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HR entrepreneur Mike Coffey, SPHR, SHRM-SCP engages business thought leaders about the strategic, psychological, legal, and practical implications of bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. As an HR consultant, mentor to first-stage businesses through EO’s Accelerator program, and owner of Imperative—Bulletproof Background Screening, Mike is passionate about helping other professionals improve how they recruit, select, and manage their people. Most thirty-minute episodes of Good Morning, HR will be eligible for half a recertification credit for both HRCI and SHRM-certified professionals. Mike is a member of Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) Fort Worth and active with the Texas Association of Business, the Fort Worth Chamber, and Texas SHRM.
People move in and out of the disability category. It's the it's the unique diversity category that people can move into and out of. So somebody may have joined the company, never checked that disability box. But 2 years in, they might have an accident, and now they are. So then they may need that accommodation that they didn't even think of early on in their career.
Ron Fish:So it's highly beneficial, but I think what we've done that's very innovative have just sort of removed that requirement where somebody doesn't have to apply and convince us they need the accommodation, we just simply grant it.
Mike Coffey:Good morning, HR. I'm Mike Coffey, president of Imperative, bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. And this is the podcast where I talk to business leaders about bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. Please follow Rate and Review Good Morning HR wherever you get your podcast. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or at good morning hr.com.
Mike Coffey:According to today's guest, people with disabilities are the largest minority group in the world, but only 5% of employers are including this underrepresented group in their targeted diversity and inclusion efforts. Ron Fish is the global talent acquisition leader for Ivanti, a global software company. In addition to the many responsibilities one would expect for that role, he is also the company's disability inclusion and accessibility ambassador. Ron is a passionate advocate for people with disabilities in the workplace and his efforts on their behalf has led to many awards, most recently as the recipient of the 20 24 hour standout award at last fall's Carolina HR Summit. He is also honored with the Golden Key Award from the Utah Governor's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities.
Mike Coffey:Welcome to Good Morning HR, Ron.
Ron Fish:Hey. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate the, the great introduction. And based on your, recent guests, I think I'm in great company, so I appreciate the opportunity.
Mike Coffey:Well, thanks for being here. So let's start with your backstory. I find that usually people who are passionate about something have a reason for that. So what drove your awareness and passion for the challenge that people with disabilities have in the workplace?
Ron Fish:So, yeah, you totally caught me. I I grew up with a father who was blind, so I would say that I gleaned a lot of inspiration from my dad. Also, in my immediate family, my wife and my daughter both have dyslexia, and I have a son with ADHD as well. So I've been able to sort of champion support and accommodations for my own family, and that has really inspired me and kinda helped me connect that personal and professional life where now I'm obsessed with, disability inclusion and accessibility.
Mike Coffey:It's interesting because we seem to be having a theme running so far in January 2025. Last week's episode was about neurodiverse employees in the workplace, and so, I'm glad maybe we'll take the the broader look today at individuals with with general, you know, whatever you want to call a disability. But let's just start with the obvious. We've had the Americans with Disabilities Act on the books since 1990, So why are we even talking about this?
Ron Fish:Yeah. It's a great point. I think, you know, you started off with that data point that I shared, which was that only 5% of employees are including disabilities as part of their DE and I initiatives. 90% are including gender in the workplace issues. 75% are including, race and ethnicity issues.
Ron Fish:So when you come to the disability sector, most are really looking at it more from that charity perspective. So they're, you know, sort of it's part of their giving budget, but they're not necessarily making an impact for people with disabilities because people with disabilities certainly love to be an inspiration. But at the end of the very end of the day, they want you to hire them. They don't wanna inspire you. They want they wanna get a job and and be employed like everybody else.
Mike Coffey:And it sounds like we're not doing a good job of that if, I mean, if if there's all these awards out there for it and you spend so much time on the speaking circuit about it. What do you think that disconnect is? Because, I mean, again, we do have the ADA. We have the interactive process. Is it that disabled folks are not advocating for themselves, that employers just aren't aware?
Mike Coffey:What do you think the big disconnect there is?
