Workplace Accessibility: How policy changes like RTOs disproportionately impact employees with disabilities

This week, we welcome Nathan Chung, Jessica Donahue, and Greer Procich for a critical conversation about workplace accessibility and inclusion. With collective experience in HR, cybersecurity, and disability advocacy, our panel examines how current workplace policies often overlook the experiences of disabled and neurodivergent employees.

The conversation explores three major topics affecting the workplace:

1. The surge in return-to-office mandates and their disproportionate impact on people with disabilities which is reversing progress that had been made in employment for people with disabilities.
2. The potentially devastating implications of Texas v. Becerra, a lawsuit challenging Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the ripple effects of which could undermine fundamental disability rights in workplaces.
3. Recent changes at the EEOC, including the halting of sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination claims and the abandonment of existing lawsuits - as the EEOC continues to operate without a quorum.

Our guests offer advice and insight for HR professionals navigating these challenges and advocating for truly inclusive workplaces. 

Learn more about Rethink Ability: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/greerprocich_rethinking-disability-from-red-tape-to-real-activity-7310716858263908354-uJxk

Connect:

Nathan Chung:

• on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nc808/
• on the Disability Disrupted podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@DisabilityDisrupted

Jessica Donahue:

• on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-e-donahue/
• on her website: https://www.adjunctleadership.com/

Greer Procich:

• on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greerprocich/

Stacey Nordwall:

• on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceynordwall/

Articles:

• 5 years into the remote work boom, the return-to-office push is stronger than ever—here's why 
• ‘Dangerous’ lawsuit could imperil disability rights, advocates say
• Andrea Lucas renominated to EEOC, pledges ‘evenhanded’ civil rights enforcement 
• Five years of remote work changed workplace accessibility. Employees with disabilities will feel its loss.

Transcript

Stacey Nordwall (00:00):

Welcome to Toot or Boot, where each week we talk about news related to HR and the world of work. We toot what we like and boot what we don't like. I'm your host, Stacey Nordwall and I have about 20 years experience in HR and ops, mostly building people functions from the ground up at early stage tech companies. I am joined today by Nathan Chung, Jessica Donahue, and Greer Procich. I am really excited for the conversation today. I have been following all of you and your work on LinkedIn for some time now. I've seen the tremendous work that you are doing in the HR and cyber security communities and as advocates to make workplaces more accessible and inclusive, particularly for people with disabilities. For those listening who don't know you, I'd like to start with some introductions. Nathan, can you tell folks a bit about yourself?

Nathan Chung (00:50):

Sure, that'd be great. My name is Nathan Chung. My pronouns are he him, my visual description. I am an Asian male with black hair and wearing a gray headset and a blue collar shirt. And behind me is the background of the earth. I'm a university and disability advocate and I work in cybersecurity. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be on your show.

Stacey Nordwall (01:11):

Thank you so much. Jessica, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Jessica Donahue (01:15):

Yes, great to be here. My name is Jessica Donahue. I use she her pronouns. I'm a white woman with long brown hair and a very boring white wall behind me. I've spent about 10 years working in-house in various HR roles, and the last five years actually have gone out on my own and now do fractional HR consulting, mainly for B2B Tech startups. So happy to be here.

Stacey Nordwall (01:46):

All right, fabulous. Thank you so much. And Greer.

Greer Procich (01:49):

Hi everybody. I'm Greer. I'm really excited to be here. I use she, her pronouns and visual description is I have my hair pulled back, brown hair, I'm wearing glasses. I'm a white woman with black headphones and a blue sweater on behind me over my shoulder. You'll see I have a little dog stained glass that's my puppy Mickey. He joins me for all my calls. And I am a people strategy leader. I've worked from restaurants and hospitality to tech, and most recently am dedicating my time to a cause that Jess, Nathan, and myself are really excited about called Rethink Ability. We're shooting for a three day live event, virtual free, open for anybody who wants to create their workplaces to be more inclusive and accessible. So we're really here trying to be the change that we need to see. So thanks for having us.

Stacey Nordwall (02:46):

Yeah, thank you so much. And also, this is the first time I've had people do visual descriptions, which I feel like I'm already learning something. We are already learning something as an audience, which this is why, again, I'm so grateful that you are all here and have agreed to have this conversation with me today. What I've appreciated from all of you so much on LinkedIn is that you highlight the many policies and practices and generally the way workplaces are created that often overlook the experiences of disabled and neurodivergent employees. And I think this is something still absent from the conversation, a lot of the conversations that I'm seeing, and perhaps in part because people have a knowledge gap. So before we dive into our articles, I'd like for you to help me create some shared language. When we are talking about people with disabilities or neurodivergence, what does that mean? And am I even using this language correctly?

