really, really effective, that the burden of the whole inclusion piece isn't placed on the erg because people are doing that in a voluntary capacity and we can see that people get burnout. So it's really, really important to have kind of people in positions of authority are from these marginalized backgrounds and who have disabilities. But we also shouldn't be placing an additional kind of overburdensome job on somebody who this isn't actually their full time role. So just really understanding that because that isn't productive for people in their longer run and it's unfair as well. I know that flexibility and work, I think was mentioned. I hope it's in that article. And that's a big one because again, coming back to that reasonable accommodation piece, sometimes employers, when they hear reasonable accommodations, right, they think about the most expensive or the kind of we're going to have to rip down walls. That's often not the case. Like Ahead did research in 2019 that showed that two thirds of the accommodations requested by people in that research had no cost at all. Most of them actually related to, to time and to actually the hours worked. And that's where the flexibility comes in. So for somebody with a disability to be able to have that flexibility, it may not necessarily be anything to do with appointments, which is what generally is discussed when we talk about flexibility and time for people with disabilities. It might be, for example, be a person who has some sight loss, but that's more affected when there's no daylight. So that person, for example, might work in research and it would suit them better to start at 6am and finish at 3pm right in the mid, in certain months of the year. But that doesn't affect the quality of their work. It means that they can bring their best selves to the office. But of course, as a person with a disability, you're going to be more attracted to an environment that's going to be more flexible to your needs. And any of us, when we go to do our jobs, we want to bring our best selves to work. We want to do our best like people with disabilities. Just because they have a disability doesn't mean that they lack ambition. And so it's important too that employers understand being flexible doesn't mean that the job isn't going to get done. People with disabilities are exceptionally driven individuals. So I thought that those two really serious and there's certainly things that are coming up. And the third one that jumped out from that article was the awareness raising. So the education piece, and certainly from our perspective in Employers for Change, that's a massive part of the disclosure piece. But the inclusion generally as well, like really getting in and speaking to employers and getting them to a understand the diversity of disability, understand the language around disability, because that fear factor that employers have can often hinder them from actually being inclusive and progressive because they decide that, you know, okay, I don't want to say or do anything wrong here, so actually I won't do anything at all. And that education piece and awareness piece is huge. So getting an employer to understand that, you know, disclosure is something that you welcome, that a person does not or is not obliged to share that they have a disability. And because of that, it's even more important to invite that information both at application stage, again at interview stage, again at induction stage, and to have some process within employment as well that a person can income because as the lady who wrote that article said, it was 10 years before she actually shared that information with her employer. So it can happen or come around at any stage of employment. So yeah, sorry, that was the long way of me answering your question.