Ron Fish:Yeah. And I did make some traction pretty quick, Mike, and I was sort of surprised. But then when I found out that only 5% of employers are doing something about it, it was sort of, you know, an enlightening moment for me. But, yeah, absolutely. I think that it's a dual problem.
Ron Fish:75% of the global workers with disabilities don't disclose that to their employers. So while I talk a lot about building an inclusive hiring program with accessible aspects, accommodations, At the very end of the day, as an employer, if you have x number of employees that have a disability that they've they've acknowledged it or disclosed it, that number is likely 4 times that amount. So, yeah, it is a complex issue for sure.
Mike Coffey:So when you when you're talking about hidden disabilities, I mean, you mentioned, you know, ADHD and and, you know, I mentioned neurodiversity like, autism, which is primarily what we talked about last week. Are you talking about those kinds of things? And so when somebody maybe is even having performance issues, they're in a PIP because they're not meeting expectations, the employer is not recognizing that this person has an issue, maybe would be covered under ADA or maybe even if, you know, it regardless of ADA, it's something the employer could do to make this person productive and a a good employee just for the business case of it, and those employees just aren't, you know, bringing that up. Is that a fear of a stigma or a bias, or do you think they just don't recognize how that's maybe impacting them?
Ron Fish:It's absolutely fear of a stigma. You know, if you find out that I have ADHD, you're gonna automatically assume that I may not be able to focus at work. I may not be productive. But the reality is I'm somebody who I may need to take a break during the day, but I might work all night because I there's a deadline, and I I'm obsessed with getting it done. So you get a lot more productivity at times.
Ron Fish:But, absolutely, that stigma is where we can sort of create and raise the awareness, create that visibility, and then create a more of a safe place for people where they can not just and everybody talks about bring your whole self to work. Well, I advocate for taking it a step further. Let's enable our people to be their whole self at work.
Mike Coffey:Okay. So that yeah. That's, that would be not having to hide that or, you know, if you've got something, you know, whether it's, you know, your wheelchair bound or, you know, that kind of accessibility, or I need this this monitor or this unique, you know, piece of equipment that'll help me be fully productive at work.
Ron Fish:Yeah. Those accommodations, most of them don't cost anything, but they the statistic, like, in the US is, accommodations for somebody who may have a severe disability, like a physical disability, versus the, you know, the the mental disabilities, the invisible ones that are about 80% of all disabilities, the 20%, even those might only be $500, you know, to to sort of get somebody to a place where they've got accommodations. Somebody with dyslexia may may benefit from a screen reader or more advanced speech to text, and those things are not terribly expensive for employers.
Mike Coffey:So our listeners who aren't watching the video can't see your t shirt, and it has hashtag accessibility across the chest. When you're talking about accessibility, what does that term really
Ron Fish:mean? It's really creating disability access. And if you start with what we call universal design, you're really building something that is accessible for everybody regardless of ability level. So in other words, I'm taking into account that people with disabilities may be using a process or maybe part of a process. So I'm really building something that is gonna be beneficial for everybody.
Ron Fish:If you think about it, if under a tight deadline, I have to build an entrance to a building, I could build a set of steps, which would be logical for everybody that is neurotypical, that that doesn't have physical disabilities. But if I build a ramp, everybody can use the ramp. Right? So I'm I'm kind of thinking ahead, and I'm building an entrance to a building with a ramp where everybody can then enter. And perhaps we can add steps later.
Ron Fish:But if we start with that universal design approach, that's really what we're talking about is building something, a process, a physical feature that's gonna be beneficial, and it's gonna work for everybody.
Mike Coffey:Are there universal design approaches that aren't just related to physical disabilities? I mean, do you apply the are there ways to apply that to how you design work or things like that?
Ron Fish:Sure. And, really, what you wanna do is create accessibility within your digital and physical workplaces. Right? So if you think about, you know, sometime back, everybody's iPhones, we now have dark mode on there. Well, guess what?
Ron Fish:Dark mode is cool. Right? Kids like it. But it's hue it's hugely beneficial to people with dyslexia because looking at a white screen with black letters is a worst nightmare for most with dyslexia. But having that dark screen with white letters is a game changer for them.