Greer Procich (03:47):

Yeah, I think I can speak for myself. I have a disability, I live with a disability, but I might not be an expert on everything disability. So this is a space for all of us to continue to learn. And I think as a level set, it's really important to understand what is a disability. And so if you actually just go to the A DA, which is the governing body of disabilities, it says a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. So as you can imagine, major life activities. What does that mean? It means breathing, walking, talking, hearing, seeing, sleeping. And so as you can imagine, that can affect a lot of people in a lot of different ways. And so disability is visible, it's invisible. You can see it, you might not be able to see it. And so I think for us, we just want to set the tone that disability can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But at the end of the day, a disability just impacts my ability to do something successfully.

Stacey Nordwall (05:00):

Thank you for sharing that,

Jessica Donahue (05:03):

Jessica. That was a beautiful description. So not too much more that I would add on to that other than just to kind of underline this idea that some disabilities are visible, others are not. But the statistics tell us that about a quarter of people are living with a disability, which means probably at least a quarter of the people on our teams at work might be living with a disability, some of which we may not just be able to see. So just because we can't see it doesn't mean it's not existing and real, and doesn't mean that we don't want to support people and validate them with that too.

Nathan Chung (05:47):

And I think for me real quick, I would just say disability for me just means being different at a high level. Thank you.

Stacey Nordwall (05:55):

All right. Thank you. Thank you so much for bringing all of that context into the show so that we can go through and have some conversations about these articles that we read. The first article that we read was from CNBC titled Five Years Into the Remote Work Boom, the return to office push is stronger than ever. Here's why the recap of this article is outlining why we have been seeing more return to office mandates and whether in-office work will again become the norm. Reasons for RTO mandates go from using that expensive real estate to claims of greater productivity to it being a way to do layoffs without really doing layoffs. Perhaps most tellingly, they said we found return to office mandates are more likely in firms with mail and powerful CEOs who are used to working in the office for five days a week and they feel that they are losing control over their employees who are working from home.

(06:56):

Also, of note, the article says that while remote job opportunities are down and only 20% of LinkedIn postings are for remote or hybrid jobs, they are getting 60% of the applications. They also point out that RTOs generally cause job satisfaction to decline and lead to higher turnover among certain staff, including women, highly skilled and senior tenured employees. So these are all things that we have discussed previously on the show. So why am I talking about it? Again, I've read very many articles about return to office mandates over the last year, and one thing I have rarely or maybe never seen is a mention of how the mandates impact employees with disabilities or neurodivergent employees. So I'm curious, as you read this article, what did you think? Is it a toot? Is it a boot somewhere in between?

Jessica Donahue (07:51):

Yeah, I mean I think return to office, generally speaking for me is a boot, as you probably could have guessed. It's interesting. The article touches on a little bit this feeling of, they said powerful male CEOs, I believe was the term that they used and feeling as though they are losing control or feeling out of control. And I just really think that it's worth calling out who we're centering in that conversation. I think that anytime we're prioritizing something, someone's opinion is potentially mattering more than another is in this article that is centering the opinion of male CEOs and their need or desire to feel control, that's a choice, right? We're making a choice to center that feeling or point of view over someone else's who may feel differently. It doesn't make that point of view correct. But with that point of view, for someone who's a CEO comes with a degree of power that is very much outsized compared to the individual employee contributor may be working for them.

(09:15):

So I think if I zoom out and really pull up, for me, the big headline with this, and disability always is that for many people that are disabled, remote work is not a perk. It's not a perk. It's an accommodation that makes employment possible for them. So I think I write a lot about just lived experience and my lived experience is different than Nathan's and Greer's and Stacey, yours as well. Just because it's different doesn't mean it's not valid. And so I think opening up our perspective to understand it's not just one group that we should be making decisions to keep comfortable. How do we create conditions where all people can be comfortable?

Stacey Nordwall (10:05):

Yeah, I see Nathan's giving some double thumbs up there.

Nathan Chung (10:11):

Thumb. Yeah, I really like that. I think the other piece, so this is, I'm going to say something, I'm going to disagree a tiny bit. Yes. Overall it's a boot for me. It's the impact on the disability community RTO manage have been devastating. Absolutely devastating. It means for a lot of people, especially women who have caregiver responsibilities for we have to carry your mom, or we have children. Those people seen their jobs devastated as these companies, basically big tech companies saying, come back to the office or else, and this is a lot of people leaving where this could be a potential two is, for example, I was out of work for mostly of 2023 because of the whole return to office and changing any kind conditions. I purposely targeted jobs that were hybrid or on premise because I saw the winds have changed. Companies are seeing more and more back to the office, back to the office. And I knew that if I was to pursue, try to pursue a remote job, the odds of me getting a remote job or decline significantly. That's why I purposely went for a hybrid slash on-prem job because for some people the reality is job slash income or no job and potentially homelessness, that's the reality. It's sad, but it's devastating. But it's the reality within today.

