Harris Rosensweig, Meg O'Connell, Kevin Updegrove, and Frances Ruiz are back to answer attendees' questions and answers from their sessions.
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Q&A Session
Transcript for Q&A Session
Lori Litz
That's part of it. And don't worry everyone else. The other sections have been recorded. I just have to hit record at this point to get this started. So for those of you that I haven't had a chance to meet yet. My name is Lori Litz. I'm the Director of Conferences here at Accessibility.com and responsible for putting the AccessibilityPlus events on.
We had a great day today. Lots of content, lots of great feedback in the chat and the questions. I've got them all written down here. I got tons of notes. So as you can see on screen, we have Meg O'Connell from Global Disability Inclusion. Frances Ruiz from Michael's. Harris Rosensweig from iYellow Access. And they believe Jeff should be here and Kevin should be here.
There we go. There's Kevin. Hi, Kevin.
Kevin Updegrove
Hello.
Lori Litz
How are you today?
Kevin Updegrove
I'm doing great, Lori. How are you?
Lori Litz
I'm doing well. Thank you. Thank you.
Kevin Updegrove
(background noise)
Lori Litz
We've got a little feedback there. Okay. So we'll go ahead and get it get started. Lots of great questions. Unfortunately, Tom Foley and Jim McCann could not be here for questions today. And a really great question came in during Tom Foley's presentation. And I don't know, maybe Frances and Kevin, maybe one of you could help answer this. But we had a question that said, for recruiters, are there any specific job boards or organizations to best host job opportunities?
Lori Litz
So since you worked with different community organizations when you launched your pilot program and Harris and Meg, if you have anything to add, feel free to jump in on that as well.
Meg O'Connell
Frances, Kevin, do you guys want to go first? Any particular job boards that Michael's uses in general?
Kevin Updegrove
So we don't we don't have any specific job boards that we use as a company. Frances, do you know, in the agencies that we utilized, do they service any of that maybe that the jobs could of intersected? I'm I'm not familiar with any.
Frances Ruiz
That's a great question. Kevin. And I can take that back and bring that back to you, Lori. We did partner where we focused on partnering with national partners and community partners. So folks like Achieve, Marriott Bridges Program... so not necessarily job boards that we were super focused on. But again, there may be some external tools and resources that we would love to bring back to you guys.
And spread that information. So I can definitely get that to you and then send a follow up along with the recording, if possible.
Lori Litz
Okay. Perfect. Thank you.
Meg O'Connell
Yeah. The only thing that I would add if folks are looking for job boards and general national ones. There are a couple of big ones. There's GettingHired.com. That is, you know, it's like, you know, it's a job board specifically for people with disabilities where companies can post their jobs and then people, of course, can apply for jobs.
And there's another one. It's a little newer, but it's making some very good strides is Inclusively.com. And then the third place that I tell folks to go to now, everybody's on LinkedIn. LinkedIn now has a back office feature where people with disabilities can identify as a person with a disability. And so it won't come up in your public profile.
But recruiters who are looking for talent with disabilities can find talent that way, too. So lots of kind of mainstream things are happening for disability inclusion. But the one organization that Frances mentioned is the Marriott Bridges Program. So we've worked with them in several of the locations. And they, they they are national.
Lori Litz
Fantastic. Thank you so much. Harris, I'm gonna switch over to you. And this is an interesting question that came in because you guys were specific about not just going down a checklist when you're doing your AT assessment, but I think they kind of tongue-in-cheek ask, is there a checklist that you would use to avoid doing a checklist?
Right. So are there certain things that would go down your list and take a look at like we need to first analyze this, than analyze that and so on.
Harris Rosensweig
Yeah. So yeah, and we have our own checklist of things - they go into more detail. But in essence, you want to make sure that you have a clear process for how someone requests an accommodation. When that accommodation is received, you want to make sure that you have a professional in place who understands disability not only from the medical aspect but from a functional aspect and all the different assistive technology solutions.
So you want to go through a formal process of evaluating what solutions are going to be best for that person in the context of their particular job tasks. So it is, it is a process of going through that, that professional understands what that process is. Coming to those conclusions, doing some testing with the person's actual job tasks with that technology, which then leads on to procurement and training.
So that is our checklist, starting with that thorough AT assessment. But we're happy to talk offline. If you want to go a little deeper into that.
Lori Litz
Perfect. Perfect. In a follow up question to that, is there any sort of formal training or certification for somebody to become, you know, a, you know, very well versed in that area?
Harris Rosensweig
And I think my my colleague Jeff is on the line. Just I'll just jump in on this. There are, our field, the assistive technology industry, is really beginning to professionalize. So there are certifications that you can get in our field. There's a few for webpages and PDFs that you can get. There's called Trusted Tester from the Department of Homeland Security.
