How Equitable Access Bridges the Unemployment Gap for the Hard of Hearing
Equal does not mean equitable.
One of my favorite examples is to imagine three people standing at a fence, trying to look over to watch a game on the other side.
One is very tall and can easily see over the fence. One is slightly shorter and cannot see over the fence. The last is significantly shorter and can't see over the fence at all.
Equality would be giving everyone the same size ladder to stand on so that they can all see over the fence.
The equitable solution would be providing different-sized ladders, customized to the person who needs it. The tall person might not need a ladder. The person in the middle would need a ladder that was only one or two feet high. The shortest person might need a ladder several feet high. To ensure that everyone can see over the fence requires a one-size-fits all approach. This means that everyone is starting out with the same chances as everyone else — no one has an advantage. It also means recognizing that what someone who is hard of hearing needs is not the same as what someone who is Deaf needs.
Equitable access in the Workspace
This is the same way we should think about employment. Creating equitable access in the workplace recognizes that individuals have different needs. It allows everyone in an organization to thrive and contributes more diverse, crucial voices to conversations across industries.
My parents are both entrepreneurs. In the 1980s, my parents founded a company called TCS Associates, which offered two main services: assistive technology services to support those who are visually, impaired, blind or Deafblind, and information technology software and hardware services. The business they started was in response to barriers my parents faced routinely, in their everyday lives.
Both of my parents are Deaf. In the early 80s and much of the 90s, technology and equitable access for the hard of hearing communities was nonexistent — there were few interpreting agencies and few captioning services available for them to use.
Now, we’re having more conversations around equitable access and how we can break barriers for all people.
It was an honor to deliver the keynote and moderate the roundtable discussion at the second of Disability:IN DC Metro’s two webinars this summer. I was joined by many inspiring individuals who shared their views on how we can level the playing field and create a more equitable world for everyone.
Resources for equitable access in the Workplace
John Macko is the director of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) Center on Employment. He works to bridge the gap by helping their Deaf and hard of hearing students find employment and educate employers on why they should hire Deaf and hard of hearing individuals.
John was born deaf but didn’t learn sign language until he went to college at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
NTID first welcomed Deaf/hard of hearing students in 1968 — then, it enrolled 70 students. 53 years later, there are over 1,000 Deaf/hard of hearing students at NTID. John works with both Deaf/hard of hearing students and employers.
He attributes the high number of Deaf/hard of hearing individuals at one university to several key factors:
High awareness level: The university staff is comfortable having Deaf/hard of hearing students in the classroom
Access services: There are more than 145 sign language interpreters at the university, along with accommodations for signing and voice, depending on how different individuals communicate
“When you meet a Deaf person, don't assume they are all the same. Each individual has a different way of communicating. For me, I’m comfortable using my voice and signing at the same time,” he said.
Cole Inniss is a recent grad from NTID’s program and currently works with Accenture. Around entirely Deaf people, he considers himself hard-of-hearing, because he grew up speaking and learned to sign in high school. But around hearing people, he considers himself Deaf because he needs some form of accessibility. He’s encountered misunderstandings about what different hard of hearing and Deaf people need in the workplace, and assumptions from those around him.
“I like to read lips more so than actually just straight captioning,” he says. “But sometimes I feel like they don’t really get I read lips through camera. They just think it’s mostly captioning. That’s a big misunderstanding of the range of ways to accommodate someone best.”
Creating equitable work Environments
Deandra Brown is a senior talent acquisition program manager at Fidelity Investments, where the company has processes in place for current and prospective employees. They provide someone to sign if necessary or other hearing devices or tools that someone needs. She points out that inclusive programs can be a powerful way to elevate people with disabilities.
The Fidelity Enable fellowship program is “an environment that is inclusive and that helps them to come in and to leverage and give them the tools and resources that they need to be successful within Fidelity,” Deandra said.
To support an equitable environment at work, Deandra advises implementing several practices:
Equip managers with the tools and resources that they need to accommodate their employers and what they need to feel comfortable building those working relationships. This also involves making sure that employers aren’t making assumptions about what individuals need and understand that needs and accommodations vary person-to-person.
Keep an open door policy, and ensure that employees know managers are available to have transparent and open conversations about what they need
Develop partnerships with groups like NTID. They can provide training resources and mentorship.
Have an office of accessibility or someone dedicated to ensuring that technological resources and accessibility support are available when employees with disabilities join the company.
According to John, a hurdle for accessibility at work may be people’s reluctance to ask for it in the first place. For three years, 80% of students that John surveyed didn’t ask for accommodation when joining a co-op (a full-time, paid work experience) for the first time.
“Some students wrote they didn’t know they could ask. Some didn’t want to feel different. They didn’t want the attention,” he summarized.
When working to create equitable access within the workplace, one of the most important factors employers can keep in mind is that accessibility is as individual as each employee. Not making assumptions, and giving everyone the comfort and space to ask for what they need to succeed, bolsters environments that are more inclusive and empower everyone.
Employers also need to be open to education, to learning what an inclusive work environment actually looks like, and to discovering what they need to know that they might not even be aware of yet. And that starts with conversation and connecting with resources that can help train, teach and inform.
Interested in learning more about equitable access? Read about how technology is helping bridge the gap between the Deaf and hearing communities, based on the first Disability: IN DC Metro webinars, or reach out to me here.