4 Degrees Of Disability – Ask The Experts Webinar

Okay, I think we can get started and then more people might join us as they come in. So Hello everyone. My name is Esi Hardy. Thank you very much for joining me today. And if

you’ve been to any of the other series of webinars you will know that although not advertised,

a colleague of mine, Sarah Burrell has been joining me and as this is the last webinar in the series at the moment, I am have decided to host this webinar on my own. And so it

so today we will be talking about developing a culture of inclusion in the workplace. And

everything I talked about can be specifically related to disability and we’ll talk about

specifically about that, but also a lot of the elements can be related to to just creating

a culture of inclusion anyway, regardless of disability. And so if you haven’t been

through a celebrating webinar before, or you have, you will know the process. So if I can

ask you, due to my own personal access requirements of being a physically disabled person, I find

it very hard to look through the chat box. And so if you could even if you have any comments

to make, not type them in the chat box, but instead type them in the q&a section. That

would really, really helped me and there will be an opportunity for me to answer some of

your questions at the end. However, if you type them in the q&a box anytime in the webinar,

they will stay there. And so it doesn’t it means that you don’t have to hold on to your questions and remember them till the very end. This meeting is being recorded, so I

will send the recording out as usual. Within 72 working hours of the of the session today,

okay, so let’s get started. So just going through what we will be covering today. So it will be covering the benefits

of an inclusive culture. And so what the benefits will be for your, for your organisation or

your business in all, we will be covering how to develop that culture of inclusion and

looking at some specific elements in that development. And we will be covering a little

bit about utilising active listening skills and asking open questions to ensure that your

engagement processes are actually reaching their maximum benefit. When asking people

how they like to how they feel as though they can belong to your organisation, or your company.

And we’ll be looking at some next steps. So some things that you can do after this session

to try and implement that into your organisation. And then we have a q&a section, as I said

before, and but please don’t wait till the end to type in your questions, please do all

the way along as well. And then I will pick them up at the end. So benefits of creating

an inclusive culture. So the first benefit I think, is innovation. And you know, these

might already be some things you’ve thought about before but innovation The more people you can involve the more diverse thought and the more diverse ideas and experiences the

more your organisation and business will innovate and support people to innovate as well because

the more innovations coming on and the more organisations ask for their employees opinions,

more employees feel empowered to do so. And so innovation and specifically related to

disabled people, disabled, you’ve probably heard me say many times before, as disabled people, we are masters And very, very talented problem solvers, I will say is a physically

simple problem person, sorry, slip of the tongue and I problem solve about 10 things

before leaving the house in the morning. And you know even more during lockdown. So if you take those into the workplace imagine what the innovation and what the benefits

and what the new ideas are coming from, from the disabled people that you were talking to. relatable to a wider customer base. So the more diverse your your employees are,

the more diverse they are when they’re talking to your customer base because your customer base is also diverse. And I think that is also relevant specifically for disabled people.

And many less disabled people are in the workplace and many other diversities and so having a

disabled person on the end of the phone or working with your clients, who can specifically

relate to another disabled person’s needs that could be a disabled customer buying a

shoe or a product from you and that way, or it could be a professional disabled customer

or a client who needs some access requirements in order to, to access your service. That

if the person supporting them can relate to them in a way that they understand their experiences,

it helps develop and build that rapport and relationship. diversity of thought, community

culture and talent. So the more diverse your workplaces, the more diverse your community

is, therefore, the more diverse your culture will become. As a result, people ask me quite

often, how do I create a culture that’s diverse? Well, ask diverse people to join your culture,

and it naturally becomes more diverse because there’s different people in it and whilst

we have to work as organisations to make sure that people feel a sense of belonging and

people feel included, a little bit of it happens naturally when people from different backgrounds

join the community because they can talk about their experiences and those experiences become

part of that culture whether you want trying to have it or not. Also talent the more diverse

people within your organisation the more diverse the talent they can attract will be because

I always say that people go to what they can see. So if you can see diversity and you can

see disability, and you can see minority and then you’re more likely as one of those people

to think okay, this is a company that I can really see myself belonging to because they

already have a diverse range of people so that they probably already quite inclusive

at the moment in diversity of thought. Also, when it comes to recruitment and advertising, when that diversity of thought can support

the new applicants to be interviewed in the way that works for them so that the diverse

people within your workforce can help check your recruitment process so that it meets the needs of the majority rather than a few. And also helps with engagement of stakeholders.

