Beads of sweat formed on my forehead, and my eyes began tearing up.
It was one month ago, and all it took was five minutes.
I was seated among 35 of my Littler colleagues, all of us participating in a week-long Executive Leadership Program through Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.
Halfway through the week, we attended a session, “Managing and Motivating Across Differences” by Northwestern Professor Lauren Rivera. At the beginning of the session, Professor Rivera handed each of us one sheet of paper, which upon first glance included some seemingly simple instructions. It read:
Below is a list of privileges in the workplace, or things many of us might take for granted at work. For the purposes of this exercise, assume that you do not have any privileges and need to acquire them for your organization. Each privilege listed below costs $100 and you have a budget of $500. You must decide which 5 privileges you personally would like to purchase.
Below the instructions was a list of 25 “privileges,” a few of which stood out to me:
- I’m never the only member of my gender or racial group at a meeting at my organization.
- I can expect to be paid equitably for my work.
- I can take a job without having others suspect I got it because of my gender or race.
- I can expect time off to celebrate major holidays for the religion I practice.
- I can assume that my workplace will be accessible to me without having to request modifications.
There were 20 additional “privileges” listed among those five. As I scanned the list, however, I realized that none of these applied to me. I’ve never had to worry about even one of these privileges of employment. I simply took them for granted.
You see, I am a straight, white man and father, a person without a disability. And I am Catholic, the most common religious affiliation of those living in the Chicagoland area.
Yet, all it took was one sheet of paper to help me appreciate just how many workplace barriers have been removed for me simply because I’ve always lived in the majority.
In that moment, I was overcome with emotion. And perhaps for the first time ever, it helped me appreciate in a very real way that I need to be a better ally.
We All Need to Be Better Allies, and Employers Have the Ability to Effect Change
We’ve heard much lately of the terms diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). For too many of us, we sharpen our defenses when we encounter the letters D-E-I.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
The Northwestern exercise served as a candid reminder to me that not everyone in our Republic starts from the same place, particularly when we take into account characteristics such as race, gender, disability, and religion.
Sadly, the statement above will undoubtedly awaken the DEI-haters, as a few will see it as an attack on them simply because of their skin color, gender, parenthood.
But for those of you will keep and open heart and mind to my own recent epiphany, consider the words of President John F. Kennedy and my own mother, who often quoted the words of Luke 12:48 as I was growing up:
“For of those to whom much is given, much will be required.”
For many of us, we’ve been able to navigate corporate America and our careers with privileges of the workplace that others simply do not enjoy and have never enjoyed.
Put another way, we’ve been given much; now, much is required of us.
Don’t get me wrong. As a kid who grew up with barely two pennies to rub together and a dad as our breadwinner who was in and of jobs his whole life, I was taught at an early age that hard work will open doors for me and help me live a life more secure than my mom and dad ever had. Without question, hard work is imperative. But extolling hard work and embracing DEI principles are not mutually-exclusive concepts.
Indeed, they can’t be if we want to achieve a healthy workplace.
Ok, Jeff, I hear You. But How Does This Apply to Me?
We find ourselves in the final days of Disability Pride Month, and as longtime subscribers of this blog are aware, I nudge employers from time to time to be better when it comes to their ADA obligations. If we are the typical employer, we maintain our standard EEO policy prohibiting discriminatory treatment of individuals with disabilities, among others. Many of us also have reasonable accommodation policies inviting employees to inform us of the need for workplace accommodations.
But for many employers, this is where the ideals and support end.
We can do better in supporting our colleagues with disabilities.
As my Littler colleague and friend, Paul Bateman, reminds us, it starts with basic ideals such as enabling closed captions option in your Zoom account for meetings, asking someone you work with about their preferred communication methods, and engaging in active listening.
A Harvard Business Review article, “4 Ways to Improve Your Company’s Disability-Inclusion Practices,” also is particularly instructive. Authored, in part, by former Accenture General Counsel Chad Jerdee, this HBR article encourages employers to consider adopting the following practices to ensure employees with disabilities enjoy equal opportunities in the workplace:
- Identify and change processes that support unconscious bias. The article highlighted how Microsoft found that people with autism weren’t getting hired despite clearly having the required knowledge and intellect. So, the Company changed the standard interview process to an assessment program involving a series of exercises designed to test teamwork and technical skills; it also provided real-time training.
- Help all employees understand the challenges that persons with disabilities face and contribute to solutions. Training to help people better understand and empathize with the challenges their colleagues may face and reduce the stigma of being disabled is critical. And then ensure that employees have access to employee resource groups (ERGs), including those focused on empowering persons with disabilities.
- Strengthen the hiring pipeline by engaging with community groups. Employers can build a robust recruitment pipeline in part by engaging with groups that support people with disabilities.
- Create a mutually supportive community. Mentoring and coaching initiatives are also vital lifelines. Persons with disabilities who serve in senior positions should strongly consider becoming mentors or champions — both internally and externally.
Another Littler colleague, Julia Diniz Tavares, offers even more tangible “interpersonal actions” here to make yours a more inclusive and accessible work environment.
Disability Pride Month 2024 ends this week. Let’s make it our mission to keep these ideals not only front of mind, but put into practice, long after July 31 is over.
And I pray that the good Lord nudges me to be a better ally every chance I get . . .