Greer Procich (11:41):

I think I want to piggyback a little bit on what Nathan said and say if there should be a choice. I think that the mandated return to work, everybody come back. That's the problem. What should be offered is the choice to go hybrid, the choice to go to the office every day, the choice to do this flexibly in a way that works for me and Nathan can do what works for Nathan. And so I have to agree with Jess boot this shit to the moon. I am not here for this mandatory comeback to office. I'm somebody who will never ever be able to go back to the office every day. I take naps in the middle of the day. I take showers in the middle of the day. A lot of times if I'm off camera, it's because I'm physically laying on the floor talking to you and you would never know.

(12:34):

And so I think a lot of this, as we go back to the power dynamic, this is a lot about power, but I think a lot of this also is just they haven't dealt with disability at their doorstep personally. And so these people who are making these decisions haven't been impacted personally by disability, but I can guarantee you that once it does, their tune will change. But let's be real, at the end of the day, these RTO policies are not built for the senior level leaders. They're built for us. And so none of this really applies to them. At the end of the day, it's all for this less powerful group that they just want to exploit. And people with disabilities are the first to be exploited a lot of times, unfortunately.

Stacey Nordwall (13:22):

Yeah, that's so true. I like you called that out that most of the time these mandates don't apply to those folks. Anyway, Jessica, was there something you wanted to say?

Jessica Donahue (13:30):

Yeah, I was going to just of course add on to what Greer was saying and more so give a shout out to another person that's involved with the rethink ability project or initiative. Dr. Angela Young, I recently was on a call with them and heard them talking about how disability is one of the only, I guess classes or statuses, I can't remember the exact word that they used, where you can move into it or out of it at any point in your life. And so yes, some of those CEOs that want to see everyone in the office, perhaps they haven't experienced disability. That doesn't mean they won't at some point. And so it just kind of goes back to the idea of building inclusively. We want to make preconditions where all people can be successful, and just because you're not dealing with a disability today doesn't necessarily mean you won't be in the future. So why not create an environment where everyone can succeed?

Nathan Chung (14:33):

Bingo. Oh, I add to that, I have seen some very heated discussions about RTO bandaids on social media, especially LinkedIn because some people, especially certain races of males of course, are of the opinion. What's the big deal about the RTO? They love working office and they feel it's just a minority, especially women just whining complaining, which is rubbish. What one expert, one of my friends mentioned very clearly is, yes, you can work remotely as an accommodation and request it, but the key is for a lot of organizations, in order to get that, you need to out yourself essentially to declare that you have disability. And a lot of people do not want to do it, this fear and anxiety and just help, almost like xenophobia over having the label of having disability as a label, and they are scared. They do not want to go through that stigma.

Stacey Nordwall (15:32):

Yeah, thank you for calling that out. That's an important additional call out. Greer, was there something you wanted to add?

Greer Procich (15:41):

Yeah, I was just going to say, I think Nathan really hit the nail on the head of RTO isn't psychologically safe if we just want to sum it up. There's not a lot of psychological safety in blanket requirements to come back to the office. And so when you're talking about trust and things like that in your culture, this is really where it comes into play. This is really where the rubber meets the road. And so a lot of companies don't really recognize that because we don't ask about it in engagement surveys and prioritize it during other parts of the employee journey. And so yeah, I think we have to be proactive about disability in the workplace.

Stacey Nordwall (16:21):

So speaking to that, if there are people who are listening, HR leaders within their orgs who are being confronted with A RTO mandate, their CEO wants people to return to the office, is there something that you might encourage them to say or data that you might encourage them to gather in order to push back on their CEOs?

Greer Procich (16:48):

Yeah, I think at least something that I'm really learning throughout this rethink ability initiative that we're doing is visibility is really important and people feel like they need permission to be disabled or to ask for accommodations or whatever that might be. And so I think as an HR person, we can really help educate leaders on what is disability, how does it show up, and what is your role in it? Because I'm a big believer, no matter what role you're in, you don't know until you're told. And so we also can't just expect everybody to be experts on disability. So as part of hr, it's part of our responsibility to educate, to identify success, and then to hold people accountable to it. We're really bad at holding people accountable to things, I think. And so for me, you'll hear me say this till I'm blue in the face, but everything should be tied back to a leader's compensation.

(17:53):

And so if they're not supporting disabled team members or they're not making a psychologically safe work environment that should reflect on their performance, but it doesn't matter if it's not part of core values, if it doesn't trickle down from the very top. So this is just like any other initiative. If we're trying to upskill people on sales, it doesn't matter if the leader isn't bought in. It's the same with inclusion and accessibility and disability. It's got to start at the top. Visibility has to start at the top, buy-in has to start at the top, and they need to be educated just as much as anybody else in the organization.