No, there's so many pieces there I want to expand on. You mentioned the attitude of individuals towards somebody who might have a disability. We filmed a fantastic woman who's a trained lawyer who lost the ability to use her legs overnight at 30 years of age. And she, she told a story that we filmed for the platform there a couple of weeks ago of how before this happened to her, people would ask her what do you do in terms of what you work as? And she said as soon as she was in a wheelchair, people said do you work? And she said just that change in question, just said it all in terms of how people perceive somebody. To your point around the capability is 100 there. But society tends to, you know, look at you differently. You know, why wouldn't you ask them in a wheelchair what do you work as? Why would you ask do you work? And, and then when she told people she worked, it's almost like, oh, well done, you know, well done you. Which again further made her angry. It's like, gosh, you wouldn't. You never said that to me before I gained this disability. This is, I'm the same person. My ability has to work has not changed. But I want to go back to two things you mentioned there. Start with the ergs, because I totally agree with you and many of our listeners live, perhaps might, might, might be in this situation where they get involved or asked to get involved in erg. And to your point, it's typically not paid and it requires extra time. And the conflict there is between their, their day to day work and getting involved in the ergs. The organizations love them, they're proud of their ergs, they tell the world they have them. I've begun to work with some organizations who are being a bit more progressive and they're both paying people extra for the work that they do with ergs and or taking time away from their day to day job, recognizing that it's important. And we'd like you to commit five hours a week to it. So we're going to reduce the five hours from your actual day job and keep your salary or we're going to pay you extra as this voluntary thing to get involved with. And it's respecting the hard work that gets done because when an organization is so proud of it and putting it out there on their website and involving ergs in their, in their hiring efforts, when everybody in those ergs is doing it voluntarily, it's really hard on those and it puts extra pressure for them to solve the problem. So I think you are spot on in that observation and we have to do more to do that. But the role models piece is a no brainer as well. I think it's good to call that one out. And just for those who haven't read the article, the author describes how once she saw someone in a senior leadership position disclose their disability, she felt empowered to do the same. And she has talked to others who have disclosed something about themselves in the workplace. And it was largely driven by a senior leader, particularly doing this and kind of, you know, coming out or sharing their issue. And that empowers others to do the same because they feel, well, if they did, I can do it. And this is a workplace that, you know, seems to work fine for them. So maybe it can work well for me. But the benefits, I think back to the stats and maybe you'll keep me honest on this. I think the article pointed out that there were, you know, once somebody who had disclosed this, they were 30% more engaged, which translates to more productivity, better innovation. So it isn't just about the moral side of why would you want to have a workplace where people are holding themselves back, but the business imperative to encourage a culture like that is so important. But I'm going to jump to another article, get you to jump in on this second article, Christabel, because it expands on a lot of the same comments. Now, you might bring this up. This comes from the HR director, again, published only last week, I think, and it's entitled. So it's hrd, the HR director. And it's an article by Ben Thompson, who is the CEO and co founder of a company called Employment Hero. And Ben's article is entitled how many people with disabilities does your firm currently employ? And it's UK focused in the article. But again, it leads with Back to the stats, a scary stat saying that only 4% of companies claim to prioritize diversity, consider disability in their initiatives. So organizations who say we're all for diversity, only 4% of those, according to Ben's research here in the UK, predominantly says that they actually do something for disabilities. First of all, response on that segment of the article, Christabel, is that your feeling of the market at the moment as well?

Yeah. So actually there's. We've probably heard of the valuable 500. It's a really interesting. They. They have some really interesting content in the area of disability and they actually create a video that's very related to that. It's on their website. It's called Being Diverse.

Ish.

And it's a. But it, it's actually, it's. It's a re. I really encourage people to go watch it because it's all. It talks to that point, I suppose, being honest. Right. When we talk about diversity and, and equity and inclusion and equality. Equality issues have always. There has always been a battle to some degree between what group is the most important of the day. Be that in organizations, be that in politics, be it in society. We've seen in Ireland, you know, those kind of conversations about gender equality. Then we had marriage equality. So you can see that a lot of what companies are interested in can be kind driven by what's really happening in society right now and who's to the fore of those conversations. But disability has for some reason always kind of fallen backwards. It tends to have not ever really gotten to the front of those conversations. And I think as well, a part of that for employers is that there is an assumption that disabilities are visible or that they're physical. And certainly in Ireland, look, we, when we think disability, we do, we do think wheelchair user. And I think for some companies, they can say to themselves, for example, oh, well, we're in a building with lots of steps, it's an old building, you know, we don't have anybody with a disability in our organisation and we wouldn't be able to cater for them.

Right.

We're in a Georgian building. And so then that's automatically kind of opts you out of the disability inclusion conversation. And I think that's a part of it as well. So again, it comes back to that understanding, awareness and understanding, actually as much as. As it is awareness. And Adam Harris made a really good point. He's the CEO of As I am made a really good point there recently on a talk he was doing for me and he was saying, you know, I'm aware of Mandarin as a language, but I don't understand it. And I thought that was so valuable because we talk so much about awareness, but really, do we understand, can we understand what disability is? And for organizations, I think the more that they understand, the more it will move up that DEI kind of, that, that, that kind of priority list. And also understanding that there's intersectionality between all of these groups, so you don't necessarily, as an individual just fall into one. You know, you can, you can, you can be a person of color with a disability or, you know, you can intersection between many of these groups. So the, the more we can get those conversations out there, the better it will be. But yes, it has certainly been the case for quite some time that maybe disability just hasn't been a core part of the DEI conversations with organizations.