This is a very, you know, clear business case, but stakeholders more and more wants to see

diversity within the workforce. And because it opens up so many doors, so the more diversity

you have, the more the stakeholders can see. And the more engaged and the more they will support your organisation and business to grow. So developing an inclusive culture.

So it really has to start With the why this new point and go I work with a lot of organisations

that go straight into what do we need to do? How can we make it more diverse? How can we

make it more inclusive of disabled people? And my first question to them is always; why

are you doing it? And it because if you don’t understand the why then you cannot think about

that how and the what you need to do. So so if you remember back to my initial webinar

in this series, prioritising disability in the workplace, I’ve talked about the why a

lot there. So starting with your values and your mission towards being inclusive and inclusive

of disabled people, why are those values there? Why is it important to you? So you can have a look at the reasons for being diverse, that I said before, but it has to be personal to

your organisation and personal to your team and personal to your organisational outcomes

for it to make sense because once it can make sense, the why it’s easier to explain to yourself,

it’s easier to explain to that your people. And it’s easier to explain to the people that you’re trying to attract and engage and why you’re doing this. It needs to be led by top

down. But it also needs to involve and engage everyone and because an inclusive culture

is everybody’s responsibility. And so it doesn’t need to be led from the top down because it needs to be a systemic thing that happens through your organisation. I think it’s really

good when teams take the initiative to try and be inclusive within their team. But that’s

really good when you’re working with your team. But when you go back into the wider organisation, it’s very hard then to see the benefits of what you’ve been doing in your

team. So in order for it to be systemic, the top level or the C Suite, and the people that

strategise the organisation needs to be leading the so they need to be the ones that understand

the why. What does it mean for us What does it mean for our stakeholders? What does it mean for our employees that we are being inclusive of everybody and specifically disabled people?

You know, what is it going to bring to our organisation, they can then trickle down that message, and it can penetrate throughout the entire organisation. Each department and each

team within the organisation can have its own goals for that team. But unless it’s an

organisational initiative, it’s not going to work in the culture. Because if you remember,

or if you think about the fact that people talk about the organisation, so when they leave work when they go home in the evening, or you log off in the evening, when they go

out to the weekends or have phone calls with their friends at the weekends, they’re talking about their week and half of what they’re talking about is their work. And so we want

people to be saying how your organisation is really inclusive and that the people that work there really feel they belong in the organisation. They really feel heard. They

really feel valued. And the only way they’re actually going to feel like that for a long period of time. If it’s a systemic mission that the organisation has it’s penetrating

through. However, as I said, it’s everybody’s responsibility. So whilst it has to be led

from the top down, everybody has their part to play. And these parts can be from taking

on a big initiative in a work stream to a smaller part. And being a an ally for colleagues

when they need a bit of extra support, when they need a bit of extra confidence for going into a meeting when they want to challenge an idea and all sorts. So everyone has their

part to play but everybody’s parts can be bigger or smaller. And but it all makes a

difference in working. So role modelling behaviour and I think again, this has to start with the top down. So the

senior management team needs to role model that behaviour. This setting for the one they’re

expecting the rest of their organisation to follow. So that could be as easy as stopping in the corridor to ask somebody how they are. You may have heard Sarah and I talked about

in previous webinars about open and closed questions to find out how somebody is doing.