Nathan Chung (18:33):

And I second what Greer mentioned about accountability because that many tech organizations, even the ones, because when you Google basically neurodiversity in the workplace and who is chopping that, many of those organizations on the list, they are not that great for people with disabilities. For example, some of 'em, I first saw some friends where they would be bullied in front of their entire team by their boss, and this is that one of those companies that's listed as a great place to work for people with disabilities. And for me, that is wrong. It mirrors in many ways how women are treated when women are sexually assaulted or mistreated or are victims of misogyny. It'll come down to accountability. Do you punish that person? Sadly, in a similar vein, a lot of companies will think, wait, you can't punish this person. This person is responsible for say, 80% of our revenue. We have to leave them alone. We have to let them do whatever. That is wrong. There has to be accountability for when a person misbehaves.

Jessica Donahue (19:34):

Yeah. Yeah. One thing I would add, just because I want to just name this and put it out there, is that I think there's probably a lot of HR leaders, executives out there who have pushed back and have tried to educate,

(19:54):

And at the end of the day, they don't have as much power to make that final call as the ceo. And so I always worry that we're almost shaming fellow HR leaders into like, well, if only you had educated your CEO better, you wouldn't be having a return to office. And it's like, no, that that's not the case, right? Power is a huge part of every decision that gets made at a workplace, including something like, where are our people going to work from? And even the best business cases from an HR leader may not be enough if at the end of the day, all the CEO cares about is having control. So I just want to make that caveat there to not beat yourself up if you're ahead of people trying to push back against something that you know is wrong and is not going to build trust or cultivate psychological safety. We know we all know those things. Whether we can convince someone else that's kind of a question mark depending on who that person is and how open they are to learning and listening, frankly.

Greer Procich (21:07):

Yeah, I think that's huge. And thank you for caveating. What I said, I think that's really, really important, and it really makes me think we just have to control what we can control. As HR leaders, we can use different language. We can help people feel safe. We can help people identify what kind of accommodations are available to them, guide them through those processes. We can help educate managers and do all of that kind of stuff. And so I think there are actions that HR can take without the support of the leadership team, but we know it's harder and all of those kinds of things. But there still are things that we can control as HR leaders, even if we don't have that explicit power like the CEO.

Stacey Nordwall (21:52):

Yeah, I'm glad that you called that out because the last time I talked about RTOs, I said, show be the business case for RTOs. It doesn't exist. So often the advice that we get as HR leaders is to develop the business case. And to your point, the business case is not always what actually matters. Well,

Greer Procich (22:15):

But we also have a ton of business cases that show that all of this stuff actually does make an impact, but let's be real. We're just ignoring it. We don't want to see it. Leaders don't want to do anything with it. The business case is there. It's been proven.

Stacey Nordwall (22:29):

Oh, that's what I mean.

(22:31):

We come with a lot of business cases that don't really get listened to ultimately. On that note, I want to move us along to our next article from stat. This article's title is Dangerous Lawsuit Could Imperil Disability Rights Advocates Say the Recap In this article, we learn about Texas versus Bera, which is a legal case, challenging Section 5 0 4 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in any setting that receives federal financial assistance. Section 5 0 4 is the law that acted as the blueprint for the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. The concern around this being that if the courts find certain aspects of this law unconstitutional, such as the mandate to provide services to the community that could undermine other laws or leave them open for challenge as well. They say this case is important because it is challenging the idea that Congress can link federal dollars to affirmative requirements, which they say is critical for disability rights because saying, don't discriminate doesn't work.

(23:38):

We need to say, Hey, you need to make buildings and websites and programs accessible. So this is one I wanted to talk about with you all because this probably, I think this flew under the radar for many folks. I didn't see too much discussion of it. And if you're not familiar with it or following it closely, you may not understand what is the impact, how might this end up coming into the workplace. I will assume that this is a boot for everyone. You can let me know if it's not. Everyone's nodding their heads though, so we're going to say, that seemed to be a universal boot, but I'd love for you to talk about that boot. Why is it a boot? What are the concerns, particularly in what the workplace impacts could be?

Greer Procich (24:26):

All right, I'll boot this with both my feet from a running start. This is just absolutely ridiculous of what we're talking about right now. I think it's important to acknowledge that this is a dog whistle and this whole thing for gender dysphoria. And so what they're pushing on really is that, but by changing laws, with that being the focus, it trickles down into so many other things. And so this is, I'm trying to pick my words nicely. This is something that is, like we said when we first came onto this call, they're just throwing stuff at the wall right now to see what sticks. And so I think this is one of those things. I think it's meant to take our attention away. I think they're trying to confuse us. I think they're trying to make it feel like we are powerless. And this is definitely one of those things. And disability is just getting lapped up in with this. It's not the focus, but I think that it shows that disability is an afterthought in a lot of ways.

Jessica Donahue (25:39):

I think at the end of the day, it goes back to values. If we take it just, I'm talking just about this legislation, not so much the workplace necessarily right now, but if we are having government focus on kind of dismantling disability protections, I think that tells us a lot about what that government in particular values and what it doesn't. And I just think it's trash. I think it's trash to take away disability protections from people who need them.