Yeah, and I think, you know, you mentioned the kind of walking in one's shoes and understanding, you know, the Mandarin analogy, for example, one of the articles had referenced, I thought was really inspiring. An organization in India, I think in the hospitality sector that requires everybod who joins the company, everybody to go through a basic sign language course for their colleagues. Who are hard of hearing or deaf. And, you know, I love that. You know, it's kind of, you know, it'd be the same as we have. We have colleagues who speak Mandarin, so everybody has to be able to at least have basic communication levels with them. That's fantastic. You know, to kind of really, kind of push those boundaries. I have a question here, for you, by the way, coming in from Derek Bambrook. So, first of all, a comment. So Derek, an experienced recruiter and friend of the show, and Derek was saying that, you know, he's. He's in the past dealt with candidates who have had the courage to disclose their disability to him. But then when he's spoken to their. His clients or hiring managers and declared this disability, they say things like, will they fit in our culture? And, you know, his comment is madness. That it's. That that's not relevant. The disability should not define you. How you manage it should be admired. His concern is some companies fly the flag, but a practice don't deliver the great conversation. Do not deliver. But Derek then has a question for you to say. How should an employer approach the issue if they suspect a disability? Or can they. So, you know, if an employer suspects a disability, somebody hasn't declared it themselves. I think what Derek's asking is, what is the approach you should take in that situation?

Yeah, really good question. I think, look, you need to always be led by the individual would be the advice that we would always give. And it's really important not to make an assumption that a person identifies as having a disability as well, because an individual might, for example, have a condition that you see as a disability, but they themselves might not identify themselves as a disabled person. So it's really important not to make those assumptions and to put your thoughts and your feelings and your perception on that individual. What you can do, though, as an employer is consistently offer support. So I would say in that kind of, in any situation, to be honest with, with any employee, particularly if they've just come into the organization, is offer support. So at the interview stage, you can always ask every candidate, are there any particular supports that you would benefit from if you were successful in getting this job? Again, at the induction stage, you will ask, or you should ask, does a person have any reasonable accommodation needs for the induction process? Sometimes companies don't really think about that. They make an assumption. Particularly they can make an assumption that if the induction, for example, is a lot of kind of written material, they might decide, oh, well, look, that should be fine. The person, if there is an issue, they'll have a screen reader, or if the person is an ISL user, for example, they'll say to themselves, oh, well, this is fine, you know, because it's, it's written. But what they may not understand is that ISL is the person's first language. English is not the same as Irish sign language. So you should be offering in that situation an interpreter or you should be at least giving the individual a longer time kind of to process that information. But offering the support as opposed to focusing on the disability is the main piece of advice I would give. So the same thing in an interview. If a person was to share with the interview panel that they have a disability, that does not give you cause for the rest of the interview to focus on that person having a disability. You should be focusing on whether they have the skill set to do the job. And then again, say, would there be any supports or accommodations that you would find helpful if you were successful in the role? That's all you do. And again, it's normalising. Actually the biggest part of all of this is really normalising these conversations and getting to a point where you're not kind of second guessing yourself and you're not kind of having to build yourself up as a manager or as an employer to have the conversation. You know that this is just a normal part of everyday life, because it is, you know, disabilities are a normal part of everyday life. And even if you don't have people today in your organisation with a disability, like 70% of people with disabilities in the last census had actually acquired those during their work and life. So it's very likely as an employer that you will at some point have employees who acquired those, or you yourself might. So just to normalize the conversation.

