Diversity and Inclusion

Why Businesses Need to Talk About Disability and Accessibility

By gothamCulture
Published at In Category Blog Tags: ,
Disability and Accessibility

An estimated 54 million Americans have at least one disability, making disabled individuals the largest minority group in the country (Disability Funders Network, n.d.). So when we talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), why is disability so often left out of the conversation?

In 2020, only 27.5% of the largest U.S. companies had public-facing action related to including people with disabilities (Donovan, 2020). DEI initiatives and topics often leave out disabled individuals (Casey, 2021). It can be difficult to discuss a topic that has so many complexities and nuances, even down to its definition. There is no one universal definition of disability, complicating whether or not an individual will view themselves as disabled (Grue, 2016). Even if someone does identify as disabled or as having a disability, there are further nuances within the disability community.

For instance, some disabled people prefer identity-first language (Andrews, 2019), while others prefer person-first language (Crocker & Smith 2019), and general advice is to ask the individual one is referring to for their preference (Dunn & Andrews 2015). Disabilities can be acquired at any point in one’s life, meaning some individuals are born with a disability and others acquire a disability (World Health Organization, 2021). Some disabilities are visible and some are concealable (Grue, 2016). It can be hard to speak about the needs and struggles of such a diverse group of people.

However, talking about disability is vital in today’s workplace. COVID is estimated to have resulted in 1.2 million more disabled people in the United States in 2021 due to complications of the virus and conditions like long COVID (Roberts et al., 2022). The number of people with disabilities is rising in general, due to factors including increases in chronic health conditions and overall population aging (World Health Organization, 2021). Finally, researchers are increasingly viewing disability as a social-political group and examining social and cultural models of disability instead of simply medical models (Grue, 2016).

It can be intimidating to initiate conversations in your organization about complex identities. However, these conversations will eventually happen – it is simply a matter of when. Businesses should be proactive in starting these talks. There are plenty of disability organizations and activists that provide resources, workshops, and training on inclusivity. Documents like the Research & Training Center on Independent Living’s Guidelines: How to Write About People with Disabilities can serve as a reference in how to talk and write about people with disabilities (The University of Kansas, 2020). It is also recommended to include people with disabilities in designing and implementing any program or event that discusses disability. While some disabled individuals may offer input and volunteer to assist, people with disabilities should not be expected to design an event without any form of compensation. Further, while it is important to be open about the importance of accessibility, businesses should avoid “disability simulations” that are intended to empathize with the difficulties that disabled people experience (Pulrang, 2021). Simulations such as blindfolding a person to describe the challenges of blind people or requiring individuals to use wheelchairs for a day can treat disability as a costume.

The advice for these conversations is often simple: be teachable. Non-disabled individuals who are newly learning about disability-related topics are likely to make mistakes or use the wrong wording. Allow disabled individuals to challenge and correct information, assumptions, or language. Welcome constructive criticism without becoming defensive. Amplify disabled voices and perspectives.

In an age where so many companies avoid the topic of disability together, stand out by telling your employees and consumers with disabilities that they’re welcome in your organization.

~ Nikita Williams is an I/O Psychology graduate student and gothamCulture intern

References:

Andrews, E. E., Forber-Pratt, A. J., Mona, L. R., Lund, E. M., Pilarski, C. R., & Balter, R.(2019). # SaytheWord: A disability culture commentary on the erasure of “disability”.Rehabilitation Psychology, 64(2), 111.

Casey, C. (2021, September 13). Do your D&I efforts include people with disabilities? Harvard Business Review. Retrieved April 15, 2022, from https://hbr.org/2020/03/do-your-di-efforts-include-people-with-disabilities

Crocker, A. F., & Smith, S. N. (2019). Person-first language: are we practicing what we preach?. Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare, 12, 125.

Disability Funders Network. (n.d.). Disability stats and facts. Disability Funders Network. Retrieved April 15, 2022, from https://www.disabilityfunders.org/disability-stats-and-facts

Donovan, R. (2020). 2020 Annual Report: The Global Economics of Disability. Return on Disability. Retrieved April 15, 2022.

Dunn, D. S., & Andrews, E. E. (2015). Person-first and identity-first language: Developing psychologists’ cultural competence using disability language. American Psychologist,70(3), 255.

Grue, J. (2016). The social meaning of disability: A reflection on categorization, stigma, and identity. Sociology of Health & Illness, 38(6), 957-964.