Ron Fish:So that simple accommodation or that simple, feature is actually, kind of a universal design an example of universal design where it might be cool to me, but for you, it might be something that just is a game changer. Now you can, more readily read and see what's on the screen.
Mike Coffey:And you mentioned DEI. I think the big part here for me is in this conversation seems to be the the inclusion piece. What is it when you're talking about inclusion for for people with disabilities, what does inclusion look like? What does it, you know, what are you talking about?
Ron Fish:So one thing we've done at my company, we have what we call an accessibility club. And it's, you know, you could liken it to the the traditional ERG that might be focused in one specific area. So this club spans all of our departments. We have lots of participants, and we really use it as a way to to raise awareness and bring visibility, whether it be digital or physical workplace additions, benefits that we can add. The interesting thing is that we have a monthly, meeting where we have now 80 to a 100 people that attend.
Ron Fish:A little earlier this year, we had a presentation on neurodiversity, and we were talking about neurodiversity from the perspective of ADHD, dyslexia, autism, and so on. During that presentation, a lot of great visibility was raised. And, you know, just discussing generally people with disabilities, it created this safe place that was it was I had to kinda sit back and say, wow, we just did something that I never expected. We accelerated inclusion in a way that I've never seen before because we had people on that call saying, hey, I've told people before at my job that I've got a disability, but I never really felt comfortable talking about it freely. Somebody else chimed in and then said, hey, I've never talked about the fact that I have a disability with anybody, but I feel comfortable doing that here.
Ron Fish:So, really, you know, inclusion comes in many forms. Building a welcoming and inclusive culture comes in many forms. When you look at that sense of belonging, that welcoming where you can just feel free to have these discussions and that somebody isn't gonna immediately label you with a stigma.
Mike Coffey:And that's interesting because I spend too much time on on Reddit and social media sometimes, but I every now and well, with some frequency, I come across the horror story of the employee who made a disclosure of some sort to their manager asking for an accommodation or maybe just mentioning to them, yeah, I've got ADHD and, you know, and I I take my meds and they they generally work, but, you know, some some afternoons I might struggle a little bit or something, And that manager takes it upon themselves to make sure that everybody on the team knows about the you know, kind of outs this person, in a way that that makes that person uncomfortable. Maybe the manager you know, it's a very Michael Scott moment, but maybe that manager thinks that they're being helpful. So how do you how do you as a leader, if you've got somebody who maybe they the rest of the team really should understand what's going on with this person at some level so that they can understand why at 3 o'clock every afternoon, this person's gotta take this break or do something without violating that person's privacy or their sense of confidence in their leader.
Ron Fish:Yeah. I think that is a very delicate situation you have to handle, and the best managers kind of bake empathy into their management style. I was, speaking at the ERE recruiting conference last week, and and I literally got asked this question after my presentation. And it is something delicate. Again, I don't think it's the right approach to have somebody new join the team and say, hey.
Ron Fish:This is Sally, and she has ADHD. Clearly, that that that wouldn't be the most sensitive way to do it. But if you occasionally, you do have team members that struggle with another team member. And then in that coaching session, that may be where you can sort of have some of those conversations. You can loop in HR to help navigate that as well.
Ron Fish:But, overall, I think, most of us, if we're aware that somebody has a disability or, you know, some other element that's related, most of us are gonna have some empathy, and it really helps with understanding. So I think there's a fine line there. You have to balance that as a manager. I don't think I would just generally disclose it, like, on a team call. Right?
Ron Fish:But maybe in a 1 on 1 setting in person, it might be something that you have a discussion if there's a particular, rub or or point of, where there's an issue.
Mike Coffey:And being, I guess, aware and having a conversation maybe first with that employee about I think this is something that would benefit the team to understand. I think it'll help you be productive as a as a member of the team. Let's talk about, you know, what it might mean if we shared this. Would that be something you're comfortable with?
Ron Fish:Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I like that that sense of, you know, letting that individual sort of make that decision and find their comfort level. I I would support that approach. 100%.