Nathan Chung (26:23):

This world is complex. I remember when this came up a lot on social media. A lot of people were all saying, contact your legislator. Tell 'em to stop the lawsuit. Unfortunately, the way I see it's more complex where number one, administration, current administration controls everything anyway. So they could just change the rule. They could just change the rule whenever they want. Number two, they could also weaken the agency's closed offices, which is happening right now. So it slowly gets to the point where the case becomes mute. And number three, worst of all, I fear that if the steps are done and they take all this, this is taken all the way to Supreme Court, which I think they might be trying to do that. It might be a trap. They take it all the way to the Supreme Court, then they might argue, well, we weren't trying to get revival for to begin with, want to get rid of this warning, but since we're here, let's get rid of the whole thing anyway, which may have been the point of the whole exercise for that party anyway. So I think we are in literally a chaotic environment where a lot of things are in play, and a lot of people, it's exhausting. It's exhausting seeing all this stuff happening, but we gotta think smart.

Greer Procich (27:40):

It feels like they're trying to turn us against each other in a lot of ways. Bingo. I mean, it almost feels like a culture war. Who is more important? Who gets the attention? Who are we protecting? Who are we not protecting? And I'm supposed to be mad at non-disabled people for not needing a, it doesn't work like that. And so they're really just pitting us against each other while they're doing all this stuff in the background. It's all a bunch of nonsense. Again, boot boot, boot boot, boot, boot.

Stacey Nordwall (28:15):

Yeah, an absolute boot. And there's something that Nathan said that kind of brings us into this next article. So I want to move into this. This is from HR dive, Andrea, the title of the article, Andrea Lucas, renominated to EEOC, pledges even handed Civil Rights Enforcement. The recap for this article, since Lucas's RENOMINATION to EEOC as acting chair, EEOC staff were directed to halt processing of claims alleging sexual orientation and gender identity-based discrimination and abandon existing gender identity discrimination lawsuits. It had filed on behalf of plaintiffs. She also issued a series of letters to law firms requiring extensive information about their diversity and inclusion practices. And this was after Trump fired two of the EEOC commissioners who were Democrats prior to the expiration of their term, leaving the EEOC with three vacant seats. This means they are without a quorum and without a quorum. There are certain things the EEOC will no longer do, such as cases involving systemic or widespread discrimination.

(29:23):

And this is something Nathan pulled on this thread of they can also just go ahead and make these governing bodies, these organizations just not functional, which appears to be what's happening here. So this is one I've been following over the last months because you can only imagine if this organization is basically non-functional. What kind of chilling effect is that going to have on employees wanting to pursue discrimination claims? And what kind of impact does that have on those employers who maybe needed these things in place to prevent them from behaving badly ultimately? So I'm sure this has been on your radar as well. I don't think you're tooting it. Once again, I am guessing this is a boot, but what are your thoughts? Are there things that you've found particularly concerning or things you've particularly been paying attention to?

Jessica Donahue (30:21):

Yeah, definitely a boot for me. Certainly the number one thing that comes to mind to me as a people person is how much I feel for people who maybe had active cases that they frankly took a lot of risk and probably angst on by pursuing alone to now kind of have the rug pulled out from under them feels very wrong. But it's another way to kind of skirt around The laws that we have on the books, the laws that we have on the books prohibit discrimination based on these things. And so what happened here? Well, we kind of play around with what's happening at the EEOC to create conditions where they can no longer essentially enforce the law that's on the books. And I know from working as an HR leader that in many cases, not all, but in many cases, the only thing that prevents bad behavior like discrimination is the threat of some kind of enforcement body holding you accountable with penalties and dollars, the things that we really care about here in the United States. Everything comes back to that. So without that, I worry how bad behavior from leaders will increase, and ultimately it'll cause harm to the people working for them.

Greer Procich (32:02):

Yeah, I think for me, this all goes back to fear. And I think it's kind of a parallel that we can make here. The government is trying to scare organizations into not speaking up into staying silent, into being complicit, and all of these things, which then trickles down to when you're in an organization and you push back and you file a discrimination claim, and they make you feel scared because they're going to come after you or sue you, or their lawyers are writing a letter or whatever it is. It's the same thing. It's just on a bigger scale right now. And so the government is the bully instead of the company in this situation. So the government is bullying the company, and then what we're going to see is the company's going to bully the individual. And so it's all going to trickle down, but there's parallels and we can see it.