So if you ask a question, are you okay, then it kind of suggests to the person that you’re

not really listening out for the answer. You’re just looking for a quick yes or no. Whereas

if you ask how you are, then you are inviting and you’re inviting people to open up about

how they’re actually feeling. So I think the term how you are has been twisted. How are

you sorry, has been twisted to still mean: Oh, I’m okay. Thank you. And so people are quite often surprised when the person who’s asked How are you? continued on to it isn’t

about how they are. However, over time, this will change. So the more you ask the person

how they are, the more you stopped to listen to their answer, the more the person will realise that actually you want to take the time to really understand how they’re doing

how they are, that you could if you wanted to, you could ask more specific questions about oh, I heard you’re doing this workstream within your team, how is that going at the

moment? And you know, you enjoying it? What are the challenges? How can I support so that’s

one way of role modelling you just literally stopping in the corridor, and to get to know

your employees to find out how they’re doing. It’s also a good opportunity to engage with them and find out what’s going on for them, and when where the sticking points are and

in, you know, creating that culture of inclusion and what you can do. As a result, role modelling

behaviour can also take part in teams and the smaller basis. So for example, if you’re having your Monday meeting, catch up in the morning, and you might have five minutes where

you go around the room asking people, you know how they’re feeling this week? How is remote working for you at the moment? And what are the challenges you’re facing? And

does anybody have any advice for everybody else in the group to manage this difficult

time. And again, it fosters conversation, it fosters community, and it fosters ideas

and development and innovation, which is what we want. And the more you’re role modelling

this behaviour, the more your employees are picking up on how to behave in that situation.

And they will simulate that in other conversations they ‘re having maybe with your clients or

your customers or maybe with the team that they manage themselves as well. So utilising the experience of those employees around you.

So specifically, we can talk about this for a wide range of community groups, but specifically

related disability. As I said before, we great problem solvers. So we have lots of experience

in there. But also, we as with everything else, we have great experience, we’re intersectional.

So we’re not just one thing. I always say I am a disabled person, but I’m also a woman.

And I’m also a mixed race. So I come from many different areas of background, I can

use experiences to support. I also as part of my life, living on my own and having jobs

for my entire career. I found ways of managing those workplaces, not just problem solving, but knowing how to ask the questions that I need to ask to elicit the responses or elicit

their responses to give me the support that I need to go forward. So asking disabled people,

you know, how can we develop this service so that can be inclusive of all how can we develop this? I’m working with this one colleague who is disabled themselves. How do you feel

that this should be approached, we go to a public place or should we work in their house? And if we’re working digitally Do you have any tips for me for supporting somebody with

a disability on a digital platform, Just using all those experiences of the employees around

you to develop that. You could also be asking them how they can help to, to, to devote this

culture of inclusion. So how you as a disabled person, how do you feel what could be implemented,

to support you to feel even more valued within the organisation, and be open to all ideas

so that even the ideas that you might think are not important or not a priority at the

moment, so it could be something massive by you know, if the doors are a bit wider than that would be slightly easier for me to get through to something small, like actually,

if we can move our 10 minutes discussion every morning, 10 minutes forward, that means that

I wouldn’t have to rush so much first thing in the morning. And these things might specifically

be related to people’s disability. So they might not be things that you automatically think about. But actually by hearing from somebody with lived experience, you’re developing

your understanding and your awareness of the barriers perhaps that they face.

Okay, so consider mental health and well being as part of your inclusive culture strategy. I mean, especially

I think it’s especially relevant at this time that a lot of people are struggling with their mental health and mental well being. And so actually just having those conversations going

back to a bit what I’ve seen before, asking people how they are listening to the answer, we’re going to talk about mental health and well being a bit more in a minute, but listening

to their answer, and actively listening and thinking about what you can do to support

them if that’s what they would like or offering that support when they would like it, it’s

very helpful and kind of implementing some of those just informal questions in the day

to day running of your job as a manager or as a, as a colleague or as, as any other parts

of the organisation. So that the question after a while it’s not coming out of the blue,

it’s almost expected so the person knows that actually, you are there to listen to them. And you are here to support them through it and you do understand or you do understand

that they might be struggling and they might need a bit of extra support at the moment. So ensuring that candidates

feel included and understand your inclusive cultral goals. So I think I think another

big area that some organisations miss is wanting to develop

that inclusive culture working internally with their employees that already exists within the organisation but not thinking about the potential employees that are going to be joining.

