Understanding the Disability Equality Index (DEI) used by Corporations

Transcript

PETER BERG

Thank you. Welcome everyone to the October ADA audio conference session. This is to kick over to the 2019-2020 ADA audio conference season. And we are pleased that you are joining us here today. The audio conference series is a program of the ADA National Network. The ADA National Network consists of ten regional centers that are funded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services administration on community living National Institute on Disability, independent living and rehabilitation research. To locate and find out information about the center that serves your state you can visit adata.org.

We are pleased to have you joining us here today. We have a great topic. A wonderful speaker. We are in October, national disability employment awareness month. We are beginning our march to the 30th anniversary of the ADA next July 26th, 2020. We will be the 30th anniversary of the signing of that historic Civil Rights legislation. And we know that, you know, economics self-sufficiency was one of the designs and promises of the ADA and that goes right along with employment which we are going to talk about here today.

And we -- as I said we are pleased to have a wonderful presenter with us today. We have Becky Curran Kekula. And she is the Disability Equality Index director which is great when you have someone with the title of the session in their title. Their job title that works out well. Because today's session is understanding the disability equality index. Becky is with the disability in. You can find Becky's full bio on ADA-audio.org. You can find her full bio and learn more about Becky from that. As a reminder for those of you in the webinar platform you can submit questions as Becky is speaking, if something pops in your head go ahead and jot that down in the chat area and submit that and the moderators we will have that question and when we get to the portion of today's session when we have the Q and A we will have that all ready to go. So with that I will turn it over -- I'm going too first welcome Becky and thank her for joining us today and now we will turn it over to Becky for her presentation. Welcome Becky.

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Thank you so much Peter. Thank you all for having me here. I'm excited that it is national disability employment awareness month. It is a big month for our team this at disability in. We are excited to share our knowledge about the Disability Equality Index with you guys today. So here is just a quick agenda where we are going to just go over what we will talk about in this webinar. We are dwg to understand what is the DEI, how does the DEI evolve each year, what does it measure. Which companies are talking for in 2019. What does the 100 mean exactly. We will go over that. Disability inclusion beyond diversity and inclusion. And upcoming dates for the DEI. We will go through the whole timeline.

Just starting out I would like to introduce myself as a little person who identifies as being part of the disability community. Little people are include under the Americans with Disabilities Act. We do require accommodations in most scenarios. I was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. As a little person I am the only little person in my family. My parents are average height and they wanted to figure out exactly how to give me best most independent fulfilling life possible. They went to a hospital a few months after I was born and were told to meet with the genetics. When they got to the hospital they checked in at the front desk and the secretary said follow the sign down the hall that says birth defects. My parents followed that sign and were very upset to follow that sign, loss a sense of trust in the organization and hospital. And they ended up convincing the hospital to change that sign from bit defects to genetics. And one of the reasons I bring up that story is because we want to change what people are seeing and we want to make sure that people with disabilities know that they are included and they are meant to lead independent and fulfilling lives. And have employment.

We often talk about the underrepresented group of people with disabilities and it is an impact talent pool. My dream going to school being -- seems traditional just like all of my average height able bodied peers. But then after I graduated college I ended up in a situation where I needed to look for a job. I had several internship experiences that I thought could lead to an employment path. But I ended up sending out a thousand resumes and I went on a hundred interviews in the course of six months. Every time I would walk in to a room I would get judged based on my appearance. And I knew I wouldn't get the job because on somebody's body language. There were times where I was a terrible interviewer but I still didn't know why I didn't get the job and assumed that it was because of appearance as a little person walking in to a room interviewing for a job that I wasn't qualified for or I wouldn't have gotten the interview in the first place. A few months after those interviews I ended up working with some temporary placement agencies it allowed me to find a route to employment. I was a temporary employee at a talent agency for 7 months and after proving myself I was able to be hired on full time. This was a big achievement for me because I was just craving that employment route and support. After working at the talent agency as an assistant for five years I was recruited to work at a television studio in casting and I worked there for about a year.

After that I decided to move back from California where I was working to Boston and I -- a large public speaking sharing my story kind of dealing a little bit with the struggle of have I reached this level of success in my career in order to help others that I figured out that people wanted to hear my story, wanted to know about life as a little person, especially when it comes to finding employment. And after about a year and a half I was recruited to work with the actor's union and I was there in diversity department for about three years. And I had really been hoping to get a promotion after proving myself there. And it just wasn't an opportunity for me and I was recruited after that to work for Disability:IN. I started in November 2017. I was given my first promotion of my career. And now I'm proud to be a part of the disability in team, working on these efforts, helping companies get better at disability inclusion practices and I really want to emphasize the importance of having open transparent conversations so there can be a path for employees with dis abilities. Celebrate helping people move up within organizations if they choose that route or so they can find that next route to move up the ladder wherever it may be.