(32:55):

And companies are cowering because they're scared. They're scared that they're going to lose funding. They're scared that their reputation is going to be dinged. And you can say the same about me not wanting to leave a company because I'm worried about how that'll impact my reputation. I'm worried about how that's going to impact my ability to get another job in their case to get more funding or to stay open. So it's really interesting to just kind of think about how this all comes together to play and how big of a role fear really has in the workplace and boot this shit, boot this shit. Yeah,

Nathan Chung (33:35):

Totally agree. And to add to that, I'm not sure you saw the news, a state level office in West Virginia, the Office of Equal Opportunity, they just closed that down at the state level. I think at the high level, these business, they see their buddy who in the White House saying, Hey, we have a guy in the White House who loves big business, who's going to save us money, so let's get rid of all this disability nonsense that's causing them all this money. Now it's like the flood gates have opened and dams burst open season. So they think, oh, we can do whatever we want to people with a disability. They're probably thinking, why should people with disability have a job? We can deal with a non-disabled person. It's just you'll save the money less burden, and who's going to stop 'em? The government, the government loves is pretty much backing away or so severely weaken and damage that I'm not sure we're ever going to come back. It's a boot for me.

Stacey Nordwall (34:37):

Yeah, yeah. I mean obviously it's a boot for me. Like I said, it's something I've been watching because I do think to what everyone is saying, it is going to have a chilling effect. It is going to have an impact on people in the workplace because I mean, there is already a fear in reporting anything or making yourself known in some way. And so now if you also feel like maybe that's not going to be taken seriously, it's not going to be enforced even more. So you already go in with those fears, but then in this climate that fear and anxiety is even amplified. I think it's really concerning. And as an HR leader, just I feel that heavily in my chest of like, ugh. Okay. So I'm curious, as you've thought about this, is there anything that you tell HR leaders about how to, I guess, hold the line or how to help them proceed? How to help them hold people accountable?

Jessica Donahue (35:47):

It's tricky. It's tricky because the laws haven't changed. So we're all bound to following the law as it's written. So I don't know that there's anything I would tell an HR leader to do differently because following the law is what we need to be doing. And currently the law is still on the books, so it's a very tricky moment to be in. Yeah,

Greer Procich (36:19):

I would say for HR leaders, a couple things. One is educate yourself. Again, control what you can control, and if you can learn more about all of this stuff, that's a great place to start. But I would also say approach everything with empathy. Believe people when they tell you, I did not want to go through a three week process to get the stand that my computer is on right now, approved by my company. When I had a doctor's note and all of that kind of stuff, they didn't believe me, why do you need this? You haven't needed it in the past. All of this stuff. It's like, it's a simple little accommodation. And so just come with empathy. Talk to people like people. I don't want to have a disability. I don't want to be in pain every day. This is not how I want to live.

(37:16):

So you think I want to bring that and have it be what you associate with me at work? I don't think so, but I also think that there is a responsibility that we have, especially with all of the technology that's coming as HR leaders. So I just read an article the other day, Jess, I think I sent it to you about individuals who disclosed a disability in a job application. They disclosed it at midnight, they submitted it, and literally four minutes later on a weekend, they got a denial. What does that tell you? That tells you that the AI is biased, the screening process is biased. All of that kind of stuff is not going how we want it to go. As an HR leader audit your stuff. It's your job, sorry. It's your job to make sure that things are in compliance and equitable.

(38:07):

I want to make sure I'm not causing any undue impact or hardship on anybody by the processes and programs that I'm putting in place, just like a sales team shouldn't want to do the same to people that they're selling to. And so we just have to center our lowest common denominator of people that we're serving. And a lot of times I think that is somebody with a disability, which just to plug what we're doing with the rethink ability, part of what we're going to do, put together archetypes that are going to be free for people to use of individuals living with disabilities so that you can create programming for that archetype, right? Resources just don't exist. And so we have to, as disabled individuals, create and provide and educate and do all of these things with the number of spoons that we have. So we have to be able to show up to the capacity that we have believed that the capacity that we have is what it is and be respected for it as well.

Stacey Nordwall (39:11):

And I want to just reiterate, Jessica, I'm glad that you called it out that nothing's actually changed yet the laws are still the laws. I think when we, especially around the conversation around DEI, there was no illegal DEI to begin with because that's, it was all based on law. That's what we were doing. If you weren't doing it right then, yes, but otherwise it was people designing programs to coincide with the law. So again, nothing has really changed, and I think it's important to remain grounded in what we know, what we can do following the processes that we've established, looking at those processes if they do need to be updated, but generally just remaining, I guess remaining calm in as much as you can until something does happen and continue to support your employees as you can.

Greer Procich (40:16):

Well, I think too, kind of something that you touched on a little bit right there, Stacey, is as HR leaders, we also have to find our community when it comes to this kind of stuff. Plug again for rethink ability because that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to make all of this the way that people are living and what they need accessible. And so HR has got to come and find their community of people who are doing that so that they can learn and share and knowledge share and all of that stuff. We have to be better as a group, I think as well.