So in your recruitment process, ensuring that you have, you’re displaying your values and

your organisational values towards inclusion throughout your recruitment process and the

why’s of that as well. And then having specific areas of the interview process where you explore

what their values are towards disabled people, for example, and how they think these values

fit into the organisational values, and then you are hiring people who already feel that

your inclusion strategy is a priority. And you’re also setting those expectations for

those new employees and that they expect to follow a certain set of values when they work

within your organisation. There’s one more. Recognising and celebrating difference. So we’re going to talk about that

again in a minute. And so I want to expand on it just now.

Increasing awareness. So the knowledge that you know is make sure that you’re sharing

it out with other people. And that could be gaining the knowledge by hiring a professional

with lived experience in this in this area that we talked about today, disabled people

or whichever lived experience that you’re trying to develop in that area. Or it could be talking to your existing employees about what you know about whether they’d like to

share their experiences, and increasing your awareness all the time and also sharing that

out within your organisation. And in all your communications strategies internally and externally

as well. Why it’s great to work there, and what the barriers are for some people How

they have mitigated it by having certain reasonable adjustments and certain access requirements

met and what they have achieved. And as a lot of disabled people feel that there’s a

limit to what they can achieve. And either kind of attitudes that are set internalised

by themselves, or attitudes that are set by others biases that are set by others that

limit what they can achieve, if they can see through case studies and talking to others

who have the same experiences or similar experiences, that there is no glass ceiling, and that will

develop confidence and empower people to move forward and to try for themselves.

Oh, and another one, challenging oppression and championing ideas. So it’s always a really difficult one challenging

oppression. If you have the confidence to it’s great if you can stand up and say it I agree with that. Because of this reason, I would rather that you didn’t say these things

or you didn’t do it like that, but let’s work together to make it better and challenging those ideas as well. And I think that’s why it’s so important within our organisations

have champions and allies to not only support and challenge support people who would like

to challenge ideas, but also to champion that good behaviour. And that good practice that

we want to see penetrated throughout the organisation. Now, I did write this, this slide deck myself,

but obviously, I’ve been surprised by other things turning up I obviously thought a lot more than I thought when I was going through it. So let’s see if I’ve added more if we’re

going on to the next one. And one more, so consider private and, sorry, consider provide and communicate access requirements. So it’s so important that when hiring whether you

know persons disabled not considering when hiring them after hiring them in the hiring

process considering their access requirements for that recruitment process, but also after

offering somebody the job, considering their access requirements and making sure that you’re

providing them in the way that the person would like them to be provided. So some organisations

have very clear processes for applying for access requirements and and providing access

requirements to their to their employees who need them. However, I think that what is really

important with access requirements is to remember that when somebody has just started within an organisation, that question is really difficult to answer. So if you answer if you ask a question

to an employee who is disabled, what are your access requirements when they first start

or expect them to tell you what their access requirements are within the first month, then

a very difficult question to answer, because whether they’ve done the same role somewhere else or not your organisation, the organisation culture is different. So they need time to

know what the role involves, and what support they will need to do that. And that’s not

going to come overnight. And it doesn’t even come I think from for it helps by being talked

through what you’re going to do, but everybody does, they’re all slightly different. So if you give people the opportunity to find out for themselves, but keep having that conversation

with them, so dont leave them alone in the dark to find all the answers, but give them the opportunity to try out what’s going to work by maybe putting in some temporary adjustments

for them to be able to manage in the short term, and then keep referring back to the

conversation. So whenever you have that monthly catch up or that weekly catch up, having a

little question about, you know, how are you managing Is there anything we can do to support you and that could be physical or emotional support. And then again, after a while people

will understand that this is part of your culture. And actually, you do want to hear the answer. But not only that, but you have a process in place for then delivering on

what people have asked for. So it might be that a disabled person says, Well, you know,