Today we will talk about this tool that I'm super passionate could be working on. I really enjoy working with fortune 1000 to encourage companies to take these questions publicly available on your website for DisabilityEqualityIndex.org and use them within their organization to make change toward a more inclusive workplace for people with disabilities. So the DEI came about in about 2012.

The business came to us and said there is this tool out there from the human rights campaign called the corporate equality index. Why isn't there a tool for disability inclusion? All the tools is really where our partners ask for. What the demand is. And we decided why don't we get a group together, we will get business, they have call themselves business advocates and advocates within the disability community to work together on these questions for this tool that businesses can use to measure disability inclusion. We joined the partnership with the American Association of People with Disabilities. So AAPD and Disability:IN partnered on this tool and we formed a committee who crafted all of these questions and used the corporate equality index as the template, same with eligibility criteria is very similar. But you will see there are some categories that are a little more specific to the disability community and they may be different from those questions that you may see in the corporate equality index. So we are very thankful for our partnership with the human rights campaign to get us started on this powerful index.

2019 was the fifth official year, so the first official year after the pilot was in 2015. And we started out with less than 50 companies and now we are at over 150. We had 180 participants in 2019. So with the tool that companies take aim at we are currently in the registration period for 2020. They are committing to take this self-assessment tool. It is for businesses that have operations, they must have operations in the U.S. and they fill it out on behalf of their U.S. operations, except for there is one nonrated category in the Index called the Non U.S. Operations category that's a place for companies to share guess what's going on outside the U.S. But it is mostly a U.S. business safe tool. And it provides an objective score and roadmap. As companies fill this out they start to understand where they need to make improvements. They identify the lower hanging fruit and some longer term goals. It is really a great way for companies to bring together a cross-functional team, sometimes starting with the Employee Resource Groups where there are people who are passionate about making a workplace more inclusive, who work across an organization.

The index is meant to achieve the fact that you are holding yourself accountable as a company if you start taking it because if you are measuring it, you are getting people across all levels of the organization to start paying attention, change will happen. We are always sharing best practices. We are transparent about that. We don't want one company to have to reinvent the wheel. It is really a great way to share best practices with one another. Companies within the same industry are sharing best practices. Because each company knows that they can't solve the unemployment problem for people with disabilities alone and they want to work together to get better. There are industry trends that tend to show up. We did do some research with Accenture and American association of people with disabilities was our partner on the research and analyzed the first four years of Disability Equality Index data and we were able to find trends that prove there an advantage for disability inclusion in the workplace and it affects the bottom line of the organization in a positive way. Provide a roadmap, you are able to figure out which area you want to work on and focus on and figure out when you want to get to that next goal. A lot of companies try to work towards that next survey year but then other companies may think of a longer term goal. It is important to state committed year after year so you can continue to earn credibility. And then also an indicator of long-term sustainability for investors for working closely with investors to pay attention. The companies that they invest in they are going to start being accountable to make sure they are focusing on disability inclusion.

As I had mentioned previously we had a DEI advisory committee which is 50% business and 50% advocacy, business often calls themselves business advocates. And these questions are guided by the committee. This past year 2019 was the first year we had made significant changes where some questions that were previously non-weighted became weighted. There are five categories that are weighted. And then they there is the new non-U.S. operations categories that's non-weighted meaning it does not count for the score. In 2018, for example, we introduced supplier diversity and its own category we did not have to weigh for it in 2018 but in 2019 we added weight. We always promise we will give companies at least a year advanced notice if we are going to make any changes. So going in to 2020 there will not be any nonweighted, any weighted changes. We will make sure that companies have enough advanced notice.

So here are the categories. Culture and leadership, enterprise wide access. I would say that that one is definitely different than what you may see in the corporate equality index because it measures building and website accessibility, employment practices, Community engagement, supplier diversity and non-U.S. operations. So culture the subcategory culture within culture and leadership is worth 20 points and all of the rest subcategories are worth 10 points. It really proves that it starts with culture. We ask diversity and inclusion statement includes the word disability. We ask for backup information. Can you share a link, can you share the paragraph where it includes that word. And unless disability is intentionally included in all diversity conversations, it continues to feel less depth and it is important to make sure that the community is included.

