Some ideas for our conversation

* Your own story, your career and the work you do
* Your campaigning for organisations to be more accessible & inclusive (especially interested as you always do it with humour)
* Why it's important for organisations to celebrate difference / Why it is good for business
* How organisations can be more accessible (I remember you spoke about some really simple things that organisations can do and don't cost money, at the conference last March)

My introduction:

My name is Mary Doyle and my pronouns are she/her.

I'm a proud wheelchair user with a lifetime of lived experience as a Disabled person with a physical disability and a few spicy mental health conditions. I have a corporate background is in electronic payments software. A chic geek! A brief visual description for those that need it is that I'm wearing a brown snakeskin print dress with dark hair, loads of red lipstick and glasses.

Thank you for this podcast!

My background:

My background is 25 years as an international leader in software and services in electronic payments working with blue chip teams. And for the last 7 years I provide practical help in becoming more confident to think and live inclusively every day with consultancy, training and executive coaching. I'm tackling it from all angles!

How I help organisations now:

Through workshops, consultancy and coaching in a non-judgemental and shame free style. People don't know what they don't know. I take my work very seriously but myself less so, if I can take the edge off with a bit of irreverent humour to lighten the load in the room I'll do it.

Why inclusion and accessibility matters:

Because we are all beautiful humans and valuable as we are. I can give you the science bit:

20% of the global population lives with a disability so we are everywhere, most likely in your organisation already as 80% of disabilities or long term health conditions are non-visible and most people are not using an indicator like a wheelchair or a cane. These employees may also be parents themselves or caregivers to their elders.

Remember the beauty of intersectionality the world and in your organisations and workgroups.

Employees with disabilities are just as capable of success in the workplace.

Attributes of Disabled people are often valued leadership attributes, collaboration, creating solutions (on a daily basis), enabling others, self-awareness, showing vulnerability, empathy, and managing the unknown. It's very likely great people are already right there in front of you. Let us lead.

Because disabled employees, even at the CEO level, know that their competence and abilities are likely to be questioned if they share aka disclosure (a horrible word).

Even with that title, despite proving competence and capabilities at the highest levels, it is still a reality we are faced with.

So this is your reminder that it's not the disability that makes someone incapable of success, it's the judgment of it.

If somebody is seen as competent and capable until they disclose their disability, it's not the disability that is the problem, it's the judgment of it.

Why is it so hard for organisations to get it right?

I believe there are two main reasons:
1. Fear of change including getting it wrong/pushback/Loss of power - our world since the beginning of time has been built on hierarchy and exclusion

2. Secondly were talking about humans here and all the biases/misinformation we have acquired over our lifetime. There is a lot of unlearning to do.

It's actually very straightforward to fix, we know the solutions, the good information and practice is everywhere to be found. It's the human understanding of inclusion and building connections we need to address.

Covid lockdown gave us WFH overnight. This was an accommodation we had been asking for for 20 years as a disabled community. Proof it was an attitudinal barrier, a choice not to do it until it served the non-disabled person/leader also benefitting from this reason adjustment.

Making workplace environments inclusive for employees (mothers or disabled people) is not hard.

What is hard is navigating a workplace that continually devalues our humanness and our strengths while highlighting and discriminating against our differences and wishes to participate in an equal way.

Bad strategy is not understanding what is a 'reasonable adjustment' is a change that must be made to remove or reduce a disadvantage related to: an employee's disability when doing their job or a job applicant's disability when applying for a job

Reasonable Adjustments - They are a necessity.
Instead, as an employer, manager, or HR, ask employees what they need to perform their job effectively, believe what they tell you, and provide the necessary accommodations.

Then watch that person do a great job and the culture, morale, innovation grow, naturally increasing the business bottom line.

Examples of good strategy

1) Good is where we are creating cultures and environments where disclosure is no longer necessary to get support to achieve equitable outcomes.

2) Good is shifting to Accommodations. These refer to the specific needs of all people. This is not focused on disability, it is focused on all people being given the time and resources they need to do their best work and to achieve equivalent outcomes to their peers.

To me this is way more inclusive and respectful.

Absolutely all colleagues can benefit from accommodations (in their many options, ie, flexible working, a height-adjustable desk, automated doors, a space for rest during the day), shift the focus away from an implied deficit from the old-fashioned reasonable adjustments term to focus on the holistic solution of accommodations.

3) We are the expert in our lives - if we tell you then believe us.

Trust Disabled employees when we say what we need to be successful.
Trust us when we say we are Disabled, that conversation took guts.
Trust us when we describe our needs and the barriers we face.
Trust us even if we don't disclose the specific disability. It's about the tools.

An inclusive process never starts with doubting the employee's integrity.

To build trust you have to demonstrate consistent trust across the organisation and individually.

4) Every decision we make personally can raise or lower barriers to participation in society. It's our collective responsibility to lower these barriers through inclusive experiences, environments, products and services.

5) You don't have to wait for governmental legislation to be an employer of choice. You can write your own policies. Use SMEs or learn the current work of great organisations

You can work on the Disability Employment Gap (29% more people out of work compared to non-disabled people).

You can work on the Disability Pay Gap (20% less salary than non-disabled people and even greater for black/asian women).

Holly Branson at Virgin Media O2 introduced 12 weeks of paid neonatal leave added onto maternity, paternity or adoption leave.
26 weeks' paid Maternity or Adoption Leave, and 14 weeks' paid Paternity Leave to any new parent.
10 days' paid leave for those who have experienced pregnancy loss.
5 days' paid leave to help employees deal with emergencies at home or to help them support their family,
up to 10 days' paid leave to support people who have experienced a loss of a loved one.

Elon Musk gave a masterclass of what not to do last year when he let thousands of Twitter staff go, especially with a disabled staff member, it was a real insight into how he views disabled people. Don't be like Elon.

My self coaching tips:

My inner monolog is never off duty. I didn't realise not everyone talks to themselves 24/7. So I have a few, excluding the ones about cake...

Rock your difference! (They'll never be you).

Progress Over Perfection. Just start!

Nobody wins unless everybody wins - Bruce Springsteen.

Thank you Jane.