E02: Partnership Excellence

Apr 23, 2021

Kate Nash from Purple Space and David Caldwell from UK Home Office explore the role of disability staff networks in building partnership excellence within an organization. As part of this conversation, they touch on how accessibility leaders can support the development of disability staff networks, the role disability staff networks play in developing a culture of accessibility awareness, and how disability network leaders can be vital support and allies for accessibility leaders. 

HOST:
Please welcome Kate Nash and David Caldwell.  Kate is the Head of Purple Space, the world’s networking and professional development hub for disabled employees, network, and resource group leaders.  

 

David is the Head of Accessibility and Digital Inclusion at U.K. Home Office, a UK government department. His main focuses at the Home Office are accessibility strategy, policy, and assurance.   

 

Today they will be discussing the role of disability staff networks in building partnership excellence within an organisation.  They will touch on how accessible leaders can support the development of disability staff networks, the role disability staff networks play in developing a culture of accessibility awareness, and more! 

 

DAVID:
My name is David. I'm -- I currently work at the Home Office in the UK as the head of accessibility and digital inclusion and I'm really pleased to be part of the strategic leader in accessibility working group, and today we'll be focusing on one of the domains that is inside the book of knowledge and as part of the work that we've been doing. The domain we are looking at is partnership excellence and we are focusing specifically on disability staff networks, and I can think of nobody else in the world better qualified to talk about disability staff networks than Kate Nash.

So, Kate, hello. Welcome. Give us a bit of an introduction.

KATE:
Thank you, David.

A really great pleasure to be able to join you today. I was thoroughly excited to be able to join David in any conversation, but this of course is a subject so dear to my heart. I have the great pleasure of heading up Purple Space. It's a small social business and we set up in 2015 as a result of a book that I wrote some years ago, Secrets and Big News. And now we have a growing membership and what we do is support organizations, employers to set up and or to improve the effectiveness of their employee resource groups or networks and there is such cross over in terms of the wonderful work the access champions and access professionals are doing.

So, delighted to be here David. I think my picture, my photo is short hair. I think COVID has now meant we cannot go to hairdresser, but it is me and it is lovely to be with you. I am looking forward to this conversation.

DAVID:
We wanted to start today's session setting a bit of context about networks in the world that we live in right now and Kate, I know that Purple Space just before Christmas around the International day of Persons with Disabilities launched their impact report that looked at networks in the world of COVID. I wonder what are your thoughts about that and what are you seeing from networks around COVID in particular around accessibility and accessing company systems remotely.

KATE:
Yeah, thank you. So, a few things, a few things. I mean in terms of the context of ERGs and networks, we're seeing massive growth, so organizations, whether they're global business or a local business within a specific jurisdiction, we're increasingly seeing that they're becoming vehicles to accelerate the pace of change when it comes to disability confidence, so as we know, most businesses or businesses of a certain size will have a diversity and inclusion professional specialist, and they often work across really large brief in order to build a more inclusive workplace, and resource groups and networks are really used to augment and supplement and to really hasten the pace of change, so that's happening per se.

In terms of COVID and some of the things that came out of the impact working group. Two things really struck me. One is that disability networks, ERGs, have meant that they are a really good focal point in raising issues and surfacing challenges and spotting trends when it comes to access issues. So, they are a really natural vehicle for surfacing those pre-existing challenges. And what COVID has done, and of course we've proven in an instant how easy it is for many of us to work remotely and from home and this is something that many disabled employees have been calling for for many years. We've now almost proven the point that it's relatively easy to be able to work extensively from home. Of course, that brings challenges so that's the first thing that really struck me is how COVID has accelerated the surfacing of pre-existing challenges when it comes to the access requirements not just for disabled people but anyone who wants to become more proficient in using tech and more productive and more efficient in their work. So that is the first thing.

I think the second thing is they're often -- and it really came through in the impact report, David. I know you were part of the working group, but often networks and resource groups provide a very strong role in noticing the solutions, you know, so lots of chat between and across disabled people some who have the same impairments, some who have different impairments, but they're often a rich source of advice and support as to how you can switch on certain features when it comes to access tech. And what we're seeing through COVID is often they were the go-to agent for organizations who wanted to really start to think about how you automate certain features within tech.