Pulrang, A. (2021, August 27). 3 mistakes to avoid when including disability in your DEI programs. Forbes. Retrieved April 15, 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewpulrang/2021/08/27/3-mistakes-to-avoid-when-including-disability-in-your-dei-programs/?sh=118807c629aa

Roberts, L., Ives-Rublee, M., & Khattar, R. (2022, February 9). Covid-19 likely resulted in 1.2 million more disabled people by the end of 2021-workplaces and policy will need to adapt. Center for American Progress. Retrieved April 15, 2022, from https://www.americanprogress.org/article/covid-19-likely-resulted-in-1-2-million-more-disabled-people-by-the-end-of-2021-workplaces-and-policy-will-need-to-adapt/

The University of Kansas. (2020). Guidelines. Research & Training Center on Independent Living. Retrieved April 15, 2022, from https://rtcil.org/guidelines

World Health Organization. (2021, November 24). Disability and health. World Health Organization. Retrieved April 15, 2022, from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/disability-and-health

Expand Your DEIB Strategy With Supplier Diversity

By gothamCulture
Published at In Category Blog Tags: ,
Supplier Diversity

At gothamCulture, we conduct bi-weekly internal meetings dedicated to discussions about Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) and how to continuously embed them in our operations, services and work. One of our ongoing initiatives is to ensure the diversity of our network of partners and suppliers and the fair opportunities for them to be included across our projects and workstreams. In other words, we are actively working on achieving and maintaining supplier diversity; a key item of any DEIB strategy.

So what is supplier diversity?

Supplier diversity is a proactive effort to ensure that all potential suppliers have fair and equal opportunities to conduct business within an organization’s supply chain. Organizations that exert this effort create opportunities for inclusion of minority, underserved and underrepresented group-owned businesses such as ethnic minorities, immigrants, women, LGBTQ+ people, armed forces veterans, and people with a disability.

Why is it important to achieve supplier diversity?

Like every genuinely developed and implemented DEIB initiative, supplier diversity is critical for your people, your customers, your business and the bottom line, and the wider community.

People: Across the nation, people have vocalized their expectations around prioritizing DEIB in their organizations. In our own State of Culture 2021 study, we found that organizations performed better from a culture perspective when they openly and honestly discussed diversity and social justice issues. Moreover, the new generation of candidates value working for organizations that are actively investing in DEIB. Therefore, supplier diversity can impact employee satisfaction and in turn retention as well as widen your talent pool for recruitment. Read More…

Imposter At Arms

By gothamCulture
Published at In Category Blog Tags: ,

Every veteran eventually faces the same thing: the day they leave military service and venture into the civilian world to start the next chapter of their life. This is an exciting and uncertain period in a veteran’s life, where they’re thrown into the wild “real” world with only the skills they’ve honed as a servicemember. This transition period forces veterans to translate their existing skills into a value-add in civilian life and to figure out how they’ll engage the business community.

The process a veteran goes through in order to understand where their skills are valued and required in the private sector can take months or even years. It’s a process of self-discovery, devoid of the formal, regimented guidance veterans are used to having. Transitioning from active duty requires setting new civilian expectations for themselves, identifying how they want to use their skillset and ultimately picking a new career.

When transitioning into the civilian workforce, however, veterans often place unrealistic expectations on themselves and misinterpret the way society views them and their abilities. This misalignment of self-expectations and societal perceptions commonly results in a phenomenon known as imposter syndrome.

Seventy percent of people will experience imposter syndrome at some point in their life. Experts describe imposter syndrome as “an internal experience of intellectual phoniness in individuals who are highly successful but unable to internalize their success.” The syndrome often manifests itself through overworking, discounting successes, low self-assessments and anxiety about fear of failure. To understand how veterans develop and experience imposter syndrome, it’s helpful to take a look at their previous military environment. Read More…

The Network Gap and its Impact on the War for Talent

By gothamCulture
Published at In Category Blog Tags: ,
Network

As much as you may believe in your heart that two, equally qualified people should have equal opportunity to thrive professionally, the fact is, this isn’t the reality in many cases. There is a wealth of research that supports the notion that the strength of a person’s network has a significant impact on their ability to successfully manage their careers and to gain access to opportunities that others may have access to.

LinkedIn, the premier professional networking platform has utilized their massive wealth of user data to understand how a person’s network not only supports their long-term success but what factors contribute to (or stifle) a person’s ability to develop healthy networks throughout their lives.

Meg Garlinghouse shared these insights in her article on the LinkedIn Official Blog

  1. Where you grow up. LinkedIn users who grow up in areas with a median income above $100k are 3x more like to have a stronger* network than other users.
  2. Where you go to school. Users who attend top schools are 2x more likely to have stronger networks.
  3. Where you work. Users who have work experience at a top company are nearly 2x more likely to have stronger networks.

This ‘network gap’ presents a reality that can hinder career opportunity for some simply based on factors that are partially, or completely, out of their control. Read More…

3 Powerful Ways to Improve Diversity of Thought on Your Team

By gothamCulture
Published at In Category Blog Tags:
Diversity Of Thought

When I moved to the U.S., I started working at the community college library in Santa Fe, NM.

Some students only came to the library to see me, because a new foreign person was working there. I felt so special that they wanted to talk to me and ask for my opinion. As some students told me, it was interesting for them to get a fresh, diverse perspective and to learn more about me.