Yeah, I think in the US this is a big issue because as it relates to veteran hiring as well, which is obviously a massive, massive issue in the us and such a high percentage of veterans who come into the workforce and civilian workforce would have some sort of disability as well. But when you talk about reasonable accommodations, it's funny one because. And I don't use funny in the HAHA sense at all. It's something I've never asked or discussed with a candidate, which kind of appalls me when I think about it. But I've talked to individuals and got to know several individuals recently and through the Open Doors initiative as well, mentoring some individuals who have different disabilities. And unfortunately the feedback is that when in a hiring process they flag that they need an RA even to complete the final part of the process. Oftentimes, although the, the process has gone great, that's the last time they get to speak to them because all of a sudden it goes dark. I've spoken to employers who are much more progressive, who are recognizing the, the, you know, that this is, this should be normalized. And they are the ones that from, from the get go, they will signal that, you know, you should be comfortable requesting an, a reasonable accommodation. Here's the process to do it. When you apply for the job, when you go for the interview, constantly making it to your point normal through the requiring the candidate to bring it up and go, what's your stand on it? And then the recruiter going, oh, I don't know, let me find out for you. That uncomfortableness, even if the person doesn't go forward for genuine grounds, the fact that they have disclosed this or asked for this and then all of a sudden don't go forward, obviously the suspicion is that this is the reason and they've good grounds to, to be suspicious. So I think process wise, what I've seen is the, the great companies are normalizing it all the way through the process by calling it out for everybody, not just someone you might suspect might need an accommodation, but making it a really just normal part of the process and then enabling everyone, the hiring process, to understand what is our process. If somebody requests a reasonable accommodation, accommodation of some description at any point, what do we do? And just to make sure that people don't think it's some crazy unusual thing that needs to be flagged or as a worry or concern. What is your sense of. Certainly the employers in Ireland that you've begun to work with. Christabel, how normalized is it in the average hiring process here in Ireland?

Yeah, like, to be honest with you, the employers that we have worked with so far have been really good and really progressive and a lot of them will kind of hold their hands up and say, look, we're not really sure. You know, we don't really. We're not really sure. This is really our first time kind of delving into this area of dni. But they're really open, which is the most important thing. Really, really open to kind of learn and more. There is definitely a lack of understanding and awareness around reasonable accommodations. And there's definitely a fear there. 100 there's a fear there that, you know, a, we won't be able to accommodate a fear of saying to a person or we'll be able to accommodate your needs and then not being able to do that. But the reality is, like employers are obliged under the Equality Acts 98, 2015, the there is a legal obligation on them to provide reasonable accommodations. And by reasonable like that's weighed against the size of the organization and what would be deemed to be reasonable or reasonable and not beyond a burden on them. So we would also find that like, we would give a lot of information to employers on the supports. So even the supports available to private sector employers from government, there's a reasonable accommodation grant there. It goes up to just over 6,6000 Euro per person within your organisation to provide them with reasonable accommodations. That might be a piece of assistive technology or whatever that might be. But a lot of the time when we have the conversations and we kind of speak through about the individual and what their disability is and how they can have the conversation around accommodations with them, what really comes to light is that a lot of it is around the communication. So the first port call really should be asking that person like, what, what's their what, what way are they most comfortable communicating? And then the second would be asking them, you know, are there, is there anything that you would find helpful? Is there any accommodation? And going through the core functions of the job. So they will sometimes have a scenario where the individual mightn't even know what they, what they need. And one of the things that are really useful and a lot of the employers in Ireland have started to use is called a reasonable accommodation passport. And that's actually on our website. It was this kind of document or template that was put together by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and IBEC a number of years ago. And it's this live document that an employer can use to go through accommodations needed by an individual who joins their organization or who's an existing employee. And it means that it both goes with the person if they change roles in the organization or, or if the manager, let's say, changes. There's a lot of change in certain organizations. If the manager changes that that person doesn't have to keep having the same conversation over and over again. But it also creates a process, right? So we're talking a lot there about kind of managers and employers getting uncomfortable or unsure of themselves having that type of process in place. It can be of great support to the person with a disability, but it can also act as kind of a crutch or a support to the manager as well, because it gives them, it gives them structure around how they're going to assist a person. And it also means that you will come back every couple of months and Review the accommodation because what you put in place today may not be needed in six months time or in fact the person's needs might have changed. So there is definitely huge openness within the employer sphere in Ireland and definitely loads of scope there to learn and continue learning. But that reasonable accommodation passport has been used by an awful lot of companies throughout COVID 19 and they've actually introduced it for all staff. So they've broadened it beyond disability and it's just I suppose created that even broader sense of inclusivity within the organisation because you might have people in your organisation who are a primary carer or they might have somebody in the family who has a disability or for whatever reason that might be. So they might want to make an adjustment or they need an accommodation. And these are. But these are all tools that add to the broader kind of DEI policies within the organization. And I think as well it's important to say, Johnny, like when we're talking there, we talked a lot about kind of ergs and events and the awareness and all of that and these things are all brilliant and it's great to have like specific awareness days throughout the year, but it's so important that those are all feeding into meaningful mainstream policies within the organization. So, you know, we might have organizations who are really, really good at having like, you know, awareness days or holding specific events and having seminars, but have they looked at their recruitment policy? You know, like, are they stating that they're an inclusive employer on their job specs? Are they giving people a contact for reasonable accommodations? So just ensuring that all of these things that we're doing actually translate into the mainstream and meaningful, really meaningful change to their own internal policies as well.