Enterprise wide access, a big piece there is website accessibility. We want to make sure that companies are paying equal attention to their external faces in websites as they are internal facing websites. A lot of times companies are focusing on attracting employees and they don't necessarily think about what if someone were to work at the company and want to access timesheets or payroll. So it is important to attract potential employees and customers from the same way. Employment practices, we talk about benefits. Recruitment, making sure that people are asking candidates whether it is career portal or coming in for an interview, asking them if they need an accommodation for that process. Making sure that people are paid fairly. We also ask the question if there are any employees who utilize the supported employment. If you have a personality profile screening test you allow applicants the option to opt out of that test. What is important about that piece is that we want to make sure there are no barriers when it comes to the application and job interview and screening process for potential employees with disability who can add a lot of value to an organization. Ideally a company does not have the profile screening test but if they do, that allow someone the option to opt out of that as an accommodation. It also add an accommodation question, or category or subcategory where we ask questions like do you have an accommodation policy. Do your employees know where to find it? Do you have a process for when people are asking for accommodations?

And then community engagement, are you making your social media postings accessible. Adding descriptions to photos or captions to videos. Are you engaging with disability community in different activities? Supplier diversity, we are really stressing the importance of this category because it is another viable career path for people with disabilities. You can start your own business. 50% owned and operated by someone with a disability. 51% and you can get certified. Disability:IN had a two year certification. Our corporate partner can see this hub these disability owned businesses and they can start doing business together. Non-U.S. operations, I have mentioned some of the companies who have been participating in the DEI have only operated in the U.S. but there are some companies that have operations outside the U.S. And this is the time for companies to share best practices just so we can start navigating the landscape outside of the U.S. Disability:IN did publish a public directory where we profile thirty countries what the laws are and any resources that we may have and that was also influenced by our corporate partners asking us to do research in different areas. As I mentioned culture is 20 points. The rest of the categories and subcategories within the categories are up to ten points and in each category there is different methodology, like you must answer four of the weighted questions that -- in order to get the points for this category. You either answer four or three whatever it may be, or -- and you get that ten points. Or if you answer maybe two, you would get 0 points for that category. So it is not an in between. So it is either you are getting ten points or the 20 points for culture and as up to 100 if you get the most points you can make for the categories. Also a lot of room for improvement because there are questions that are non-weighted, meaning they don't count toward your score and if you answer no to some of those questions you may still get the full points for that categories. We do not mean perfection when we talk about 100%. It means you are practicing a lot of the practices for disability inclusion but by no means does it mean perfection.

In 2019 these are the companies that scored 100. Just can see some these logos that these companies that are committed to disability inclusion and it is important to know that these companies know that there are on a journey and they still have a long way to go. We do award our top scoring companies at our conference every year in July. So this coming year it will be July 15th through 18th in Orlando. And we really want -- July 13th through 16th in Orlando. The 15th is when we announce the top scoring companies and the 100 scoring companies are announced at our dinner. Again just at 100% it means that companies should be proud of this. But not use the term perfection. They will get recognition across their digital channels. We will promote on the Disability:IN site and then the company is also welcome to promote with their own press releases. Sometimes there is requests that comes in to our conference or they reach out to us wanting to promote the top scoring companies. There might be different avenues within different states celebrating the companies that have headquarters there. It is great for -- to see a lot of companies work together because they are wanting to compete with others in their industry. And this is an opportunity for them to be listed next to their industry peers. And know that they are on this journey together.

Having best place to work logo allows companies to feel proud and share it on their sites and their signature line so then they can attract potential talent with disabilities. Or consumers with disabilities. Companies we have seen have also included in their diversity and inclusion report their corporate social responsibility report, and their ESG reports. Peter, do we want to play the video?

VIDEO

ESG Video

PETER BERG

our captioner is -- is back. So go ahead and continue, Becky. Start over again, please.

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Thank you. So for those of you on the phone who missed the video, it talks about the importance of impact investing. And it features American Association of People with Disabilities board chair Ted Kennedy Jr. He is a big partner in this journey with us. And he told us that we needed a business case for disability inclusion and that's how we came about the partnership with Accenture so the video also features Chad Jerdee from Accenture talking about the importance of disability inclusion within an organization and then also New York state comptroller Tom DiNapoli who talks about the importance of disability inclusion and how he holds investors accountable to ask those companies they invest in to pay attention to disability inclusion. And you can see on our website a Disability Equality Index.org website, there are links to investor statements and Accenture research that we invite you to read and download and spread far and wide as we continue to spread the word about the importance and benefits of the disability inclusion in the workplace and in society.

As I had promised there are -- the upcoming key dates are listed here. So we are currently in the registration period for the 2020 Disability Equality Index. Companies are fortune 1000 thousands, AM Law 200, and additional companies 500 employees or more. If you are a smaller company we invite you to download questions on our website and you can start applying some of the questions to things that may be happening within your organization. There are definitely some practical steps you can take even in the small organizations. Registration will officially close on January 31st and then company the will receive access to the benchmark on February 3rd and they will have until April 10th to complete it.