The IAAP organization, International Association of Assistance to Technology Professionals has one. There's one called CATIS, specifically for low-vision and blindness for assistive technology instructors. There's one called RESNA. So there are a lot of certifications and even more and more each day as our industry professionalizes.
Lori Litz
Perfect. Thank you.
I'm going to switch over to Frances and Kevin on this one. When you began your pilot program, what changes did you have to make in your interviewing process?
Frances Ruiz
Kevin, should I jump in?
Kevin Updegrove
Yeah, go ahead, Frances. Sorry.
Frances Ruiz
No, no problem. You know, I think it was really just providing even greater education and awareness. Our TA team and our hiring managers already have a great foundation, and we're doing a great job just providing additional sensitivity training and making sure that they knew what the proper questions were to ask or to not ask. And some of the language around that. And we partnered, just to shamelessly plug Meg's group with GDI, to help with that training.
So it was just a great learning from the program as well. But super happy that that was a takeaway. And can now do that companywide.
Lori Litz
That's perfect. And to kind of bridge everyone together, if there were certain accommodations needed... What kind of assessment did you guys do for assistive technology if needed?
Frances Ruiz
That's a great question. On the Michael's front, we really did take it on a case-by-case basis, which sounds like a lot, but that's our policy and how we approach accommodations. So, we did see some of that assistive technology in our stores and used by our team members that were hired. And we found that it was super helpful, helpful and successful.
So just super appreciative. And again, you having GDI to help walk us through that process as well.
Lori Litz
Harris, do you and Jeff and your team, do you have like a toolkit of items that you might take with you when you're going to visit someone? Like you've gotten that original request in, and they've written down what they've given, you know, like the big screens or, you know, scanner pen and so on. Do you have anything you take with you that you might have an employee practice with or test to see if it would work well for them?
Harris Rosensweig
That's a great, great question. Unfortunately, my toolkit is mostly virtual because so many things are software-based now. I'm going to start with things that are already built into either the Windows or Mac operating system or their phone. I'm going to start with those tools to see what I can make use of. Sometimes there are keyboards or other adaptations, different types of mice. Occasionally, we'll want to bring a large monitor.
It really depends on that initial assessment. When we first talk to the person and get some sense of what are the challenges going on, determining what we'll throw in our toolkit. But those are some of the examples. Unfortunately, there are so many tools that are just built right into our computer operating systems.
Lori Litz
Excellent. Is there by chance anywhere a resource guide or a list of built-in accessibility tools our viewers can take a look at?
Harris Rosensweig
Yes, we we actually did a presentation on this at the recent CSUN Technology and Disability Conference. We do have such checklists. They do exist for different categories of disabilities. But these things sometimes benefit more than one category. So that is something. Feel free to email us. We can talk to you more. We have some of these checklists and things.
Yeah.
Lori Litz
Perfect. And just asking for a friend here. What would you recommend is one of the best touch typing programs to learn how to touch type.
Harris Rosensweig
Well, if you don't have additional limitations, there are some good free ones that I was just I just sent to someone the other day that are on the web, are pretty good. If you're blind, there's the Fun with Typeability one is compatible with the JAWS screen reader. So that we work with that a lot.
APH has one as well. But again, you can email me if you want. I can send you some links for free web-based typing programs if you don't have any limitations. I don't know how accessible they are. And then the Fun with Typeability and APH is one as well.
Lori Litz
Very good. And that friend was me because that was the one thing that stuck out in your presentation the most was I'm not a touch typist.
Harris Rosensweig
I am scared.
Lori Litz
You know, we're all living longer and we're all going to, you know something's going to happen. Right? And that really struck me in your presentation that that is a key part of being able to do anything is knowing how to type without you know, pecking at the keys.
Harris Rosensweig
So it can be a showstopper if you were to lose your vision. And as we as we age, it gets a little harder to learn things. So I know that firsthand.
Meg O'Connell
Well, you can't see, but I am, I have a broken wing, so I'm starting to use all the accessibility and of course, I'm right handed. So I've been using Dragon all week long just to be more productive and make sure I can use voice-to-text and get document out. So all it takes is one fall over very small puppy to make you need some accessibility features.
Lori Litz
Yeah. And, Meg, that's a great point. So, you know, disabilities, they they grow over time. And we mention that sometimes, but we don't always talk about it enough. It's it's situational. Like what happened to poor Meg. What has it been like two weeks now.?
Meg O'Connell
Yeah.
Lori Litz
A couple of weeks. And, you know, she she broke her arm and, you know, had to go through surgery.
