Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to Disability at Work, the podcast where we explore the ideas, strategies, and workplace practices helping employers attract, hire, and retain disability talent.
Speaker: I'm your host, Ashley Sims. At Disability Solutions, we spend a lot of time talking with employers about the barriers that prevent organizations from accessing qualified talent.
Speaker: Often those barriers are based on assumptions leaders make about disability in the workplace. That's why I'm very excited about today's guest, Jean Bose, President and CEO of Northwest Center, a Seattle-based organization that has spent decades helping people with disabilities access meaningful employment and community opportunities.
Speaker: Jean frequently challenges employers to suspend disbelief when comes when it comes to disability hiring, to set aside what they think they know and be open to what's actually possible.
Speaker: Today, we're exploring how outdated perceptions can limit organizations, why disability inclusion is a business opportunity, and what employers can discover when they start seeing disability talent through a different lens.
Speaker: Jean, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Ashley. Really appreciate it Yeah, of course. Gene, when you challenge employers to suspend disbelief about hiring people with disabilities, what are you really asking them to reconsider?
Speaker: And what are some of the most common misconceptions you encounter? Well, I think during the introduction, you put it really well that what do you think you know versus what might really be true? And I think for me, the is it Excuse me, at the top of it, um my question to employers is how do you think about inclusion and disability inclusion specifically?
Speaker: yeah understand what they think about it as charity or social responsibility. Are you doing this because you think it's the right thing to do? or are you thinking it's a business differentiator? And for me, that's the start because I try to anchor the conversation back to things like absenteeism, attrition, productivity, quality, and safety.
Speaker: So if I can get the imp employer to get their head into this place of where I'm trying to solve business problems, that's the best place to start. And then it's easier to talk with them then about, well, let's not talk about what you think.
Speaker: is true, let's talk about how we might solve those things. So I don't jump in and convince them that they need to think about disability specifically or think about accommodations.
Speaker: It's more about let's talk about the business problems that you're experiencing. So some of that suspend disbelief is about getting the employer to a place where they're thinking about their business. They're not thinking about disability.
Speaker: We're thinking about the challenges that might come with hiring someone with a disability. So if we can start from there, then kind of unwinding, I'll say what we all know or thought to be true, because I am someone that's still able.
Speaker: Let's unwind what we thought was true and let's explore what's actually true. And that requires one to suspend disbelief about what we thought was true and then be curious about those things. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: One thing I think we hear a lot from employers that we're talking to is um they have this belief about hiring people with disabilities and that it's going to be more complicated than it actually is. Why do you think that is?
Speaker: i think the for me, it's more just by human nature, we're like afraid of the unknown or we'll create this really complicated narrative about something we don't know about.
Speaker: until we know about it. So I think for me, that goes back to the suspend disbelief for a minute. So we can get your head in this place where you can be curious. But I do think that's one of the larger obstacles for employers is they have this preconceived notion about what it means to hire somebody with a disability.
Speaker: And the the two biggest obstacles, the first one you just talked about is like, well wow, this must be really expensive and really hard. That's a big obstacle. The other one I find that's really big is you don't really believe they're able.
Speaker: Like you think they're less able from a skillset perspective because of a disability. That also is not true. So if you get over this objection of one, it's not as hard or as expensive maybe as you think it is.
Speaker: But also you're unlocking incredible talent. This is a huge opportunity for you to take advantage of talent that you haven't thought about the right way. This isn't junior varsity talent.
Speaker: This is varsity. This extraordinary A-team talent. And that is the other big obstacle to get get the employer's head in the right space to be able to think about it the right way.
Speaker: So when you're talking to employers, um what is like a tactic or something that you use to get them to move from that assumption to actual like evidence based actual experience?
Speaker: It's a combination of data and storytelling. So it's this one is the approach. So I don't approach it ah from a ah typical D&I lens or charity or social responsibility, any of that.
Speaker: Approach it from a business perspective. like You're challenged with attrition and absenteeism and productivity and quality and safety, right? Okay. Tell me a little bit more about your business, about what those challenges mean specifically to you. So now I'm more, I could be more ingrained with the employer about what's important to them because that is really important. You're trying to solve business problems for them first. So you get them to that place.
Speaker: And then from a data perspective, just very quickly, i can go back to, this isn't a supposition. that if you hire people with disabilities or you're more inclusive, that your whole workforce will be better. Not just not just providing and an opportunity to an individual, you're not just giving yourself access to talent that you never thought about before, but you're really lifting your whole workforce. And we have the data that proves that across Northwest Center and the enterprises that we run, we have 11 enterprises.
Speaker: We have the proof in-house. We also proof with 1,000 employers that we've worked with across the state. From a data perspective, we have solved those business problems. So I talk about this return on inclusion.
Speaker: So I talk about in terms data terms that you get this great return on inclusion that solves your business problems. And then the storytelling piece of it is really handy when you talk. I can talk about...
Speaker: different um scenarios for people with different disabilities that have been given an opportunity. We talk about the accommodation that was required and what went into that, and then the outcomes that those individuals could can drive. So it's really bringing it to life. First, it's about what's important to you as an employer, because want to solve your problems.