I struggle to type. But I don’t know what can be what I need in order to help me keep

up with everybody else. So it’s up to you as an employee, to have maybe a list of signposting

lists List or a list of resources that other people have used to give examples of, Okay,

well, you know, we have these devices to support people in the workplace, and when their dexterity

means they can’t type very fast, or it might be having that conversation with them that actually the deadline is not as important ass the standard

of the work. So it might be that you put more emphasis on your workplace to the standard of the work that’s produced

than the deadline itself. So it might not matter. If a person is more comfortable typing

a little bit slowly, it might not matter, they are a bit slower, because the standards of the work is great. But you have to communicate that to your employees. So they feel confident

and comfortable to say, Actually, I need an extra two weeks to complete this or however

long they might need. But that’s just one example. And whether with reasonable adjustments

and an access requirement, I think the important thing is that the conversation remains open

and so that you and the employee can return to it as often as possible, and that you are

being proactive. So you are taking the responsibility to ask the questions, so that the employee

understands that this isn’t something that is you know, a nuisance for you that this

is Something that you are happy to support me to do, because you understand that this is

how they will be. They will be able to be productive in their job. So recognising and celebrating difference.

So there is I think we we might already know this, but I’m just going to quickly highlight

the difference between diversity and inclusion because I think sometimes, occasionally it

gets a bit muddled. So diversity is, is having lots of people from different backgrounds

and different experiences. However, being diverse doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re being inclusive. So just by having 10 black people in a room, doesn’t mean that you’re

inclusive, you have to have these people in the room and then you have to implement processes

to ensure those people feel valued. And they feel as though they can belong and they feel as though this is that place as well. And that could be ethnic, that could be gender,

that could be disability that could be LGBTQ, and all sorts of things.

And I’ve heard I’ve heard a few times people refer to being diverse because they are one

characteristic. So for example, I was watching I think I told you I told people in this webinar

a few weeks ago, that I was watching a TV programme. And they were talking about being a diverse law firm, but they were law. They were a predominantly black law firm, and I

think there was born white person in the law firm. And that wasn’t a diverse workforce,

because everybody was still from the same background. a diverse workforce has many different backgrounds coming together. And then inclusion is making sure that all those different backgrounds

feel included and feel valued at the same time. So another A statement that people say

that I think helps that stops people feeling included is I don’t see your disability. So

I quite often get people say that to me quite often, but I don’t see your disability Esi.

And I say, Well, usually when I’m out and about, I’m in my electric wheelchair. And

I say to people, well how do you not see my disability I’m sitting in a wheelchair. And people say that because they think we still have this societal stereotype that disability

is bad and disability is wrong. And we don’t want to be disabled and you know, poor as

for being disabled, but if you’ve been to any of my webinars or if you picked up on the name of my business, disability is something to be celebrated as is every other diverse

characteristic and every other area of background and every individual because we all have something

different to bring. So whilst so instead of saying don’t, I don’t your disability your

I don’t care that you’re gay and the sentiments right but perhaps change that language a little

bit say, That’s brilliant, you know let me know what I can do to support you to feel

more included and more valued within our organisation and your, your background doesn’t impact how

I feel about you is I think what people are trying to say when they say that to me, but

by saying I don’t see your disability, it turns it turns my disability into a negative.

So the the the diversity has to be part of everyday culture, the inclusive process sorry, has

to be part of everyday culture. It can’t I mean, we have awareness weeks and we have

years of… and that’s great that we highlight certain things at certain times, but I think sometimes what it promotes

is, oh, well, that was there. Now we can move on. So I said, there are lots of awareness week. So they’re brilliant. Just before the lockdown.