Mike Coffey:And you mentioned earlier cost, and I think that's the first thing that a lot of it comes to mind for a lot of employers. And, unfortunately, I think starting I was young in my career, but I was in the workplace when the ADA was passed and so much of the conversation from throughout the 90s and even into the aughts was about cost and cost. And that was, you know, the focus was what makes it unreasonable, you know, what, you know, where do we cross that line? And I think a lot of employers are beginning to get past the point where they take the accommodation request and don't start immediately looking for what makes it unreasonable and start making looking for ways to make it reasonable. What do you tell employers and what do you do at Ivanti where when an employee comes forward with an accommodation request, what does your, interactive process look like?
Mike Coffey:And maybe it's different than the the way a lot of employers would approach that.
Ron Fish:So interestingly, I've done
Mike Coffey:a lot of
Ron Fish:work across departments here, so I've kind of evangelized this concept to say, you know, departments here. So I've kind of evangelized this concept to say, you know, are there ways that finance can accommodate and and be more inclusive? Are there ways that, obviously, HR, you know, that's typically our goal, but also our facilities department. So I've partnered with our VP of facilities who also manages a lot of our, you know, the the things that somebody might need for an accommodation, which might be a special office chair or a stand up desk or something of that nature. And something that was incredible that he told me, he said, listen.
Ron Fish:He goes, a a few years ago, if somebody needed an accommodation, they'd have to submit a requisition. They'd have to show me their medical documentation that they've been diagnosed or they have this issue. He said, we got rid of that process. Now if somebody requests an accommodation, barring it being some astronomical cost, you know, like, we have to, you know, rip the building apart and put in a new elevator, you know, barring it being something like that, we just grant the accommodation. At the end of the day, again, this is where it's it's better for everybody.
Ron Fish:Right? Because people move in and out of the disability category. It's the it's the unique diversity category that people can move into and out of. So somebody may have joined the company, never checked that disability box. But 2 years in, they might have an accident, and now they are.
Ron Fish:So then they may need that accommodation that they didn't even think of early on in their career. So it's highly beneficial, but I think what we've done that's very innovative have just sort of removed that requirement where somebody doesn't have to apply and convince us they need the accommodation. We just simply grant it and make that happen.
Mike Coffey:And let's take a quick break. Good morning, HR is brought to you by Imperative, bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. At Imperative, we have 3 core values, one of which is always act in the best interest of our client. To ensure we do that, we focus on keeping 3 promises to our clients. 1st, we choose our team's competencies over technology, AI, or algorithms.
Mike Coffey:Our research and the information we provide our clients is always guided by our professional analysts, augmented by but never substituted with technology. And second, because our processes are thorough, our compliance is strict, and our staff cares, our clients can fearlessly take action based on the information we provide. And finally, when the phone rings or the email chimes, our team answers and solves our clients' issues immediately with fast and friendly service. These are our promises to our clients, and it would be an honor to extend them to you. You can learn more about how Imperative serves our clients at imperativeinfo.com.
Mike Coffey:If you're an HRCI or SHRM certified professional, this episode of Good Morning HR has been preapproved for 1 half hour of recertification credit. To obtain the recertification information, visit good morning hr.com and click on research credits. Then select episode 183 and enter the keyword accessibility. That's accessibilit y. And if you're looking for even more recertification credit, check out the webinars page at imperativeinfo.com.
Mike Coffey:And now back to my conversation with Ron Fish. So let's talk about the beginning of the employee life cycle, that that recruitment process. Are there things employers inadvertently do in either how they post their jobs or, you know, that whole process of applying and going through interviews that would deter somebody with a disability from applying? Or are there ways to attract that? I mean, the whole reason for me I mean, I'm always going back to the business case because I own my company and it's it's money in my pocket.
Mike Coffey:The whole reason for diversity is to get the most qualified people that I can find and not let process let, you know, uncorrelated issues get in the way of them being successful in my organization. I mean, you know, I'm here to make money, and I want the deepest talent pool I can get. And if I've got these dumb things that are stopping me from putting fully qualified people on on the team, then then I'm hurting myself. And I think that's the business. So how can I, you know, how how can a business leader get out of their own way and and and how their processes attract that talent?