It's her right arm. She can't, you know, functionality is limited. And then just as we age, these disabilities come up as well. So very important things to know on both ends.
Besides, for, for Frances and Kevin, besides communication to your team members, was there any special training involved? Like when you started this pilot program and you brought these new employees on board... Did you have to modify, change your training processes? And what did that look like?
Frances Ruiz
Yeah, I think holistically again, we did take this on a case-by-case basis because it was a pilot program, a little bit smaller. So it was really just keeping a good pulse with the team member, the store manager or the, you know, the manager at the distribution center, artistry location, and just making sure that the team member was comfortable and was being welcomed and had a good experience.
But then on the Michael's side, or the business side, making sure that we were doing everything we could to provide that experience and ensure a safe and pleasant working environment. So, you know, I think there are nuances to every situation and then there are probably some creative solutions that were adapted as needed. But for the most part, it was just making sure that, you know, keeping our culture and having that team member have a good onboarding, and good first six months. And that retention I think speaks to itself of 87%.
So just taking it again case-by-case and just really having a good, strong relationship with our managers and team members to make sure everyone's in sync and on the same page.
Lori Litz
That's fantastic. So you mentioned the 87% retention rate. And one of the questions here was why did you think you had that? And I wanted to add on to that because you've mentioned it was a case-by-case basis. Do you think that by giving each one of these new hires that individual treatment, that experience, do you think that that helped with the retention rate overall?
Frances Ruiz
I think so. And as we plan to expand the program, we're really relying on our leaders. You know, as Kevin mentioned previously, we count on our leaders everywhere to be our boots on the ground and to help implement the program. So I think that really does help if you have a passionate, engaged leader, local team, that's willing to be there and support that new team member, it's super helpful.
And just it just gets everyone across that that win in that finish line. So I think so, I think that's probably the finishing touch or what really helps drive the program success.
Lori Litz
And, Harris, would you say that when you're working with a company that has brought a new employee on board, that your experience in interacting with them makes them more an engaged and happier employee as well? Having that one-on-one time through the evaluation and...
Harris Rosensweig
Absolutely. Absolutely. If we if we can meet with both the employee and the employer and there is an openness to that. I love that the word intentionality that I heard earlier, then things can go a lot easier that the process is more open. Everyone is is on the same page from from the very beginning. And we can talk about, you know, what are the tasks? What are the expectations? And what are some some solutions?
It doesn't have to be this stressed out situation.
Lori Litz
Fantastic.
Let's see...
I did have a question come in for the Michael's team. We have someone that wants to know how they become a Michael's influencer. They have a friend that happens to have Down's Syndrome who would love that opportunity. So I don't know if you have an active influencer program or if there's steps that someone could take that you're willing to share?
Kevin Updegrove
Yeah, I was going to say, Lori, I mean, that person just have them provide the contact information to you and then shoot that over to Frances and I. And we'll make sure we get to go over to our marketing team who coordinates the influencer program. Love it.
Lori Litz
Perfect. Perfect. So let me look at my last couple of questions that I wrote down here. I do actually have more, but we're cutting into time... For everyone listening today that's looking to start either a disability inclusive hiring program such as they did at Michael's or looking, Harris, to make more of a personalized AT assessment for their employees, what advice would you give them? To whoever wants to go first...
Kevin Updegrove
Well, I would start. I think I said it in my segment, too, and I'll kind of reinforce that... is planning is a big part of it. You know, I think you've got to get the right folks together around the table to have the discussion to figure out what the strategy is and get alignment in that side. And for us, you know, because we were going after the field part.
So that includes stores and our distribution centers, our manufacturing side. We had all of the Senior Leaders around the table to discuss the program and the pilot first. And so I think it's alignment from the Human Resources side and then the business is really the first step. And then from there, it's figuring out how to operationalize it. Because, you know, knowing that we just didn't want to throw this program out there and hope that hope it sticks to the wall per se.
It was more around really making sure that we had the process in place. And then as Frances said earlier, the training. Because, you know, this wasn't just hire people. This was hire for this program and really make a connection to what are some of the differences that may come up as far as accommodations or concerns about, you know, what what roles within the stores and distribution centers, you know, are appropriate and how many accommodations can we do or what accommodations can we do?
So there is an additional training component to it. So it's planning and then making sure you're spending enough time to do the steps important to to make sure that you're program's successful.
Harris Rosensweig
So I can jump in. This is Harris with iYellow Access. So what I would say is imagine it's yourself and it's your company and you're the one requesting the accommodation.