I’m talking at an event on International Women’s Day. And the speaker before me said, this

year is the year of inclusion. And I said, well, what’s next year? Is it the year of exclusion. And I know that that’s not what he meant at all. But what it suggests is,

we’ll concentrate this on this for a year and then that’s done that’s fixed and we can move on to everything else. And as we know, everybody, people are unique, and people are

always going to be unique and always different and always need to feel valued and included.

So we can’t just put them into a yearly kind of strategy, or an awareness week strategy

and do a couple of things and change our diets for a week and all talk about disability for

a week and then forget about it. It needs to be part of everyday Culture, which is why again, I was suggesting embedding it in your monthly catch ups and your daily captures

in your weekly catch ups in your communication, and internal communication outlets, whatever

they may be, and on social media as well so that people begin to understand that this

is something that is here to stay and it’s not something for a Tuesday morning. It’s

something for every part that will be a systemic part on how the organisation runs. And remember

that everyone’s intersectional I was saying a minute ago, but nobody is just one thing.

And just like the old kind of idea that a teacher stays in the closet until you’re ready

for school, but the teacher has a life she has a family or he has a family, they go shopping,

they do all sorts of things. So remembering that nobody is one thing. So if people arrived

for example, and they’ve had You know that they’re slightly down or seem more down than they were the day before. It might be something that’s happened in the day and in the evening.

And I know that you might know this. However, it’s important to just remember it that actually

just because Esi is a wheelchair user doesn’t also mean that he doesn’t want to join in

that conversation over there. And she doesn’t just stay at her place as a wheelchair user, she wants to mingle and she wants to be part of the wider culture. Okay, access requirements.

I think we’ve been through a few of those a minute ago, but we’ll see. And so they don’t

always have to be associated with disability. We often talk about access requirements, and

associate and reasonable adjustments were in association with disability, but they don’t always have to be. So somebody might need a reasonable adjustment to leave early in

the day to pick up the children or to take care of their mother that’s moved in with

them, or anything else; because of a religious reason or anything, so they don’t have to

be specifically related and associated with disability. And so involve the individual

in a conversation, explain what they are and how the organization/business will support

the person to a positive outcome. So, I would call myself a professional disabled person

because I am disabled but I also chose this as a profession. But not every disabled person

will understand what you’re asking of them when you ask what about what their access requirements are.

So talking to them through what an access requirement entails, on what and how the process works and how they support

the individual in the organisation will really help the individual to not only open up their

thinking to what they might need support with But also help them to understand that this

is an organisation that really appreciates and values me and wants me to get the most out of my work as possible. Therefore, I’m going to work with them to find the best solution

for this. And also give the employee time to think about process. I did discuss that

before, but actually, you can’t, it’s hard to expect somebody to come up with an answer

then there, especially when, let’s say it’s an interview process, you’re on the end of the phone, and somebody says, Okay, do you have any access requirements? I mean, I, as

a wheelchair user, know what my access requirements are, in terms of getting into the building, but I don’t know what they are in terms of what you would like me to do an interview.

So if you were able to give more information about Okay, in this interview, you’re going

to be doing x, y and z, maybe delivering a presentation, speaking in a focus group or

speaking with other people who have been into viewed and doing some on the job work, then

the person might be able to Okay, so I need an interpreter. And I need step free access

into the room. And I need to be able to have a computer that has such software on it. And

that might be them bringing their own computer, but unless you have supported them to understand

what’s expected of them, and they’re not gonna know. And it gives them time to think and

process so not everybody’s going to be able to come up with the answer on the spot. So it allows them to go away and maybe arrange a time to call them back or say that you want

to or offer them to call you back when they’re ready to. Return to the conversation often

remind employees that they can come back to you. So we discussed that. But the point of that is to make sure that the employees know that this isn’t a closed discussion if they

haven’t got anything sorted now, then it’s tough for the rest of their career, and that this can be returned to because we have to remember that the disability is fluctuating.

And so things change people’s job roles change. So I need what I need at the moment, but I don’t know where

I’m gonna be in the I don’t know how much Celebrating Disability will have grown. And

so I may have to hire other people to come and support me. And so my requirements are

going to change and it’s the same for the lifecycle of your employees.