A lot of companies are preparing now since they are able to download the questions in a PDF Word or Excel document and they can start passing it around within their organization and get those answers. Once February 3rd comes around they are ready to start including the information in the survey itself. Benchmark closes on April 10th and then on July 15th we will announce a top scoring companies at our conference. Companies will receive their individual scores around the end of May. But that won't be published until July 15th if the score 89 or 100 we say this is a carrot not a stick. We do not publish companies that below 80 scores and we are happy to be on the journey and get started and we know some day if they stay committed they will become a top scoring company.

As I have mentioned several times the Disability:IN conference is takes place from July 13th to 16th in 2020 at the Ritz-Carlton & J.W. Marriott Grande Lakes in Orlando, Florida it is a great opportunity for companies to share best practices with others in their industry, others in other industries engage with the disability communities and also attend. We have a next gen leader program where students and recent graduates in STEM finance or business fields who are hired on site at our conference and then there is different tracks, there is supplier diversity track, technology track, marketplace track. You can really focus on some of these things that may be of interest to you. All related to disability inclusion and business.

There is also a Disability Equality Index breakout session that will be taking place along the top scorer reception that takes place before our dinner on the 15th. And then the actual dinner where we announce the top scoring companies and registration for 2020 for the Disability Equality Index will open before this conference and it is a great way to get committed and get excited and learn from other peers.

This last slide is my information that I know that we have a lot of time left and I would love to just answer any questions anything that may be on someone's mind related to the index. I can help clarify anything that may be on someone's mind and happy to take any questions.

PETER BERG

All right. Becky, thank you very much. Justin if you would rejoin us and give our telephone participants instructions on how they can ask questions as a reminder folks in the webinar platform you can continue to submit your questions in the chat area. You will not see a question when it is submitted but it is viewable by moderator. So Justin, please.

OPERATOR:

Yes, sir. As a reminder to ask your question you will need to press Star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question press the Pound key #. Again, that's STAR 1 on your touch tone telephone. Please stand by as we compile the Q and A roster.

PETER BERG

Thank you, Justin. Becky as we wait for additional questions to come in, just as a starter, can you -- give us the history, the mission, the purpose of Disability:IN participants that may not be familiar with Disability:IN how that began and where it started and where it is now and the role that it plays in, you know, increasing addressing employment people with disabilities.

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Yes, So I mentioned I have been with Disability:IN for a little over a year and a half but there are definitely a lot of risks that have been going on for a very long time. Disability:IN used to be called United States business leadership network before it was under the president's committee focusing on disability inclusion. And it is really meant to help business engage with the disability community and be more inclusive. Where business's partner for disability inclusion. The reason we changed our name is actually our conference last year in 2018, we went from United States business leadership network to Disability:IN because disability was nowhere in our name and we also knew that we wanted to go beyond our borders as we continue to work on these disability inclusion efforts. And we also wanted to strengthen the word disabilities. We try to be very broad when we talk about disability. We are referring to how disability is defined in the Americans with Disabilities Act when we do our trainings and we want people to know that into disability should be left behind.

You will see in the index that we try to be as broad as possible even though some questions may be more helpful to others, to some communities than others. Supplier diversity program that came about because business came to us and said there are all these businesses coming to us but we don't know if there legit. That when we decided we will host our own certification and then companies began to build a level of trust with these certified businesses. And next gen leader program, similar thing. Businesses came to us and said where do we find the talent now that we are ready to hire the talent and we work with them to mentor and get people ready to work. We have monthly webinars. Our corporate partners we have over 185 corporate partners and they are able to participate in monthly webinars and online portal where they have multiple resources.

We also have an inclusion works program which is a deep dive consulting practices. It is three year commitment that we hand hold as much as companies may need to help them in whatever goals they may have and they get together with other companies within the inclusion works group to share best practices twice a year in person. One at our conference and usually something on the West Coast in January. And then we have had over 25,000 hires among those companies of people with disabilities. And they are also working on efforts to get access to people who may have been in their career a little longer and want to look towards retention and advancement. And we are continuously working with companies especially through the month of October for national disability employment awareness month. A lot of companies that are getting started on disability inclusion journey. We have a procurement Council which focuses on supply diversity and we have a global round table, companies coming together to share global best practices and then we have the DEI advisory committee. I invite everyone to check out our website disabilityin.org and you will see a plethora of resources to learn more about what we are doing.

PETER BERG

Excellent. Thank you for that history and then providing overview. So people understand where the Disability Equality Index fits in to the overall mission and purpose of what the Disability:IN is doing. Someone wanted a clarification on the number of employees accompanying each to in order to participate in the index.

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

It must be 500 employees or more.

PETER BERG

Okay. And was there a particular reason? Was that done for research purposes? What was the -- is there a reason behind that particular number?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

We worked very closely with the human rights campaign on their criteria for the corporate equality index. And we also have to think about how you measure a 40,000 person company up against a two person company. We have to kind of pick a number where they could really manage the process of filling out the form as well. First year a company participates it will take 30 to 40 hours to fill out and you want to make sure you have the manpower to do that as well.