Stacey Nordwall (40:52):

All right. We have one more article to discuss. This one comes to us from Mashable. The title is Five Years of Remote Work Changed Workplace Accessibility, employees with Disabilities will Feel Its Loss. The recap from this article, we learned the impact of the federal government's mandate for workers to return to the office on employees with disabilities. The federal government boasts the highest percentage of people with disabilities in its workforce was state governments following closely behind, behind before the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits health insurance discrimination and opens up Medicaid access for people with disabilities. Many flocked to the federal government because of its stable health coverage. We also learned from this article that across all demographics, people with disabilities have lower employment rates and are much more likely to be self-employed or take on part-time work, but with greater access to remote work options that had been changing.

(41:52):

They say employment for people with disabilities was at 22.7% in 2024, which is a historic high since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began compiling the numbers. So RTO mandates are likely to disproportionately impact people with disabilities because remote working was an accommodation that allowed them to participate in the workforce, which you all mentioned earlier. And some companies will not grant remote work as an accommodation or make it challenging to do so. In the article, they note that Amazon actually even revised its disability policies, making it more difficult for employees to receive remote work exemptions as part of disability accommodations. So as I mentioned at the beginning, I had been frustrated how many articles talking about the return to office mandates don't really mention the impact that these mandates have on people with disabilities, caregivers, women, people of color, and so on. And that feels like an incredibly important missing piece of context in this conversation that we keep having about remote work and return to office mandates.

(42:56):

So from that, when I saw this article, I was like, oh my God, okay, finally we're talking about it. I wanted to toot it. I was feeling like, okay, they're addressing some of these real impacts, tangible impacts that mandates are having on people. And yet I had this underlying little boot of a feeling that annoyed me that it still felt like a side conversation. So I don't know. These are the things you're thinking about a lot more frequently than I'm thinking about, so I don't even know if that makes sense. If you felt a toot, if it still felt like a boot, what did you think about when you read this article?

Greer Procich (43:41):

I got to hear what Jess has to say. I have to hear what Jess has to say.

Jessica Donahue (43:46):

I just think the 20, I think you said 22% employment rate was a high, just breaks my heart and makes me question why do we want to make it harder for people with disabilities to work, to contribute, to do all of those things? And I think if I am an executive, if I have some kind of power at my organization, yes, we kind of talked about the fact that remote work makes participating in the workforce possible period, but then also what are we doing with our employee experience? We talk about employee experience and sometimes we think it's about the perks we offer, the benefits we offer, how much PTO we give. Sure, all that stuff matters, but at the end of the day, if I can't even say, Hey, I need an accommodation. I need to work differently because my needs are different than yours when I already am probably carrying some kind of shame or internalized ableism already, it just feels like an absolutely unfair hoop to ask people to jump through.

(45:07):

And I've felt this way always. But I think particularly having gotten involved with the Rethink Ability initiative and the incredible people that I've gotten a chance to meet from that initiative who are living and have been living with some of the multiple disabilities their whole lives, these are some of the most incredible, resourceful, resilient people that you will ever come across. They're absolute powerhouses, and they have found ways to succeed in their own right, in spite of frankly, a lot of obstacles that other people or companies have put in front of 'em. And that's the kind of person I would want on my team. So I just really struggle with even being able to understand why we'd want to make it harder and in the process really devalue the employee experience overall because it's not just the disabled employee that feels that it's their peers that see how they're being treated as well and sees the additional hoops they're being asked to jump through that a non-disabled person. And sure, yeah, some documentation is needed, fine, we get that. Yeah. Are there people out there that lie and make things up? Probably, yes. I think it's the exception more than the rule. So I'm of the mindset that just believing people, taking them at face value is the best policy.

Greer Procich (46:40):

See, I would say too, we have made it a practice of accommodation and inclusion being separate from everything else when it should be intertwined in the DNA of everything. And so I think there's a lot of misconception on what an accommodation is or what a disability means or all of that kind of stuff. And so I think people shouldn't be afraid to start small and people shouldn't be afraid to try and be better because a lot of people won't because they're scared they're going to get it wrong. We're all going to get it wrong. I've gotten it wrong. I get it wrong every day, right? We're still learning and we're still moving. But there's very simple that you can do for an accommodation. For example, a manager can ask a new hire employee, how do you prefer to communicate? How do you prefer to learn?

(47:40):

How do you prefer to receive feedback? Those three things are simple, simple accommodations that take no partnership with HR cost literally nothing and happen to improve trust. And so I think we've got to get away from this concept that accommodations are expensive or time consuming, or they have to happen with these partners external to my role or my department, when in reality we can all just take really small little tiny steps to make things a lot more inclusive. Like Stacey, I think about Pyn all the time and how y'all could create an employee journey map for a disabled person. How do you support a manager at different moments that matter in their employee journey to make sure that they feel set up for success, make sure that they have the accommodations that they need, especially if they've disclosed, how are you supporting that individual at different points that are important to them? We don't think about that kind of stuff. We just don't.