So those are the first two things that struck me.  What about you? What did you see from the impact report?

DAVID:
Yeah, I think it's probably similar to you. I think the way I summarized it when I was talking to some colleagues about the report and we were discussing it was, I think the thing that comes through a lot is that the impossible was made possible in an instant, and I think actually it's shown that the reluctance to do some adjustments and -- was there -- has been there for a long time but in some ways unjustifiably. And I think that sometimes it just takes these big events to happen to shake things up a little bit, and what I like in what you were saying about how networks are like a conduit for those issues bubbling up, and I suppose I wonder -- I wonder what you see in that – in that kind of being that conduit about the role of network leaders in speaking that truth to power and being the voice for those that they represent in the organization. What's your thoughts there in terms of how networks can do that?

KATE:
I think one of the strongest roles that they play is in clustering the common themes that come out in terms of inaccessible tech as well as inaccessible environment as well as inaccessible ways in which we work. The reality is most people with a disability are individuals who acquire that health condition or disability through the course of their working life. We know that some 83 or 84 percent of all disabled people are those who acquire their disability from the age of 16 and 65. What that means is people are often grappling with a change of identity as well as often a change in the way in which they have to work and a change in the way in which they interface with their working environment as well as the people who work around them and it can be incredibly hard to accommodate and feel good and to feel good about yourself within that change of identity. And therefore it becomes very complex and harder and longer for individuals to articulate what their needs are.

One of the things that we saw, for example, in the book that we wrote years ago is it can take on average someone two to three years to even ask for a workplace adjustment because they feel that there are favors. We know on the one hand that these things are not favors. They're enshrined in law, but it's altogether different. So, to come back to your question I think what networks and ERG do so powerfully is that they provide what I call an advocate type role. They start to surface the themes and the constant truths around inaccessible tech or environments, and they start to depersonalize the needs to provide solutions for groups of people who might share the same impairment so whether that's individuals with a vision impairment or people who maybe have a hearing condition, they are theming those things rather than an individual having to ask for a particular workplace adjustment and it's just accelerated that.

DAVID:
Absolutely. There's some interesting comments from Ray around people being taught to be grateful for what you do have and not to ask for too much, and I think I've definitely seen that. I've definitely seen disabled staff go, well, you know, I got this bit of -- I got one of the ten things that I needed, and I kind of felt bad for asking for more. So yeah, I've seen that. I also, just on Tracey’s point, so ERG is Employee Resource Group so we tend to talk about employee networks and employee resource groups. There's a whole plethora of different ways of saying the same thing, isn't there, Kate?

KATE:
Yes, absolutely. Different organizations will use different language to describe often the same thing. As David says, the most common used languages are networks or employee resource groups, but we equally see some organizations use the term business resource groups, sometimes special interest groups, sometimes affinity groups. Particularly when it comes to this subject you often have accessibility networks or user testing groups as well. So, it's really vehicles of individuals who don't have a dedicated role in mainstreaming disability within the workplace but individuals who want to support the business to do differently and better.

DAVID:

I want to pick up a little bit on one of the things you just mentioned there about the informal role of networks in as much as, you know, most network leaders and most networks are volunteer led. There are very few examples where it's a formal part of somebody's job. And what challenges do you see with that in terms of those network leader’s role when it comes to this topic of accessibility, digital accessibility, workplace accessibility in general, what impact does that have, these people have a big remit but they are volunteers?

KATE:
Yeah, and there lies the rub (laughs). And one of the great things that ERG leaders and network                leaders have in abundance we say is passion, energy, commitment, dedication, and a real desire to support their organization to do differently and better. They're very often individuals who have experienced disability themselves in one way or another. Often that's direct experience, but it equally can be somebody who may be a parent of a child with a disability or indeed someone whose parents had a disability. It may be individuals who are line managers, exceptions but you're absolutely right. They also have a day job and the day job comes first.

So, I suppose the great -- the greatest role, the greatest benefits that networks can play is in clustering some of the themes and the common features of inaccessibility for disabled people. But their roles are naturally very broad. They're often involved in supporting an organization to improve workplace adjustment policy. They're often involved in delivering storytelling campaigns, which you know so much about yourself, David. And they also can be involved in user testing groups, but their roles are very, very broad, and I think where some of the networks that are led by some of the accessibility leaders and the unique role that accessibility leaders can play is a real focus on the access issues because they're slightly different.