And don’t make assumptions but also prompt suggestions were appropriate. So like I said,

Not everybody’s going to know all the answers of what they’re going to need and how they go to utilise there. But if you have suggestions from research that you’ve done, or feedback

that you got from other people, it would be really good to to offer those suggestions. But at the same time, we don’t want to make assumptions. So just because you have one

person, cerebral palsy in your organisation, you don’t know how what the other person was celebrating with cerebral palsy you’re just coming into your organisation is going to

need. So let that question come from them. And in a moment we’re going to talk about

open questions in active listening. And I think that comes a lot into that their

work together to find the answers and utilise out of the box thinking. So it’s a joint responsibility, finding a

reasonable adjustment that works for everybody. It’s not the employees responsibility alone,

and it’s also not yours as line managers or employers responsibility. It’s a joint responsibility

to find those answers. Make it business as usual and add it into your monthly appraisals,

catch up some team meetings, and also your good news stories. So that people within other

teams can see what you were doing. So I worked for an organisation last year, Illumina, who

are they, they work with genetics. And they had their head offices in Cambridge. They’re

a multinational organisation. And one of my first suggestions was, they were doing a lot of good work to support disabled people in the workplace, but they weren’t talking about

it. So one of my first suggestions was using those boards that they have all these massive

TVs that they had in their Open Office at the front that had the news streaming on them

to share good news stories of how disabled people were being supported within their organisation

and what a difference it made to how these disabled people felt valued, and sense of

belonging. Okay, so a little bit of mental health and well being I’m just going to type

in a check A little bit of gone went with mental health and well being. So what is mental

health, and we all have mental health just as we all have physical health, and how we

feel can vary from good mental health to bad mental health, and from good mental well being

to different feelings and emotions to severe mental health problems. And that comes from mind. So the mental health is the state of mind that we’re in. What is mental well being

mental well being is the ability to cope with day to day stresses of life, work productivity,

interact positively with others and realise our own potential. So that’s just a quick

summary of mental health. So when supporting people to have good mental health and to have

good mental well being and to feel supported in the workplace, if we bear in mind And these

things, my apologies, we bear in mind these things, then then it helps us to frame how

we’re going to support people. And we’re going to look at the minutes about how it is for people. Transcribed by https://otter.ai Okay, I think we can get started and then

more people might join us as they come in. So Hello everyone. My name is Esi Hardy. Thank

you very much for joining me today. And if you’ve been to any of the other series of

webinars you will know that although not advertised, a colleague of mine, Sarah Burrell has been

joining me and as this is the last webinar in the series at the moment, I am have decided

to host this webinar on my own. And so it so today we will be talking about developing

a culture of inclusion in the workplace. And everything I talked about can be specifically

related to disability and we’ll talk about Typically about that, but also a lot of the

elements can be related to to just creating a culture of inclusion anyway, regardless

of disability. And so if you haven’t been through a celebrating webinar before, or you

have, you will know the process. So if I can ask you, due to my own personal access requirements

of being a physically disabled person, I find it very hard to look through the chat box.

And so if you could even if you have any comments to make, not type them in the chat box, but

instead type them in the q&a section. That would really, really helped me and there will

be an opportunity for me to answer some of your questions at the end. However, if you

type them in the q&a box anytime in the webinar, they will stay there. And so it doesn’t it

means that you don’t have to hold on to your questions and remember them till the very end. This meeting is being recorded, so I will send the recording out as usual. Within

72 working hours of the of the session today, okay, so let’s get started.

So just going through what we will be covering today. So it will be covering the benefits

of an inclusive culture. And so what the benefits will be for your, for your organisation or your business in all, we will be covering how to develop that culture of inclusion and

looking at some specific elements in that development. And we will be covering a little bit about utilising active listening skills and asking open questions to ensure that your

engagement processes are actually reaching their maximum benefit. When asking people how they like to how they feel as though they can belong to your organisation, or your company.

