Prioritizing accessibility, starting with the C-Suite

We know that inclusive hiring is a win-win-win for employers, employees, and a business’s bottom line – but many fail to take people with disabilities (PWD) into account, in turn, failing 25% of the population.

Each year, October marks National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM), and this year the focus is on including disability as part of the equity equation. As the Chief Information Accessibility Officer at a digital accessibility company, I know firsthand how prioritizing accessibility at the executive level and in your management style positively impacts your organization, employees and customers.

Incorporating accessibility into the C-Suite

The way that we interact with the web continues to evolve and is even more prevalent in hiring now that nearly every company has a digital presence. Sustainable accessibility requires businesses to recognize that having inaccessible digital platforms means an entire population faces an insurmountable barrier to access content, products, services or jobs.

With top-down support from the executive level, individuals of all abilities are able to engage in a digital experience that is easy and efficient. This applies to more than just your customers (current and potential); this also applies to your employees.

While ADA compliance is a requirement for all businesses, there are many added accommodations that thoughtful managers can (and should) implement to make their teams a more even playing field for employees with and without disabilities. Good leadership starts with a strong hiring process that looks for recruits based on business-critical skills that will help an organization identify the strongest talent, regardless of disability. Chances are, your organization has more than one employee working with a disability already, as 1 in 4 U.S. adults have some type of disability.

Weaving accessibility into your management style

Organizations have a responsibility to hire great people and not discriminate. All managers need to have basic training in disability fundamentals, including awareness, etiquette, disclosure, reasonable accommodations, and how to hold accessible meetings. A great free resource for Disability Fundamentals for Managers is offered by DisabilityIn.

Once a new hire is onboarded, managers must communicate clear and meaningful business metrics that have no bias, so direct reports can accurately and appropriately monitor their performance. All employees should receive clear feedback on areas of strength and any opportunities for improvement. Without setting clear metrics and an open feedback loop, managers run the risk of letting bias measure their team’s success, so KPIs will be crucial to truly understand how a team member is performing.

In this hybrid work environment, managers need to take special care to ensure their employees have accessible resources and collaboration tools that can be used regardless of ability. For example, if an employee is deaf or hard of hearing, it will be important to make sure all meetings they attend have live and accurate captions available. Thanks to advances in the accessibility of many digital meeting platforms, it will be simple to document how to turn on auto-captions in your online meeting platform.  I’d also highly recommend documenting how to request real-time captions created by an expert (when auto-captions aren’t good enough).

It’s also important that managers establish a culture of psychological safety for their teams. This means fostering a culture where employees feel empowered to ask questions and look for support when they need it. A productive team is one where all members feel valued, respected, and heard. Support from a manager could include encouraging mental and physical wellbeing by advocating for employees to take more time off. It could even include less actionable steps like a simple weekly check-in with direct reporters to ask where they might need the most support.

Psychological safety can also be modeled by managers who show that mistakes are a normal part of growth and that it’s okay to look to others for help. A great manager is passionate about the business, is willing to work hard to make sure their employees succeed, has the ability to delegate to others and build leaders that could eventually lead themselves, and is flexible to other perspectives. In short, being a considerate and communicative manager will benefit all employees, including those with a disability.

Related: AI, ADA and EEOC: Are your hiring practices compliant?

In this tight job market, you can’t afford for your digital and physical workplace to be inaccessible. Better yet, by recognizing the potential of hiring people with diverse backgrounds and abilities, not only will you meet your DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility) goals, but you will strengthen your resilience and build an environment of creativity and innovation in your organization. If you are only motivated to give people with disabilities equal opportunity simply because it is a law, you are missing the point. Diversity, inclusion and equity are the rocket fuel for propelling your business to its full potential.

Glenda Sims is the Chief Information Accessibility Officer at Deque Systems, an adviser and co-founder of AIR-University (Accessibility Internet Rally) and AccessU. She serves as an accessibility judge, and speaker for Knowbility.