It's an excellent point and I want to speak to you about the kind of post pandemic world. And we have a comment here from Azerudin Syed who's saying on YouTube, with the change of workplace model, why can't we have permanent work from home facilities? And I think that's. There is a sense, and you touched on it there, Christabel, that maybe things are changing post pandemic or driven by the pandemic? We're not quite out of it yet. Would you say that there have been changes and if so, are they more positive towards the community of those with disabilities are more negative towards them?

I think that it's generally positive. We actually have carried out research on the impact of remote working during COVID 19 on people with disabilities and the findings of that will be published at the end of October but some interesting things came up in that, because one, I suppose was the disconnect maybe between the needs of the people or the employees with disabilities and the employer, which we touched on at the start. So kind of a lack of understanding maybe on the employer's part of reasonable accommodation needs, but especially reasonable accommodation needs in a remote work environment or this remote world that we, that we probably didn't really have much experience of before. And understanding that just because a person is now in their home environment, that this doesn't mean that there's no reasonable accommodation need or that you don't have an obligation to provide those, because what you need in your home to live is not the same as what you need in your home to carry out your day to day work. And so that would be the one thing I would say, and just understanding that, that we want people to have the opportunity and the choice to work remotely, but that it shouldn't give an excuse to really exclude them from the mainstream office work. So the people, that's a choice that they have. And it isn't a case of we're saying, oh, we're going to employ a person with a disability and assume that it's better for them to work remotely, that people have that choice, and that also when people are working remotely, that they are actively included in the workplace dynamic. So that we ensure that like our, we're still keeping that sense of team, that we're inclusive in any of the events that we're doing, that we don't revert back to maybe the technologies that we used before because that's what we're really the most comfortable with. And to your point, even about the Zoom, that we're ensuring that the technologies we're using are inclusive so that we are providing those kind of accessibility needs for individuals. And actually, I'll just say about the Zoom, Jonny. I actually think this year Zoom have actually introduced in the back end of their Pro, if you're, if you're a Zoom Pro account holder, you can actually enable transcripts and live captioning as part of that. If you, if it's a paid account, unfortunately they don't provide it for the unpaid one. But just to your point earlier about the captioning, so those are really, really like, it's just important to keep them to the fore of our minds. But it has been positive in the sense that like people with disabilities have actually been asking for remote work opportunities for years more broadly. And I think that there was always a fear amongst employers that if you were working remotely Then you weren't really working at all, or that maybe you were kind of skiving off and you were only working a couple of hours a day. Whereas I think that the last 18 months has really shown that, if anything, people who are working remotely are probably working harder than they ever worked when they were in the office environment. Because you're missing those kind of 11 o' clock coffees and going out to meetings. And now it's all kind of online and it's zoom and it's, you know, there's no. There's no commute. So actually, people are nearly working twice as hard. And I think that employers can really kind of see that. Okay, well, just because a person's working remotely doesn't mean that they're inactive. And I think that will create opportunities really that weren't there before. But they just need to make sure that they're still being inclusive and that they're consistently working on that piece.