How would you want to be treated? What process would you want in place if you were requesting an accommodation? What expertize would you want in place if you were the employer? Maybe you have that expertize to know all the different solutions out there and to test it. Maybe you don't maybe you want to contract out that particular service so that you can provide a smooth, as smooth as an experience as possible to that person who is in a somewhat vulnerable position of requesting an accommodation. So my $0.02.
Lori Litz
Fantastic.
One other question that came in was were there any policies that had to be addressed? I guess specifically for Michael's, before you started building your inclusive hiring program.
Frances Ruiz
Not sure we had specific policies in mind, especially looking proactively at our organization, but we did you know, we reviewed our accommodations training. We did review the hiring and training that the managers are provided. And one thing that we found from the pilot program was having a leaders' guide to help guide our leaders and to have that frequently asked questions or accommodations section and meeting with our HR team as well, just to make sure that we're all partnering on on the correct messaging and again, what we want to do moving forward.
And so I think that came out of the pilot program, but not necessarily looking proactively did we change anything. It was more just making everything more robust and having a set guide that leaders could tangibly use and feel and see. And so just super thankful to Meg, again, and her group for helping us do that, that process and to get those tools and resources up and running.
Lori Litz
Do you find that you bump up against policies and procedures, maybe they're expense related, when you arrive somewhere and you're working with someone and there's a lot of red tape, you have to get through?
Harris Rosensweig
Yes, that that can definitely get in the way Fortunately, there are some laws and regulations that that help our case, whether it's the ADA or Section 508 or Section 504 of the Rehab Act to help our case. The bigger the organization, the more challenges there can be, especially if there are people in place at that organization who have a set process and they want to do things the way they want to do it. And perhaps they do have a checklist approach. And we're often on the end of it where they're telling us they just want 20 hours of training on this technology, and we don't get much more information than that, and we just have to do it.
And then sometimes give them the bad news.
Lori Litz
Make sense. And, Meg, this might be more your wheelhouse, but you work with a bunch of different companies and do you find that you have to, there's different policies. You have to take a look at and rewrite, or maybe those policies aren't even established and that's what needs to be done first.
Meg O'Connell
Yeah, a lot of times companies will want to start with help us understand our current state assessment. Let us look at our existing policies, programs and procedures. So we'll take a broad look at the various policies that touch employees throughout the employee lifecycle so we understand how disability shows up at each of those touchpoints. So whether it's your recruiting process, your onboarding process, performance management system, your training. Do offer letters, have options for large print? You know, things like that that people don't often think about when you're talking about accessibility. Or, you know, we send our offer letters in PDF, do you need it in a Word document because you might use a screen reader?
Or, you know, making sure you know how to remediate a PDF. So we'll look at all of those things and accommodations' policies and really work with the company to understand who they want to be and where they want to be in the next five years within their organization and help them build and scale to that. So that internal audit, I think, is really important because it can help you...
Everybody has great policies, right? Because everybody has great legal counsel that's helping them write those policies. But a great policy doesn't mean a disability work friendly environment. And I have this conversation with somebody the other day. And they said, well, we're reading the letter of the ADA and I said, well, that's not enough. You're just making sure you're not going to get sued!
You're not welcoming employees with disabilities and making them feel that they are contributed and valued. So I think that assessment, that audit is really important.
Lori Litz
Absolutely. And I think we'll wrap up today with what would be... just a one line... best advice you could give anybody to make disability inclusive hiring a movement? To get people excited about taking this on.
Open floor.
Kevin Updegrove
I'll just say just do it. You know, don't want to take the trademark for Nike, but do it, you know, talk about it. Just I don't think that's the movement. I think the more people that do and I think that was the one thing we looked at at Michael's is, you know, why not why not step up being a leader in the industry and just get it done?
Meg O'Connell
It's funny. That's very similar. We have it on our website. It says stop talking and start doing because literally we have had clients that we have talked to for a year before they start any initiatives. And so to you don't have to get ready to do a hiring initiative. You just have to move into it and make it happen.
You're not going to know everything. That's why you bring in experts and resources to help you with that and get you up to speed quickly so you can have a really strong program. And as I tell everyone, you can start anything and call it a pilot and you can almost make any mistake and it's forgivable. So start learning about this and just start moving.
Lori Litz
Perfect.
Harris?
Harris Rosensweig
Yeah, I would just echo what everyone else is saying you just have to start somewhere and talk to people who have disabilities and learn that they are as skilled as every other person. And it's an incredible age to be in. There are so many tools out there and you or I may need them someday, so there's a chance.
Lori Litz
Well, I want to thank each one of you for your presentations today. They were fantastic. We got a lot of great feedback both here in the chat and I get them in my emails and elsewhere as well. So very valuable information. Really appreciate your time. And for everyone watching today, we appreciate your time as well.