You know, disability is a complex human experience, and for some it's about leveling the playing field when it comes to kit and gizmos, technical terms. But sometimes it's not about that. Sometimes it's about noticing the self-limiting untruths that we have of ourselves and the things that we need to do to improve our confidence, so, yeah, but to answer your question, ERG leaders are busy bunnies. They have a very broad remit.  Some of that is about access but if that can be augmented by great leadership when it comes to access champions, then that's fantastic. That's when the magic happens.

DAVID:
Yeah.

HOST:
IAAP membership consists of individuals and organizations representing various industries including the private sectors, governments, non-profits, and educational institutions. Membership benefits include products and services that support global systemic change around digital and the build environment. United in Accessibility, join IAAP and become a part of the global accessibility movement.

DAVID:
How do we encourage people to tell us about their disabilities and then how do we encourage them to ask for adjustments to make sure that they are best supported in the workplace, and I've got some thoughts, but I'd love to hear yours first.

KATE:
Yeah, well, I think some of the more common ways in which you can support people I suppose to hasten the process by which they ask for a workplace adjustment is to really give good, consistent, and easily visible information about how you can access the workplace adjustment. Those employers that really start to motor on this are those that tend to have, you know, a one-stop portal of information that's very visible. It can be available as you on-board an organization.

Senior business leaders know where it is and tend to socialize that information with their own teams, with human resources and the DNI departments will routinely get information about where you can get that access adjustment, so that's really, really important. I think the other thing that networks can do to support people to know that a business is really serious in wanting to deliver adjustments is some of the storytelling campaigns. Many organizations whether they're very small public sector organizations in a locale or whether large global multinationals, one of the most powerful instruments of change is to get individuals to share information about their disability, and not just for its sake. It's not a cathartic exercise. It's about saying this is me. This is my impairment. This is what I do for the business. This is how I deliver well for the business. And by the way, I have bipolar and mine is a good news story because as soon as I asked, I was able to get a soft adjustment in terms of how I work. And those little micro stories have the most powerful impact in helping people to notice, wow, the business is really serious about this.

We know from our membership how hard it is often for individuals to share information about their disability with an organization. It can take a very long time, and it can take a wee bit of courage. And when the wonderful John Armichi talks about trust and how organization need to earn that trust. So, yes, of course individuals can do differently and better and learn as they go along about how to be who they are – how can they preserve and protect their brand as a high-performing employee with a disability at the same time as being who they are. But it's often the case that people will need a bit of courage to share that information formally, and as you call out when you've done that, you at least expect I suppose the business to say, okay, so what do you need and how can we help and when do you need it, yeah.

DAVID:
Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that we talked about before we jumped and looked at some questions is about how networks can help to I suppose provide a sense of themes and a general helping to scope those areas. I wonder, one of the things I've been thinking about recently is about what's the role of an accessibility leader to help disability network leaders almost focus a bit to provide some of that time to be a sounding board and to be I suppose a confidante rather than having to do it themselves, almost helping, go well look, this is what we've got, you know, we’ve got this side of the table when it comes to accessibility. What we need some help on is this stuff. So almost helping for us some of the shaping around the role of disability networks in this conversation about accessibility in the workplace.

KATE:
Yeah, agree. I mean a number of thoughts strike me when you offer that up, David. I think the first is -- of course, we talk about access in the round and that can mean different things. It can mean access to tech as well as access to the built environment. As well as access to flexible and agile working policies. Access is a broad term. But that said there's often what I would call an occupational psychology that sits behind some of the exceptionally gifted access leaders and champions. What I mean by that is they tend to be -- dare I say without stereotyping access leaders is they tend to be very systematic in the way that they work. They tend to be those individuals who can do root and branch analysis. They tend to be those that really hone down on what the problem is and therefore surface what the range of solutions are and therefore for the business can understand what the best solution is.

