What Does "Ready" Really Mean for Disability Inclusion?

For nearly 20 years, I've heard some version of the same sentence from employers:

"We'd like to hire more people with disabilities. We're just not sure we're ready."

It sounds like a reasonable concern.

Hiring people is a business decision. Leaders always.think about safety, productivity, training, management capability, accommodations, culture and a dozen other things before launching a new workforce initiative.

But after helping organizations build disability inclusion initiatives for nearly two decades,

I've come to believe we often misunderstand what "ready" means.

I certainly did when I started.

I Thought Readiness Meant Knowing the Answers

When Walgreens hired me almost 20 years ago to help figure out how we could employ more people with disabilities, I came from the “disability world”.

I thought disability expertise would be the key to success. My plan was:

·      We would teach managers about disability.

·      We'd anticipate accommodations.

·      We'd prepare people for the differences they might encounter.

Some of that mattered. But we found out that it wasn't enough.

We discovered that the bigger questions weren't necessarily about disability:

·      Can managers communicate expectations clearly?

·      Can trainers teach the same job in different ways?

·      Does onboarding make sense to someone who has never worked in our environment?

·      Can supervisors distinguish between an essential performance standard and simply "the way we've always done it"?

·      Do leaders prepare everyone to ensure employees feel safe to say that they don't understand?

·      Can we respond when someone needs something different without immediately assuming the job can't be done?

They were workforce questions.

And they affect far more than employees with disabilities.

Ready Doesn't Mean Perfect

One of the dangers I see today is organizations spending so much time PLANNING for disability inclusion that they never move forward.

·      They research.

·      They create committees.

·      They look for partners.

·      They discuss policies.

·      They schedule another meeting.

Planning matters, but at some point, organizations need to move from PLANNING to PREPARING.

·      Choose where you're going to start.

·      Prepare the managers.

·      Prepare the training.

·      Prepare your partners.

·      Communicate what you're trying to accomplish and why.

·      Define what success will look like.

Then begin. Because you CANNOT anticipate everything from a conference room.

It Turns out Readiness Is Simply the Ability to Learn and Adjust

Some of the most valuable lessons I've learned came AFTER we started hiring people—not before.

·      Something didn't work.

·      We figured out why.

·      We adjusted.

·      Then we watched what happened.

Sometimes the solution was disability-specific. But surprisingly often, it wasn't.

·      Clearer training helped everyone.

·      Better communication helped everyone.

·      Managers who learned to manage individuals rather than assuming everyone needed the same thing became better managers.

·      Processes designed to reduce unnecessary barriers became easier for everyone to navigate.

That's why I no longer think the best measure of readiness is how much an organization knows about how to employ people with disabilities.

I look at whether the organization has the leadership, management capability and systems to LEARN from difference.

So, Are You Ready?

• You don't need every answer.

• You don't need managers who are disability experts.

• You don't need to anticipate every accommodation.

• And you certainly don't need a perfect workplace.

You need:

• Managers willing to manage individuals.

• Leaders willing to learn.

• Systems you're willing to examine.

• Partners who understand what you're trying to accomplish.

• A clear idea of what success looks like.

• And the willingness to start thoughtfully, measure what happens and adjust.

  
  

Want to Know Where You Stand?

If you're wondering what all of this means for your organization, we've created a short Disability Inclusion Readiness & Success Check to help you take a closer look.

It's not designed to tell you whether you "pass" or "fail." Instead, it helps you identify where you're already positioned for success, where you may want to do some preparation, and—just as importantly—what success should look like for YOUR organization.

Twenty years ago, I thought we were learning how to build workplaces where people with disabilities could succeed.

We were. But we were also learning something much bigger:

• When we built systems capable of supporting a broader range of people, we built a better workplace for everyone.

...Maybe that's what being ready really means.