Exclusive Interview with Charlotte Dales, Co-Founder and CEO, Inclusively

How To Build A Culture Of Acceptability And Inclusivity For Employees With Disabilities

 

Companies that put disability inclusion at the top of their agenda will benefit from hiring this untapped pool of disabled professionals. As with any candidate, it’s important to promote, train, and provide career growth. It is not enough to simply hire people with disabilities, but elevating and promoting disabled employees to leadership roles where they actively participate in change is fundamental to authentic inclusion,” says Charlotte Dales, Co-Founder and CEO, Inclusively.

In an exclusive interaction with HR.com, Charlotte talks about how to build a culture of acceptability and inclusivity for disabled people, the value they bring to a workplace and how to make your hiring process disabled-friendly, among others.

Excerpts from the interview:

Q: Why is disability inclusion gaining importance in the workplace? What are the current challenges and what needs to change?

Charlotte: Inclusion has always been important, but at this moment now, it’s vital to creating a diverse culture. Disabled employees who feel valued and included are more likely to stay with a company and companies actively employing people with disabilities have 89% higher retention rates, a 72% increase in employee productivity and a 29% increase in profitability. 

Disability, both visible and not, is statistically something most people will experience in their working years. Our mission is to drive authentic inclusion that everyone can benefit from.
 

Inclusion is fundamentally about making sure everyone has a voice, and for us and the candidates with disabilities we work with, have for far too long been overlooked and excluded from career opportunities. From the employer’s side, education and training are a large part of overcoming the challenges of inclusion. Often, teams are hesitant on how to approach candidates with disabilities, not wanting to offend. What Inclusively is doing is providing that training component so that teams are effectively trained and new employees can seamlessly transition to existing teams. 

Q: Hiring is just the first step. How should companies ensure their onboarding, as well as on-job experience, are equally inclusive?

Charlotte: Companies that put disability inclusion at the top of their agenda will benefit from hiring this untapped pool of disabled professionals. As with any candidate, it’s important to promote, train, and provide career growth. It is not enough to simply hire people with disabilities, but elevating and promoting disabled employees to leadership roles where they actively participate in change is fundamental to authentic inclusion. 

Q: What sort of value do disabled employees bring to the workplace?

Charlotte: Disabled employees offer incredible value, both culturally and financially, for companies and are integral to creating a diverse workplace environment. Their experiences, reliability, and ability to adapt are huge benefits and give companies a competitive edge. Their unique perspectives and the way people with disabilities have had to navigate a world not built accessibly, has led to greater creativity and problem-solving skills.

Q: What changes should companies make to their hiring strategy in order to encourage people with disabilities to be able to search, apply and also increase their chances to be hired for a job?

Charlotte: Be transparent about what accommodations are able to make in your job postings and really consider if the requirements in your job posting are truly required for someone to be successful in a role. You might be filtering out amazing talent without knowing it i.e. “Does someone really have to be at the office every day to be successful in this position?” “Is travel really required for this role?” “Is an MBA really required for this role?”

Q: Retention of employees with disabilities is another challenge. What has been your experience and learning in this regard?

Charlotte: Everyone always tends to focus on the person with a disability and ignore a very crucial piece to the puzzle, their existing employees.  Ensuring that the company’s existing employees are appropriately trained on the accommodations being offered at the company as well as how to obtain resources to better understand will improve their ability to create an environment for people with disabilities that is positive and prosperous. 

Q: How should leaders pave the way to a culture of acceptability and inclusivity for employees with disabilities within the team and company? How does it help a company? 

Charlotte: The best way for leaders to pave the way to a culture of acceptability and inclusivity is to ensure their teams are appropriately resourced to execute their D&I goals. Unfortunately, many of the existing HR technologies that companies are using have not kept up with D&I goals, so companies need to be committed to investing in products and services that are going to be able to provide transparency into how they are tracking against their D&I goals.
 

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