Speaker: Then it's about the data that says, I know I can do it. it's not ah It's not a, i don't, it's just suppose I can do it. I can show you data. that proves that we can do it. And then now I can help you show, I can show you how we do it.
Speaker: And I can start to eliminate that unknown part that we talked about earlier, that they' they've created their own narrative. Now let's create a more accurate narrative accurate narrative of of what it's going to take to do this. And I do think the important part for me also is that Northwest Center is on a journey with you.
Speaker: I don't want you to go figure this out on your own. I want you to engage with our teams and the people that really have expertise in this to help you through it so that you have a great experience. Absolutely. love the return on inclusion.
Speaker: um It's kind of that play on the ah ROI acronym. um I'm going to steal it from you. I love it. um Okay, so do you have a story or, you know, something that stands out in your mind that you wouldn't mind sharing with us where you've seen employers mindset completely shift?
Speaker: I do. And it's it's ah an Amazon story. So give a little bit of context. And I can really hit two different things in this. One is, was return on inclusion and solving business problems. But then also, how do you think about accommodation?
Speaker: to suspend this belief and be curious and think about how you might do something and reap incredible benefit from being able to do that. So Amazon and Northwell Center have had a partnership for 20 plus years where we are a vendor partner of Amazon.
Speaker: um They so are incredibly supportive of our mission. But we are a vendor partner, which means we provide services to them. We have almost 400 employees across Northwest Center that provide a variety of services to Amazon.
Speaker: And some of the benefit we get from that, quite quite honestly, is that they're they're very business driven and metric driven. And we're expected to deliver at high quality. So this is again, this is we're trying to deliver a commercial service across most of our enterprises.
Speaker: And there's perception often that the quality bar is lower if you're working with people with disabilities or you're working with a social enterprise. So this partnership with Amazon is really about quality and and delivery. Think of it from that commercial environment. And that's who we compete with. We don't compete with other nonprofits. We keep compete with other vendor partners. So we have this really strong relationship with Amazon.
Speaker: But again, built over 20 plus years. shortly after I started in the CEO role, Amazon came to us and and and understanding our our mission and how we believe in disability employment.
Speaker: They said, we we are struggling in our sortation facilities. We would like you to help us solve our business problems there, which are absenteeism, attrition attrition, productivity, quality, and safety.
Speaker: So again, these are all business problems that there that they're experiencing. So they gave us this opportunity to help them by placing people with disabilities in their sortation facilities. The general managers of those for sortation facilities were not fans on day one.
Speaker: And to kind of kind of paraphrase it, but this is how, how went is Amazon went to those GMs and said, you know, you're, you're struggling and you're failing. So we're going to help you.
Speaker: We're going to make you hire people with disabilities. And so those GMs are actually, well, you're kidding. Right. So I'm failing, it but now i have to hire people with disabilities. Really?
Speaker: they weren't They weren't fans and they weren't supportive to start, but they, to a person, were able to suspend disbelief and explore how this went. And within the first 90 days of placing people, our clients and people with disabilities into the assortation facilities, those GMs were won over because we...
Speaker: we were successful in all of those business metrics that we were trying to help them solve. And they were getting a great experience and really understanding more of the power of inclusion. And it wasn't just the individuals that we placed that performed really well, their whole workforce rose. So that's, you know, that's this concept of all boats rise was experienced by Amazon. So when you go into a sortation facility, honestly, when I did the first tour, I wasn't sure what to expect.
Speaker: When we walked in, I wasn't sure if I could see all the Northwest Center people in one place and the Amazonians in other places. And when you go in, you see this integrated workforce. So they the workforce also truly embraced this.
Speaker: And it was so successful here in Seattle that we replicated it in nine other states. So this was very big about solving business problems. And again, it took it took those business managers and leaders to a minute to suspend disbelief and then think about what's possible, think about the world differently. Every client we placed had the ability to do the job in the sortation facility. It wasn't carve out work. It wasn't like, well, just give us all the work no one else wants to do. This was truly what what do you need from a skill set perspective? We will provide it.
Speaker: Then after we've done a good job with that, we can think about what accommodation might be required for those clients that we're placing as Amazon employees in the facilities.
Speaker: So that was that's the just generally an example. And that's I use Amazon because everyone knows Amazon. You may not love Amazon, but I think they have this credibility from a business perspective that that's really a useful example to get employers' attention.
Speaker: Right, yeah. Let me pause there before I talk about accommodations and and see what follow on questions you have. Oh, yeah. I was going to actually say that when we initially you shared, i think it was related to the Amazon um story that they hired a or you helped them hire a deaf individual and they were really concerned about that, the safety in the warehouse. Can you share a little bit more about that side of it and what how they fixed that um that concern?
Speaker: was just great, Ashley, because you picked the example I wanted to use. so you already know this. One of the clients that we wanted to place in the sortation facility was deaf. And Amazon had concerns from a safety perspective because they have forklifts, they have machinery that's moving. There's so many different safety risks that they were concerned about. was well, someone that's deaf can't be successful there. It's not safe because...