So, the interplay I think between access professionals and leaders and champions as well as the ERGs of work on a broader level is, one, to be able to get the bit between their teeth and really hone down on solutions. They can unblock what I call the consistent themes, the challenges that go round and round and never get resolved. Maybe surface one year and then three years later, guess what the big problem is, it's the same thing that surfaced six years ago or three years ago. And some of the greatest access leaders and champions are those who chose to table thump and say this is not good enough or not in my name or leave that with me and I'll go back. So they set the bar high and as you say, can often counsel and mentor ERG leaders. Does that make sense?

DAVID:
It does. It makes absolute sense, and I think what I've seen and certainly what I've learned from other folks in this working group and in the IAAP and similar groups in places like the business disability forum in the UK, and the ILO, the international labor organization groups is as much as you get accessibility leaders who maybe come in have a focus on say digital accessibility, we end up -- because we're such a passionate bunch of people, we end up getting involved in areas like build environment and might not be part of our official remit to look at workplace adjustments because that's traditionally an HR thing but we're going to get stuck in, and I think it comes down to the fact that we live in this sort of ecosystem of things and it's no good to just make the digital things accessible if our stuff can't get workplace adjustment so they can't get into a building.

So, I think it's increasingly -- like I say, whilst people are coming with this digital angle and this tech angle. I'm increasingly seeing and feeling that access, is not workable, doesn't stack up like that because you end up kind of doing half the job really, which is difficult because you end up with network -- with accessibility leaders who are spinning multiple plates. But I think that's the role of networks comes in and helps accessibility leaders to say I've got all these things, I need you to help me understand what's going on, on the ground to be able to then go, right, that plate, it's about to fall off, but it is not actually going to cause anybody any problems. Let’s deal with this plate that is still spinning and it's going to spin on for a bit longer but the second it drops it's going to break, it's going to smash.

KATE:
Absolutely.

DAVID:
I wonder as well. One of the things that I've been thinking about as well is about that kind of useful tension that can exist between networks and accessibility leaders and thinking about it from the perspective of very often I've seen and I know colleagues see is that networks and individuals in networks will perhaps raise an issue that they think affects a lot of people, but actually when you dig under it, it's a lack of understanding, it's a challenge that individuals because of a specific reason but that's not been surfaced. So, I wonder whether you think there is a useful tension in having them as the separate groups and separate entities and the accessibility not leading the disability network or not being on the steering committee, for example.

KATE:
Yeah, real pros and cons, and I think like you say, David, I think I'm more inclined to notice the benefits of the creative tension that comes with those two groups and those two issues. We -- I mean, as we know, in the disability inclusion, building more inclusive workplaces is about coming at the topic of disability and mental health from different dimensions and different perspectives, and inclusion can mean a number of things, and part of it is about access to kit, access to buildings, access to technology, access to policies, access to know-how, access to people. We know that. But inclusion is also about encouraging in this case non-disabled allies to be part of our world and notice the benefits of recruiting and retaining and developing employees with disabilities.

So, you know, I think there's a lot of benefits in disaggregating the responsibilities between the access leader and the ERG leader, but the reality is both are allies of each other, and so the reality is all organizations will do it differently, all organizations. We see, for example, subnetworks of user testing, mystery shopping, individuals, very patient people who want to be genuinely used to test out kits and to test out technologies, etc., and others don't want to do that at all. They're busy with their day job, and they are like “Thank you very much”. So yeah, we're challenged there but a good challenge I think.

DAVID:
Lets turn, Maybe spend five or ten minutes talking about the culture around accessibility and the role of networks. You talked a little bit about storytelling, and I wonder what your thoughts are about how that can be used and the telling of lived experience stories to kind of bring to life the reasons why organizations need to be accessible not just, you know, in their systems but in their workplace environment and the simple things like their communications and the videos from the CEO and those sorts of things. So be interested to hear your thoughts on that.

KATE:
Yeah, really powerful, really, really powerful. Telling gritty stories about actual individuals within an organization can be one of the most powerful drivers to sustain motivation and direction and ambition and standards when it comes to accessibility. So, there's nothing quite like -- and of course, it takes a little bit of practice. Not everybody wants to share their story, and the majority of individuals are continually perfecting the way in which they describe their story of disability or difference. It is never once and done, it's a story of continued practice.