Nathan Chung (48:42):

And to add to that, I think some of the other areas that speed address are the stereotypes and biases. For example, I worked at a big tech company and they're training to send out to all their managers said something like, let's not sign a person who’s autistic, because they're always late to work, I found that very offensive. So like it or not, I think every single person, every manager will have their own personal stereotypes and biases. That's why, for example, for me, when a manager looks at me, sorry, the stereotype of an atypical worker and a tech and cybersecurity field, it's of course usually a white male who's a little bit bigger than me with a beer. So I don't fit that stereotype. Everyone just assumes, well, I don't belong in the management role, and since I'm in the wrong race, double whammy there. I think the other piece to it is, I think Bri, were saying there is a need for psychological safety.

(49:37):

We don't have to change things around too much. Managers just have to have enough empathy to care for the worker to succeed. And I've been a manager a few times too. It is scary being in a manager's chair, but it's like breaking down that invisible wall, closing your door and saying, Hey, I don't want to help you. You just do what you're told. And I don't want having to do either. I've seen so many managers do that because sadly, especially in the male demographic, that is how they were told to do things and say in school and by their managers. So was a single monkey see, monkey do. And lastly, another key concept, which a lot of people are a little bit uncomfortable talking about is what happens when HR is outsourced? Because for a lot of those countries where HR is outsourced to, well, those countries don't care very much for people with disabilities. That's why reduction rate goes up.

Stacey Nordwall (50:48):

Was there something you, I saw you come off mute for a minute. Was there something you wanted to add?

Greer Procich (50:54):

I don't remember. I think I just got really excited about everything Nathan was saying.

Stacey Nordwall (51:01):

Awesome. Yes, I understand. Also, I think, well, I want to wrap us up. I am just very happy that you all were able to join. I've really appreciated the perspectives that you have brought to the articles and your enthusiasm and excitement and just appreciate you all being so willing to come on the show. I want to make sure that, I know you've mentioned rethink ability. If there's any other thing specifically where you'd like folks want to learn more from you, they want to contact you, where can they do that? Is there anything else you want to promote? So Greer, do you want to start?

Greer Procich (51:44):

Yeah, find us on LinkedIn. The three of us live on LinkedIn, so just message us, DM us. We're posting a ton. We right now actually are getting all of our learning sessions aligned. We're starting to look for partners external. We're going to be doing fundraising. And so there's a lot of ways that people can get involved. So if this is something that you're passionate about or if your workplace needs accessibility and you don't know where to start, that's why we're bringing this whole group together. It's not just for HR people, obviously. That's why Nathan is on our steering committee because it's important as a CTO or somebody in cyber tech to be knowledgeable of this stuff, not just an HR person or a manager. And so we really want anybody who is keen on making an impact on accessibility and inclusion in your workplace, come join us. We know we can probably learn something from you too.

Stacey Nordwall (52:44):

Jessica or Nathan, anything you want to add, Jessica?

Jessica Donahue (52:48):

Yeah, definitely connect with us on LinkedIn. Greer is right on the money when she says we spend our lives on there. The other thing I'll just tag on related to the rethink ability initiative. Some of you may be wondering what it's all about. And essentially what it is is we're pulling together learning sessions with people that either have really deep subject matter expertise and disability or maybe personal lived experience or both, or are just passionate. So really, truly, this event is open to absolutely anyone who says, you know what? I'm kind of interested in maybe learning more about accessibility, or maybe I'd like my company to get better at it. Or maybe I just personally as a leader want to get better at it. For my team, wanting to learn is the only requirement for joining us, truly. So if you're at all kind of curious, I promise that you'll take away something from getting involved and signing up. And again, LinkedIn, we're blasting that info all day every day,

Nathan Chung (54:00):

And I got nothing. Yeah, there will be brighter days.

Stacey Nordwall (54:07):

Yes. I have to say, especially over the past few months, I am not sure how many of the articles have been toots. I feel like I am working hard to find some things that feel toot worthy. So I would like to try to, like you said, hope for things in the weeks ahead. 

Greer Procich (54:36):

Hey, you know what? If we can't find articles that we're enjoying, let's find people that we're following that we want to enjoy. Right? Dr. Angela Young, they are phenomenal. Dr. Akilah Cadet cannot sing her praises more, right? Angela Howard, call for culture is on our steering committee as well. So we're really, really intentional about getting a lot of people involved. And I also really want to make the call out too, that this isn't just for individuals who want to make workplaces better. This is for individuals living with disabilities who also need to advocate for themselves, who need to find community, and who really just don't know where to start to be you as a disabled person and how to show up. And so if you're looking for community, if you're looking for support, that's really, really the key of why we're doing all of this.

Stacey Nordwall (55:29):

All right. Awesome. Well, that's it for us. That's it for this episode of Toot or Boot. Again, thank you Greer, Jessica and Nathan so much for joining and for everyone listening, I will be including all the links to everything we talked about in our show notes. Thanks so much.