Speaker: They're going to get run over by a forklift. you know Pick your risk of that you're concerned with. So they're really concerned with this. and And we don't think that's a good idea. Now, to their credit, they didn't say no right away, but they expressed significant concern. And that's when we said, well, let's suspend disbelief for minute. Let's be curious about how we might make it work. And I think this is A great example of what I ask imp employers to do is like, once you suspend a disbelief, let's not talk about whether it's possible. Let's talk about how it will be possible. And so they worked with us and with our job coaches to figure out, can we create an accommodation that will
Speaker: address all the concerns we have. And at the end of the day, they they came up with the accommodation. That was a circular mirror. So they placed circular mirrors throughout the, the sortation facility, because now this individual can, can be safe. They don't have to worry about having to hear. They can see what's going on around them.
Speaker: um A couple things to hit on this. The first on the accommodation, yes, it was took thought. It was not expensive. Again, it was like dispel that narrative of, wow, it's going really hard and really expensive.
Speaker: Not the case when we came up with the solution. But the other piece of this is that accommodation served that individual that we placed, but you don't have to be deaf to look into a mirror.
Speaker: The whole workforce got safer because the whole workforce was able to use that accommodation as well. They got access to great talent. because they were able to suspend disbelief and be curious and come up with the accommodation. And that individual was so successful that within six months, she went from individual contributor to supervisor, and she's still with them today as a manager. So she's managing in that environment. So that's, for me, is just a great example of that's talent you never would have have access to.
Speaker: And this was not an average performer or bottom performer. This was a high performer. that's now helping run sortation facility. So just again, just that return on inclusion is profound. It's profound for that individual.
Speaker: They got an opportunity because Amazon was willing to take a chance on them and Amazon is getting their return on inclusion in incredible fashion as well. Love it. And you shared in our initial conversation that safety increased for everyone working in that facility. And I love that. That's a great example of the curb cut effect, where in hiring someone with disabilities and in making sure that their accommodations are in place, you're also benefiting the rest of your workforce. So, so powerful. Love it.
Speaker: um As we wrap up, if there's one thing you'd like employers listening today to remember about suspending disbelief, what would it be?
Speaker: other There's so many different obstacles that an employer might have in mind when it comes to inclusion or disability inclusion. it could be capability or productivity.
Speaker: So risk, safety, performance management in terms of how do I work with an individual with a disability? I don't know. So I think for me, just wrapping it up into one thing is that um suspend your fear of the end.
Speaker: It's that. And just be curious. it's it's not I'm not asking you to make a commitment to hire somebody with a disability. I'm asking you, again, just to change your mindset bit. Be open to a conversation. That's really it. If if you can be open to a conversation, i think that you can be convinced that being inclusive and hiring people with disabilities is good for business.
Speaker: So just take that first step. Be willing to have a conversation. that That would be my ask. Love it. Today's conversation is such a great reminder that one of the biggest barriers to disability inclusion isn't really accessibility, policy, or even budget, but it's assumption.
Speaker: By challenging what we think we know about disability and talent, we create opportunities for organizations, employers, and entire workplaces to succeed. Jean, thank you so much for joining us today on Disability at Work.
Speaker: Thanks so Ashley. Accessibility doesn't have to be overwhelming. Sometimes the smallest changes can make the biggest difference. That's why I'm excited to introduce a new segment called Accessibility Minute, featuring our own Erin Linson. Erin will share practical tips, common accessibility mistakes to avoid, and easy ways to make your website and digital content more inclusive and usable for everyone.
Speaker: Hi, my name is Aaron Linson and welcome to your Accessibility Minute. I'm a CPACC Certified Digital Accessibility Professional and I help teams build websites, apps, and documents that work for everybody.
Speaker: Today, let's talk about an important topic, which is al text. The worst alt text that I've ever found in an audit was a single quotation mark and that was it.
Speaker: Someone one meant to mark that image as decorative and left a straight quote behind and nobody caught it until I found it in the audit of that page.
Speaker: A screen reader user got punctuation where a photo should have just been hidden for them. And it's not rare. This year, WebAIM checked the top 1 million homepages, just the homepages.
Speaker: and more than half had images missing alt text. About one in four images tells a screen reader user nothing at all. The good news, though, is the fix starts for just one simple question.
Speaker: what is this image doing on the page, not what does it look like or what is it for. Try this out next time that your writing you're writing your alt text. And this is my favorite test.
Speaker: Read the paragraph out loud to yourself. And when you reach your image, read the alt text in its place. Does it still make sense? Great. You actually nailed it.
Speaker: Does it sound repetitive? Consider marking that image as decorative. Does it sound like something is missing? Just add a bit more. The maximum for alt text is 150 characters.
Speaker: The minimum is 50. So you've got a lot of room to play. And employers, this one's for you. Alt text isn't just your developer's job.
Speaker: your designers, your writers, or even your marketing team posting on social media. Everybody plays a part in your organization. So here's your challenge for this week.
Speaker: Pick one page, just one, and give every image a real sentence. Learn more at disabilitytalent.org slash blog.
Speaker: Thanks for spending a minute with me today, and I'll see you next time.