You're 100, right? There are still today plenty of people who are working from home and doing nothing. But here's the thing, when they were in the office, they were doing nothing. It wasn't where they were that caused them to do nothing. It's the mindset of the person or engagement. Christabel, it's been an absolute pleasure and we're getting towards the end of the show. You open my eyes to many things, hopefully educated many of our listeners and our viewers on a perspective of different folks who live with disabilities, perhaps who are concealing them in the workplace because they don't feel that they can be accepted. And hopefully we can think about changing our policies, updating the way we do things, implementing some new changes, making actions in our organisations to make it more inclusive. But before you go, I'd love if you could perhaps share with us one more piece of insight. We ask all our guests every week on the shortlist to leave us with one last tip for our shortlist of tips. And it can be something that you have gathered yourself from your own life experience and work experience, or perhaps something that was a tip given to you that you like to pass on to our audience. So, Christabel, what would that tip be?

I suppose the one tip that I would give to everybody that's on the call is it's a really practical one. And this is from a disability inclusion perspective. The first thing I would do after this goal is actually to go onto your website and check its accessibility, because that's the first kind of Portugal. It's the front door, really, to your whole organization and if that's not accessible, then it's not inclusive. So there's a really good free checker. Actually it's, I think if you Google it, if you Google free Web Accessibility checker, it will come up in the first three hits and all you do is input the URL of your website and it will give you just a really short report and if you do that, and then in addition if you also include your statement of diversity and inclusion, that you welcome people from diverse backgrounds and that you'll provide reasonable accommodations on all of your job specs, I can absolutely guarantee that you are going to attract a far more diverse pool of talent into your organization. So they're the two things. They're really quick, they don't take much time, but they're really, really effective.

They're great tips. I'm going to take them myself. I know we started working with an organization in the US called National Industries for the Blind earlier this year and as part of the project we worked on with them, they gave us an accessibility review of our platform and it wasn't accessible enough for visually impaired and blind individuals. And we fixed it and it was small, really important, but very small. And now I'm proud that the platform is completely accessible for those who are visually impaired and blind. But it wasn't and it didn't take much effort to make that change. And I hopefully everyone on the podcast or on the live call today can probably take that advice. Christabel, do a quick check and maybe think about the statements you make on your website, your career site, your job specs to really open up that new talent pool and provide that more equal opportunity to everybody. Christabel, thanks so much for joining. It's been absolute pleasure to have you. We'll have you on again. I wish you every success. If organizations in Ireland want to know more about what you do and want to get involved and want to learn more, where should they go?

Yeah, so if you just go to employersforchange, ie, you'll find all of our details on there. There's our contact number on there as well that you can contact us directly or you can email me at infoployersforchange, ie it's completely free service. We will provide advice information, be it to private, public or semi state employers. We're open to absolutely everyone and we can come into your organization and give training to your employees or we can do one to one calls, whatever fit or works for you best.

Can't get better than that. Christabel, thanks so much Take care and.

Thanks very much, Johnny.

Thank you for listening. Thanks for being here on the show this week for those live, for the questions that came in and we hope you come back next week. Next week I'm gonna be really excited to have a good friend of mine, Ed Nathanson, join us from Boston. And ed is the VP of Talent and Talent Branding at EQRx, a really fantastic kind of high growth pharma and healthcare company who are blowing up the whole way healthcare works to make it much more affordable, particularly in the US And Ed is going to be joining us to talk about the future of employer branding. He's been employer branding expert for many years, one of the most popular keynote speakers at LinkedIn's annual Talent Connect event. He's got full of great stories from Star wars and everything else. But Ed knows branding. He knows how to find and attract talent. And if you're interested in employer branding for your organization and how the most cutting edge organizations in the world are doing it, join us next week. That's Wednesday 6th of October. That's show number 69 and it's our first of October and that's going to be at 4pm UK Ireland time, 11am the east coast United States, 8am on the west coast. And you can find out more about our schedule of upcoming webinars and podcasts@SocialTown.com this shortlist. Until then, please take Christabel's advice. Go check your career your website, run it through some of the free tools that are online to check this out. Check the accessibility and start thinking about that stamp at the bottom of your job specs your career pages. That just makes it clear to folks that you are an equal opportunity employer and particularly that you will offer reasonable accommodations and a process on how to ask for them. If you do that, you can make a massive difference to this community and to your own hiring needs. Until next week. Thanks and take care.