Coming from Moscow, which has a population of more than 12 million people, I was not used to a lot of attention for being “different.” But in Santa Fe, my diversity of thought set me apart.

Diversity of thought, also known as cognitive diversity, refers to the notion that each of us is unique; that we are raised and brought up differently, and we have different personal and professional experiences which influence how we think and interpret information. And this acknowledgment has become a core part of many companies’ efforts to drive innovation in their organizations and industries.

Diversity of thought has been found to be helpful to:

  • Avoid groupthink
  • Overcome subjective overconfidence
  • Listen to underrepresented opinions
  • Be aware of unconscious biases and look beyond stereotypes

While cognitive diversity is “defined as differences in perspectives or information processing styles” and is less visible than racial or cultural diversity, it shouldn’t be ignored. Recent research by Alison Reynolds and David Lewis found a significant correlation between cognitive diversity and high performance. They have run the execution exercise more than 100 times over the last 12 years with groups comprised of senior executives, MBA students, general managers, scientists, teachers and teenagers. In their research, teams with greater cognitive diversity performed faster, irrespective to their gender, ethnicity and age.

How to Increase Diversity of Thought

There are a number of different ways that leaders can increase diversity of thought in their organizations. Some of these include:

Hiring outside of the box

Once not known as a place that promoted a diverse talent, Silicon Valley is now thinking ahead by embracing neurodiversity. Many people with autism and/or dyslexia have higher than average abilities and can “bestow special skills in pattern recognition, memory, or mathematics.” Everyone to some extent is differently abled, we are all born and raised differently. Our ways of thinking result from both our inherent “machinery” and the experiences that have “programmed” us. Companies like SAP, Hewlett Packard, IBM, UBS and others are starting to adjust their policies to meet a broader pool of neurodiverse talent. Hiring diverse talent creates a major shift, and leaders are trying to adopt a new style of management or provide accommodations to cater to their needs.

Managing differently by facilitating open dialogues, creating a safe environment and assessing your employees:

  • Values and styles
  • Ways of thinking (divergent and convergent thinking)
  • Ways to approach a problem

Brainstorming: To diversify our thinking, consider using the six hat exercise which has been an effective way to approach a problem.

White Hat Thinking: Focus on the data available.

  • What data is available?
  • What information do you already have? What is missing?

Red Hat Thinking: Look at problems using reaction, and emotion.

  • How do other people react to this area?

Black Hat Thinking: Look at all the bad points of the decision. Look at it cautiously and defensively.

  • What could go wrong with approach in this area?
  • What are the biggest challenges?

Yellow Hat Thinking: This is the optimistic viewpoint that helps you to see all the benefits of the decision and the value in it.

  • What gets people excited?
  • What are my team’s strengths?
  • What would success look like?

Green Hat Thinking: This is where you can develop creative solutions to a problem. It is a freewheeling way of thinking, in which there is little criticism of ideas.

  • What are the possibilities?
  • How would an outsider approach this area?

Blue Hat Thinking: ‘Blue Hat Thinking’ represents process control. Mostly used when there is at least one other leader involved in the decision making process to determine when you need to “put on another hat.”

  • What is the next step?
  • What is our decision?

In The Medici Effect, Frans Johansson suggests breaking barriers to create innovation by learning a new field, breaking out of your network and reversing your assumptions. But, as illustrated in my personal example, even small changes can make a big difference. By adding socially diverse people to a group, people learn from different perspectives and experiences.

To increase a diversity of thought in organizations, leaders need to keep asking questions and challenge what’s in front of them, whether it is their talent, management style, or approach to a problem. That way they could see an opportunity where others won’t to stay ahead of the competition and to keep an inclusive workplace.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: It’s More Than a Training

By gothamCulture
Published at In Category Blog Tags: , ,
diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace

The numbers are out.

It’s been over fifty years since Title VII, the section of The Civil Rights Act that prohibits workplace discrimination. But how far have we really come?

Fortune’s data team recently released their findings on the diversity and inclusion practices of the companies on this year’s Fortune 500 list. The big reveal?

Only 3% of this year’s companies are transparent about the demographics of their workforce. And of those sixteen transparent companies, 72% of senior executives are white males.

Now, more than ever, companies and organizations are feeling pressure to not only be more representative but also more inclusive of people from traditionally marginalized groups. Reports on gender and racial diversity in tech have forced the industry to make public commitments to increase diversity in their workplaces and inspired other companies to do the same.

Millennials are demanding more inclusive work cultures. Our sociopolitical environment has made conversations about the inclusion of marginalized people in every area of life absolutely critical. And according to Deloitte’s 2017 Human Capital Report, 78% of respondents now believe diversity and inclusion is a competitive advantage.

But if major companies can’t even talk publicly about diversity, what do conversations inside of these organizations look like?

Read More…