PETER BERG

Excellent. And you did say that smaller employers, companies with fewer employees can still download and use the questions to help, you know, drive their disability diversity and inclusion?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Absolutely. That's why we try to make everything as transparent as possible and they there are also best practices that they can see as well on our website.

PETER BERG

And that was another question that Becky, our part of the company the businesses that participate in the index, as you mention not everyone scores a hundred and it is the carrot approach. So for those companies that don't score hundred or even for the ones that do score a hundred, are there resources that are provided for the different categories, cultural and, you know, reasonable accommodation process and accessible technology, are the companies providing with resources to help them work on those particular areas?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Absolutely. So a lot of times a company May come and say we are struggling to answer this question or understand what it means and I will go through it with them and share some samples, confidential samples of appropriate way to answer is that question, if that's where they are stuck. But then there may also be times where they don't know how to implement whatever the question is asking and I will connect them with other companies to have made more progress in that specific area with the company's permission. They connect and hopefully can guide each other. And then resources just in general always happy to share best practices. Basically customized to whatever a company may be focusing on or struggling with.

PETER BERG

Okay. And a question about the community engagement, had the category that talked about, you know, accessibility of websites both internal and external inward facing and outward facing. Was the -- person wanted to know what was the decision to include the accessibility of social media under that community engagement category. And not the other category that's looking at website accessibility?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

That's a great question. I think this is more thinking about attracting customers versus internally within an organization, there isn't -- the online portals and there is online chat function. There is not necessarily like an internal Twitter or internal Facebook I guess. But you would want to still think about engaging with the community within the organization. But it is meant to be kind of two-pronged community engagement externally and internally and that is the place where it sits for now but doesn't mean that it can't change in the future.

PETER BERG

Sure. Absolutely. And have you not personally, but has the organization been tracking the companies that have once they have done the index, once that they come back a second or third year and I know this is -- I think you said this is the fifth year that the index was -- was offered. But have you seen, you know, once a company, once an employer participates in the equality index wants that they come back versus, you know, the percentage of companies that do it one time and then don't return for a second or third year?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Absolutely. Especially now in another new feature in 2019 is that take index once, you will be able to prepopulate your answers in the next year. Of course, require go through and take your time filling it out. Making sure you make updates where appropriate. But it cuts down a little bit on the timeline once you have that first year where you gather all the information. And I think that has been an attractive feature. Also I have just seen that companies once they do commit and get that permission internally to go for it, I guess that support year after year and really unless they score really low, they won't question participating again. But it is important for them to know that if they continue to stay committed that will show ways to improve.

PETER BERG

Okay. Great. And we have a question I think it is related to something that you mentioned when going to the category, somebody wanted to know, how do personality screening tests an impact on the hiring process for people with disabilities?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Even though I said we are pretty broad about talking about disability as whole, people who may struggle with some social skills may struggle with a personality profile screening test and it doesn't necessarily mean that they are not going to be able to do the job well. So there have been people within even next gen leader in the past can apply to company and fail that test and to wait a whole year to be able to apply to that company again and we are just trying to figure out how to prevent future barriers for a job that someone may be able to do really well and that was the one hurdle.

PETER BERG

Thank you. A couple of different pieces to this question. Have any of public entities approach Disability:IN public as local governments and wanting to use the tool to measure, you know, their employment practices?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Yes. Absolutely. But currently it is not open to the Federal Government to cover -- for nongovernment entities. But it doesn't prevent anyone from downloading the questions and starting to apply things within the organization no matter what the structure may be.

PETER BERG

Okay. And do you track or know whether you are seeing federal contractors, because nongovernment entities but that have obligations under Department of Labor rules regarding, you know, the targeted employment rate of 7% of employees with disabilities, have you seen those federal contractors looking to increase their, you know, their efforts in employing people with disabilities by using the index?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Absolutely. A large percentage of participants thus far have been federal contractors.

PETER BERG

Okay. The -- you talked about that you are seeing -- that you had seen some trends over the five years that you have got a good amount of data to look at over that time. So you need to talk about some of those trends and some of the things that the data has shown for the employers that have participated in the index thus far?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Absolutely. I think employers are starting to attract more potential employees with disabilities by proving that they are committed. Companies are starting to pay more attention to the fact it is important for your website to be equally accessible inward facing as well as outward facing. We are starting to track based on that required hired and starting to measure and figure out thou get employees to feel more comfortable and trust the employer to open up about their disabilities. So then the proper accommodations can be provided. I think sometimes there are people who do request accommodations but don't necessarily identify as having a disability.