But where we see real power is where you can hone down somebody sharing a bit about themselves, a bit about blocks they have had, the challenges, the obstacles, the barriers, the inaccessible ways in which the business has interfered in them being productive, the solutions that then came about, particularly the individuals that helped unlock those solutions, our champions, our allies that can unblock that and then as a result of that how either productivity went up or efficiency went up and/or one's level of, you know, motivation goes up because of course we want to work with organizations who want us to do well. So, I think storytelling can be an incredibly powerful vehicle and a technique for accelerating the process of accessibility change within an organization, really, really powerful.

DAVID:
Yeah, and from my experience I hear it quite a lot when we get asked about how do you help people to see beyond compliance and beyond box checking, and it's very often that the thing that changes people, people's perceptions and people's approach to accessibility regardless of what version of accessibility that is, is watching somebody or being involved with somebody with a disability trying to complete a task, for example, trying to, you know, have a look at their pay slip, for example, or watch that really important video that lays out the next thing that their CEO wants to do or simply getting into the building, getting up to their desk, using that new fangled touch screen lift system that nobody thought about how somebody in a wheelchair was going to use or someone who is blind was going to use. I think that is really impactful. That’s another type of storytelling, but it has to be, we have to be careful how we do those things and so that we don't -- so we don't overuse the -- certain individuals and we don't overplay somebody's ability or inability to do some things. So, it doesn’t, we’re not, so people understand that we are not going this people can't do their job, it is actually we're putting barriers in this person's way because I think it is very easy and a fine line between those things.

KATE:
Yeah, absolutely. It's about reframing, I think.

DAVID:
Absolutely. We talked a little bit; you mentioned a couple of times and I know that a lot of people use disability networks as a way of finding people to do testing and to get them to do user testing of their systems or of their buildings. I think the one thing I've kind of realized come to over the last couple of years particularly in this role that I have now actually is that I think they are, there's definitely a use -- there's definitely a way we can leverage disabled staff to do that. But I think we have to do two things.

Firstly, we have to make sure that those individuals who are involved in that are trained and skilled in their assistive technology and in the types of things that they need to be talking to people about, and very often what I've seen is unfortunately where the individual is using a very sophisticated piece of assistive technology, but they don't understand it and therefore they come up with all these problems that aren't really accessibility issues. It's an issue with their setup or with their knowledge of their system. So, I think we need to make sure that the people we get involved in user testing like that are suitably supported in that way.

And I also think we need to find ways to say thank you and rewarding them because it is an extra thing. As much as it's good to involve staff that don't have disabilities in that type of work, it doesn't happen very often because we roll things out, we just give people stuff. So that extra and the extra thank-you, the extra little reward and generally can't pay them in the way you might pay somebody externally, but I think there's ways we should reward people who volunteer and take part in that type of activity, and lastly it shouldn't be the only thing. We should definitely be encouraging organizations to have people doing this as part of their jobs and making sure we do it in a way that doesn't rely on the goodness and the kindness of volunteers.

KATE:
Great tips there, David. I really enjoyed hearing all of those. I mean picking up on your point on thanking people, it can be one of the simplest easiest things to do but it's the most commonly missed. You know, we see for example in our membership -- we do see some fantastic practice. I just saw the other day and if you're listening, Sodexo, well done. We saw an amazing thank you going out from senior business leaders to those who are doing a good job in terms of leading ERG networks, and I think when it comes to user testing and mystery shopping and using your own people to surface where there's constant challenges, a simple thank-you is really powerful. Doesn't do it, not everyone wants to be part of that user testing, but for those that do, they are investing their time in the organization in terms of how we could be doing things differently and better. So, a simple thank-you is very powerful.

DAVID:
Kate, I want to say a big thank you to you for generously giving us some of your time and talking to us about the world of networks and about that useful opportunity that accessibility leaders have to be closer to their disability networks.

HOST:
The IAAP Accessible Document Specialist (ADS) credential is intended for accessibility professionals who create and remediate accessible electronic documents and their related policies. The ADS credential represents an ability to express an intermediate level of experience designing, evaluating, and remediating accessible documents. The ADS credential is beneficial for people in or aspiring to be a User Experience Designer or Tester, Web Content Manager and Administrators, Project, Program, and ICT Managers and more! Check out the IAAP ADS certification webpage to learn more!