Ron Fish:Well, as a business leader, similar to my CEO, you'd be very impressed to know that all of the work I've done that's led to awards has been for the great price of free. So my company did build a couple of computer labs in India, for blind schools there. Now that did cost some money. But in general, the work that we've done around disability inclusion and accessibility has literally not cost the company anything but some hard, you know, some hard work, some time, partnership internally. So the way, Mike, that I went from being sort of like knee deep because my family members and, you know, always since maybe 2017 building some accessibility into our hiring processes at my companies, I kinda went from knee deep to plunging all the way processes at my companies.
Ron Fish:I kinda went from knee deep to plunging all the way in when back in late 2022, I learned that not only was our career site not accessible for people with disabilities, our entire corporate website was not accessible. I didn't believe in a a UX manager that told me that. She showed me that that was the case. We didn't have accessibility highlighting. If somebody that was blind was navigating using a screen reader or a braille display, they would literally be unable to know where they're at on the page or be able to navigate the website.
Ron Fish:So talk about something shocking when your UX manager comes and says, hey. Do you realize that our career site is eliminating people with disabilities from our applicant pool? And I was I was stunned. So I quickly began to work with my website team. They unlocked some accessibility features.
Ron Fish:We've since that time from November 2022 to about May of this year, we went from inaccessible to ADA compliant from a website perspective, including our career site. So those were some things we did that didn't really cost money, just some time. And then my website developer came back and said, hey. Do you realize that the more I develop things with accessibility in mind for website features, the better the performance is and the simpler the code is? So it's really interesting when you find out that sometimes that universal design simplifies things, less complicated as well.
Ron Fish:So and then, you know, building steps into hiring processes. Again, it's training recruiters to know what to do. You have somebody that's deaf or hard of hearing. You have somebody that's low vision. You have somebody that discloses ADHD.
Ron Fish:Train recruiters on how to manage that. Get in touch with HR, partner with HR, and then let's coach our hiring managers to know what some basic accommodations might look like in an interview.
Mike Coffey:There was just an article a few months ago in the Wall Street Journal. It's gotten quite a bit of coverage. There are a group of plaintiff lawyers who are focusing on website accessibility and, you know, targeting primarily smaller companies, smaller websites, and not being particularly charitable and and giving people an opportunity to, you know, remediate that before, something goes wrong. So what does it really mean to have and I know you're not legal counsel, but to have your your act your website really accessible under the ADA and what things should be there just so you can get that talent you want?
Ron Fish:Yeah. So this is digital accessibility. It is part of the ADA section 508 that talks about, having your technology, your digital workplace, being accessible for people with disabilities. So what that looks like is somebody being able to leverage those alternative methods of navigating your website. I might navigate by keyboard only if I if I don't have the dexterity to use a mouse.
Ron Fish:I may be using my tab key and the space bar to navigate your website. So if there's not accessibility highlighting showing up on the page where it puts, like, a box or a a shade over top of the selection I'm at, I may not know where I'm at on the page, and I can't really navigate your website. And then screen readers and braille displays use that same technology to be able to do that. So, again, that's part of having an ADA compliant or at least to have some elements of ADA compliance, some elements of accessibility for those that may have a steep hill decline like we did at Avanti. But to really focus on that, it's something that's important if you're a government contractor.
Ron Fish:And, again, I'm not an attorney. Thanks for saying that up front. But if you're a government contractor and you're submitting big bids for the government and they become aware that, you know, your products or your, website is not ADA compliant or or you haven't even thought about it, that could literally knock you out of that process. So, I'm sure there's some, maybe some future gratitude from my sales team or my CEO that we, we kinda check that box without having to go down that road. But in any case, yeah, there's a lot of considerations there.
Ron Fish:But making sure that those digital workplaces and and your website, both for your employees, your applicants, and your customers. Right? Because your customers are not, you know, are not all without disabilities. So if you're you don't have a a beneficial website for your customers that may have disabilities, you could be shooting yourself in the foot there as well.
Mike Coffey:So managers are presented, you know, with some regularity now with an employee looking for an accommodation, and they don't often note where to turn, you know, is this reasonable? What's it gonna cost? Or the employee is asking for this accommodation, what other things might be there because this one really is expensive or would be disruptive to our workflow or whatever. How would they navigate, you know, those kind of issues? What's a how would you advise a manager to evaluate whether this is reasonable?