So figuring out how to navigate that piece of the culture. Businesses are starting to learn that there are some great disability owned businesses service disabled veteran owned businesses that are really great to work with. And we are seeing that companies are engaging in that space more. Employees with disabilities are being hired based on the mentoring relationships that we have been able to form through the organization. We were able to find out through the DEI this past year that 3.2% on average of employees who are new employees identify as having a disability and 3.7% of existing employees have a disability ideally we get to that 7%. But again this is average among companies who are and are not federal contractors. And I think just overall companies are paying attention because they know that disability can be a part of someone's life at any point in time. And now is the time to focus on making sure disability is included in all of diversity and inclusion conversations. And every conversation.

PETER BERG

Becky, can you go back to those numbers 3.2% and 3.7% of. Where does that come? Are you talking about employers that participate in the index and how are they arriving at those numbers? Is that something that's part of the index?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Great question. So the companies taking part in the 2019 DEI represent a total of U.S. workforce of 8.6 or -- almost 8.7 million and then on average 3.2% of new hires identify as having a disability whereas 3.7% of current employees identify as having a disability.

PETER BERG

And those numbers are coming from that 8.7 million, the employers companies are participating in the index?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Correct.

PETER BERG

And as part of the index and this is a question that I had myself, are -- are employers, you know, nonfederal contract employers are employers encouraged to do -- to survey existing employees to try to identify how many employees they have working currently that have disabilities?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

So do you mind repeating that again?

PETER BERG

Sorry. As part of the index or is there anything that encourages or suggests or recommends that employers participate in the index, survey their current employees to try to get a handle on the number of employees that they currently have who are persons with disabilities?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Just employee engagement survey or self-I.D. campaigns?

PETER BERG

Yeah. I -- I'm sorry, the question is sort of, you know, I guess one way to measure the effectiveness of a company's efforts to increase diversity and increase the -- their employment of people with disabilities is knowing at one point, you know, at a starting point, you know, how many employees we have with disabilities. And then, you know, eight years down the road, ten years down the road, five years down the road after we have implemented these different things, and done the index is there a change, do we now employ more people with disabilities than we did previously. So that was sort of where my question was going. Are employers encouraged to find out a baseline of how many employees they currently have with disabilities?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Okay. I think -- it is really a lot of it is storytelling. So as the company continues to participate people who get involved with the disability related Employee Resource Group, the more people spend time together I think the more they come out that someone with a disability if they are able to feel a level of trust and I think just hand in hand the commitment to the index year after year encourages employees maybe indirectly or directly to start feeling they are comfortable talking about their disability and then that can help bring the numbers up.

PETER BERG

And the data thus far in the trends that you talked about, has -- AAPD or Disability:IN is that being accessed by policy makers to -- in a different realm to develop policies at the federal or local level, state levels, to address employment issues impacting people with disabilities?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

We tried to -- our approach historically is companies to trying to participate to the index and they can work with the government in any which way they may want. But as if far us working with the government to make that's changes. They are not part of our wheel house at this time.

PETER BERG

Great.

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

More companies are implementing these changes, and it starts a trend, anything could happen. If that makes sense.

PETER BERG

Yep. Absolutely. And another question, someone had submitted in the webinar platform was wanting to know if there is any list of -- a list by state of employers of companies that are, you know, looking to proactively outreach to the -- to people with disabilities and hire people with disabilities?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

It is not public facing that information, sometimes people may come to me and ask who the top scoring companies is in this state, kind of one-off. But it would be good to just kind of go through the companies and identify -- of the top scoring list, identify which companies one knows has a big presence in their state. Or you can look up on the fortune list that always shows people's headquarters. There are ways to navigate but even if it is not a headquarters, it is a big retailer, for example, Walgreens or CVS health you can recognize that they are an employer in your local area since even if it is not the headquarters. I usually have companies take a look at that top scoring list and identify those who have presence and go after them that way.

PETER BERG

Okay. And a question, whether related to the index or stories in your work within Disability:IN have you seen, you know, companies that are part of Disability :IN change the way that they think about, you know, some of their positions, their jobs in terms of people with disabilities and doing things differently whether it is job sharing or a company that previously didn't look at telework or work from home. Any examples that area where employers participate in the index or employers affiliated part of Disability:IN looking at their jobs differently as part of their efforts to hire people with disabilities?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Absolutely. I think being part of Disability:IN, there are a lot of light bulb moments and changes that are able to happen. I think the more we engage with people the point person we may engage with, they can start navigating their organization and we help them with talking points and connecting with people at higher levels within an organization. And when they bring learnings and best practices back to their organization after our conference we definitely see a lot of change happen. And I think it just the more we get more companies committed the more change will happen and it will become the norm.

PETER BERG

Excellent. And that peer to peer dynamic right, that Disability:IN all about, you know, employers teaching other employers, you know, best practices and the values of hiring employing people with disabilities?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Absolutely.

PETER BERG

All right. Someone wanted -- if you could go over the -- if you have the data for the top companies from the 2018 compared to the 2019 and if there are companies that continue to score well or if that changes from year to year. And someone -- wanted a recap on the -- on the 2019 companies if you could.

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

On our website you can download the top scoring list from 2015 to 2019. But what I will say is supplier diversity was not weighted in 2018 and then was weighted in 2019. Companies did lose points. There were some companies that went down in score. Because they hadn't built out their supplier diversity department or initiative. And then also enterprise wide access to web content accessibility guidelines in June of 2018 went from 2.0 to 2.1 and also made sure that companies were up to par with that as well. So I would say that companies some went backwards in enterprise wide access and now we are giving companies a chance to continue to work on those initiatives going in to 2020 year.

PETER BERG

So that's interesting, that you are -- you have the group that is continually looking at the index and, you know, updating it and you mention during your presentation that companies are given a heads up a year -- heads up before anything changes on that. Can you talk about the composition of the -- of the group that looks at the index and the questions, I think you said that 50% are your business partners and 50% are your corporate advocates. So if you could talk about the composition of that that group and are there researchers and other policymakers that, you know, help drive the index that it is -- that it is effective in providing information and data that's useful to the exercise which is ultimately the employment of people with disabilities.

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

That's a great question. I invite everyone to go to the DEI website and you can see the filtering down of those people who participate on the committee. I would say that there are people at all different levels of the -- of an organization. It is equally as important to have the advocates in the room across disabilities to be able to speak to what's important to them but then business is able to share their perspective on what may be a shorter term versus longer term goal realistically based on how organizations are structured. And not all organizations are structured the same.

I think it is just important to know that there are people thinking about it and also asking their colleagues who may not necessarily serve on the committee who work in the appropriate department and will continue to bring in people from different areas of organizations to help us strengthen some of the categories that we haven't made changes to. And we will continue to listen to the committee and those who may also have feedback and we invite people to read all the questions and tell us what could be stronger. Keeping in mind that this is specifically an employment tool. I know we have that community engagement category but it is really about employment of people with disabilities and we know there is a lot of work to do in all areas of companies. So we are really focusing on the employment piece and preventing barriers to employment of people with disabilities across every organization.

PETER BERG

Okay. Thanks for that answer. A question, clarification about the data. Someone wants to know can a company employer participate in the index and keep their data private.

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

The data is always private. I would be the only one that would see the information as the administer and that survey -- the benchmark developer. As far as if you score 89 or a 100 we would encourage you to be proud of that and have your company name published but really as you will even see in the disability quality index report, it's a compilation of data and stats based on company responses. There is nothing that specifically calls out a particular company for doing this that or the other thing. So I would say that the data is analyzed. But it is not outward facing talking about your organization and what you are doing and not doing.

PETER BERG

Okay. And then we had a question come in looking for a clarification on the group that looks at the index and the corporate advocate. So are those individuals' employees of the companies that are members of Disability:IN. Is that where that 50% comes from?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Yes.

PETER BERG

Are they recruited from Disability:IN?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

We ask the person if they are expressing interest. If they then sometimes have to get approval from someone else within their organization to sign off on committee participation but it is usually people who express interest and are -- basically can fill a need that we may not have filled previously. Recently added someone who works as a researcher within an organization. We added that we have had one of cochairs chief diversity officer. Sitting in all different roles. But also to express interest in order to make meaningful contributions to the committee.

PETER BERG

Excellent and someone had a question about the number of employers that just participated in the most recent index of 2019 and I think you said that was the most that it completed it thus far?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Correct. In 2019 we had 180 and then before that in 2018 we had 145. And in 2017 we had 110.

PETER BERG

That participated. And a follow-up question to that, was there a push back regarding completing the index because of the amount of time and how in-depth it was and how was that -- that sold -- the getting the companies to participate in doing the index.

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Yeah, I will say there was a bit of a drop-off. Companies committed to participate and there were -- decided not to continue based on the commitment and time that it took. There is a lot of turnover in organizations, especially in DEI roles who are usually responsible for filling out the tool it doesn't have to be that person but it is really who steps within up an organization and takes that leadership position for filling out all the answers. And that sometimes prevents a company from staying committed. But I would say that we are having positive perspectives for those companies who said they are going to back out, but then will commit again this coming year. So we are just always on a journey with companies and at the end of the day it is the company's decision to stay committed throughout the whole route because we can't fill it out on their behalf and they need to stay on top of it and committed and make the deadline so we can keep everything on schedule.