Mike Coffey:And then if it's gonna be disruptive, how you know, looking for other options.
Ron Fish:Yeah. It's a great question, and I think it it probably comes down to if the cost is gonna be significant, or it seems like it's gonna be really a significant undertaking. And I think sometimes you look at, if we need to hire an additional person to do the work for that individual, that becomes outside of the realm of reasonable accommodations as I understand it. What I can tell you is that I've had a fantastic partnership with the state of Utah, their office of rehabilitation and workforce services. Every state in the US, if we're talking from the US perspective, every state has one of those organizations.
Ron Fish:So you're able to reach out to them to really get counseling and guidance. In fact, I've been able to get, company training and a lot of other assistance. The division of services for the blind and visually impaired helped with testing of our website, again, for all for that favorite, price of free. So for business leaders like yourself, it's usually pretty attractive. But there are resources out there if you know who to reach out to and who to look for.
Ron Fish:And anybody listening is welcome to reach out to me. I'm I'm passionate about it. I'm not looking for money or or funds, but, would love to just help and and sort of give back.
Mike Coffey:And all your all of Ron's contact information will be in the show notes and on our website. Let me finish with probably the the one resource most people are most in the HR world at least are most, aware of, and that's JAN, the Job Accommodation Network. There's a lot of conversation around that. How efficacious do you find it to be relative to, you know, finding an accommodation versus working directly with a state agency or directly with your your employee or your candidate?
Ron Fish:I'm so so from the accommodation perspective or as far
Mike Coffey:as the contracting If I'm using yeah. Is I just I hear a lot of mixed messages from employers about who've tried to use the Job Accommodation Network. You know, some have said it just it doesn't work for their practical circumstances. And sometimes I wonder, maybe it's not working because you really don't want it to be that. You know, you you you know, you you just don't wanna change your processes that much, or you don't wanna, you know, change the way things have always been.
Ron Fish:Sure. Sure. And I think, it's probably important. And some of this is about being intentional, right, about it. And I think it's important to evaluate the roles at your company, the ones that might be most accessible just by nature.
Ron Fish:So let's look for low hanging fruit before maybe we try to overachieve, and that's really what I always recommend. So, you know, my company is largely remote first. So with that comes great accommodations because somebody can literally work in their own environment from home. So, they're they're typically set up in a relatively accessible environment already. So if we have technical support roles that allow people to work from home, programmer roles, and so on, that might be the best place to start, as as opposed to trying to maybe overachieve and look at every role broadly because you also have to be set up to support the individuals, right, that you might be hiring if they do require those accommodations.
Ron Fish:And that's really what I've worked diligently to do is kinda create that foundation, the visibility, the awareness. I keep saying it. But really build that. That way, you are you kind of have empathy baked into the process. You have people that are thinking about things a little bit differently than they might.
Ron Fish:If you walk into a room where there are 5 blind people working, you'd probably be surprised, but the light's not gonna be on. And you're gonna go, woah. What's going on? And I've seen that at the division of services for the blind. Saw that with my father when I was growing up.
Ron Fish:So it's almost an accommodation for you to reach over and flip on the light switch for us sighted people. But, it's interesting. But, really, I would recommend to look for that low hanging fruit. Be intentional about it. Be logical about it, and then kind of expand your work from there as you can really develop your resources and your support network around those individuals.
Mike Coffey:That is the perfect place to end it, and we're out of time. Thanks for joining me today, Ron.
Ron Fish:Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate the opportunity to chat.
Mike Coffey:And thank you for listening. You can comment on this episode or search our previous episodes at goodmorninghr.com or on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. And don't forget to follow us wherever you get your podcast. Rob Upchurch is our technical producer, and you can reach him at robmakespods.com. And thank you to Imperative's marketing coordinator, Mary Anne Hernandez, who keeps the trains running on time.
Mike Coffey:And I'm Mike Coffey as always. Don't hesitate to reach out if I can be of service to you personally or professionally. I'll see you next week and until then, be well, do good, and keep your chin up.