PETER BERG

And do you -- do you have a ballpark figure of how long it takes a company to complete the survey and, you know, track down the information and provide, you know, any additional information as part of the survey to you?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

It is estimated 30 to 40 hours. But it really depends on communication across departments within an organization. And that's why we make the question available. So people can get those answers that they need in before the time to complete the tool.

PETER BERG

Right. And Justin do we have any questions on the telephone at this time?

OPERATOR:

No, sir.

PETER BERG

Thank you, sir. Becky sort of a common statement that came in and with that I'll ask for your thoughts. But we know that in general the nations that pretty historical low unemployment rates and the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is still, you know, percentage points higher than the unemployment rate for people without disabilities. But, you know, the real number is what the employment rate. Not the unemployment rate. So how many people with disabilities are actually participating in the -- that are actually employed and that's where you see a much more significant difference between, you know, an employment rate of over 70% for people without disabilities and somewhere around 30% or in that range for people with disabilities. So, you know, with regards to the work that Disability:IN is doing, what -- are the next steps, what needs to be done, whether, you know, to increase that employment rate for people with disabilities. We know that Baby Boomers are retiring and will continue to retire at increasingly higher rates which is going to leave, you know, a large void for employers out there. And we know that there is this huge untapped tool of people with disabilities out there. So what are the next steps of moving that untapped pool from the ranks of, you know, unemployed or underemployed to employed. It is a large question for you.

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Being intentional about inclusion and not being afraid to ask for help. We have a lot of great resources within our organization. Our conference keeps growing year after year. People are getting hired at our conference. If we continue this trend it is only going to get better. As you celebrate the 30th anniversary of the ADA as I said investors are now paying attention, where really wanted companies to take this seriously because it is an untapped talent pool and if we fill a lot of those vacant jobs the return on investment will be powerful.

PETER BERG

And that data in the trend that you have seen over the years of the disability index has been used. Is that provided back to -- not just the folks who participated in the index but just Disability:IN and business in general as to the -- these are the positive benefits of employing and reaching out to the disability community?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Absolutely. I encourage everyone to read the Accenture report. You can go to the Disability Equality Index website to download it and you will see best practices that the -- those companies who are doing well are practices and setting the standard that other companies should also work towards.

PETER BERG

As we keep getting close to our finish here, you have mentioned that you have seen increased participation in the index over the years. Has there been increased growth in Disability:IN in general from year to year. Are new employers new companies coming on as they recognize the work that Disability:IN is doing and we like to think that everyone does everything because it is right thing to do. Oftentimes that's not reason. Oftentimes it is the bottom line the almighty dollar that drives things. So is Disability:IN seeing a growth as companies recognize, you know, not -- the right thing but also, you know, that bottom line benefit of hiring people with disabilities?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Absolutely. We are growing. Our conference this past summer had 2,000 people and we are expecting more in 2020. Index participation grows. You do not have to be corporate partner of Disability:IN to participate in the index. There is a $600 fee that companies do pay it because it is really just the administrative fee of the tool itself. And a lot of times that is the way to bring people in the pipeline. They committed to the index and figure out what they want to focus on engage with Disability:IN as a partner to help them advance.

PETER BERG

Is the conference open to nonmembers or is that just for --

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Absolutely. Registration should be opening in the coming months.

PETER BERG

Excellent. Well, we are going to wrap up our session today. I want to thank Becky for joining us not just for your time today presenting but want to join you for the time you spent preparing for today's session. It is truly appreciated. So as a reminder today's session has been recorded. And the archive will be posted within 24 hours to the ADA-audio.org website and we there is an edited transcript that will go up in about two weeks' time once that is -- that has been edited. So I want to thank everyone for participating today. As we continue our 2019-2020 audio conference season, and November we will again be focusing on employment as we march towards the 30th anniversary of the signing of Americans with Disabilities Act. We will have a session on leave under the ADA and FMLA leave, still a hot topic when it comes to the ADA. We have Joe Bonke. Will be our speaker. There is a special date that will take place on November the 12th.

And you can find registration information on ADA-audio.org for that upcoming sessions and other sessions in the audio conference series that are posted already. If you have questions you can give us a call at 877-232-1990. And if you want to get information about your regional ADA center again, visit adata.org and one last question. If I can get this in before I sneak out. Are there any entities that certify organizations as businesses being disability owned or veteran disability owned businesses?

BECKY CURRAN KEKULA:

Yes, that's Disability:IN. You can go to website: DisabilityIN.org. Scroll down to supplier diversity and you will get all the information there.

PETER BERG

Excellent. Excellent. Thank you very much again Becky for joining us. Thank you to all of our participants. You will receive an e-mail with a link to an evaluation for today's session. We encourage you to complete the evaluation. That helps us with our programming and planning for future sessions. So please complete that. We look forward to having you join us in November and for all of our future sessions. Thanks again to everyone and take care and good day.

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