And we’ll be looking at some next steps. So some things that you can do after this session

to try and implement that into your organisation. And then we have a q&a section, as I said

before, and but please don’t wait till the end to type in your questions, please do all the way along as well. And then I will pick them up at the end. So benefits of creating

an inclusive culture. So the first benefit I think, is innovation. And you know, these

might already be some things you’ve thought about before but innovation The more people you can involve the more diverse thought and the more diverse ideas and experiences the

more your organisation and business will innovate and support people to innovate as well because the more innovations coming on and the more organisations ask for their employees opinions,

more employees feel empowered to do so. And so innovation and specifically related to disabled people, disabled, you’ve probably heard me say many times before, as disabled

people, we are masters And very, very talented problem solvers, I will say is a physically

simple problem person, sorry, slip of the tongue and I problem solve about 10 things

before leaving the house in the morning. And you know even more during lockdown.

So if you take those into the workplace imagine what the innovation and what the benefits and what the new ideas are coming from, from the disabled people that you were talking

to. relatable to a wider customer base. So the more diverse your your employees are, the more diverse they are when they’re talking to your customer base because your customer

base is also diverse. And I think that is also relevant specifically for disabled people.

And many less disabled people are in the workplace and many other diversities and so having a

disabled person on the end of the phone or working with your clients, who can specifically

relate to another disabled person’s needs that could be a disabled customer buying a shoe or a product from you and that way, or it could be a professional disabled customer

or a client who needs some access requirements in order to, to access your service. That if the person supporting them can relate to them in a way that they understand their experiences,

it helps develop and build that rapport and relationship. diversity of thought, community culture and talent. So the more diverse your workplaces, the more diverse your community

is, therefore, the more diverse your culture will become. As a result, people ask me quite

often, how do I create a culture that’s diverse? Well, ask diverse people to join your culture, and it naturally becomes more diverse because there’s different people in it and whilst

we have to work as organisations to make sure that people feel a sense of belonging and

people feel included, a little bit of it happens naturally when people from different backgrounds join the community because they can talk about their experiences and those experiences become

part of that culture whether you want trying to have it or not. Also talent the more diverse people within your organisation the more diverse the talent they can attract will be because

I always say that people go to what they can see. So if you can see diversity and you can

see disability, and you can see minority and then you’re more likely as one of those people

to think okay, this is a company that I can really see myself belonging to because they already have a diverse range of people so that they probably already quite inclusive

at the moment in diversity of thought. Also, when it comes to recruitment and advertising, when that diversity of thought can support the new applicants to be interviewed in the way that works for them so that the diverse

people within your workforce can help check your recruitment process so that it meets

the needs of the majority rather than a few. And also helps with engagement of stakeholders. This is a very, you know, clear business case, but stakeholders more and more wants to see

diversity within the workforce. And because it opens up so many doors, so the more diversity you have, the more the stakeholders can see. And the more engaged and the more they will

support your organisation and business to grow. So developing an inclusive culture. So it really has to start With the why this new point and go I work with a lot of organisations

that go straight into what do we need to do? How can we make it more diverse? How can we

make it more inclusive of disabled people? And my first question to them is always; why

are you doing it? And it because if you don’t understand the why then you cannot think about

that how and the what you need to do. So so if you remember back to my initial webinar

in this series, prioritising disability in the workplace, I’ve talked about the why a lot there. So starting with your values and your mission towards being inclusive and inclusive

of disabled people, why are those values there? Why is it important to you? So you can have a look at the reasons for being diverse, that I said before, but it has to be personal to your organisation and personal to your team and personal to your organisational outcomes

for it to make sense because once it can make sense, the why it’s easier to explain to yourself, it’s easier to explain to that your people. And it’s easier to explain to the people that

you’re trying to attract and engage and why you’re doing this. It needs to be led by top down. But it also needs to involve and engage everyone and because an inclusive culture

is everybody’s responsibility. And so it doesn’t need to be led from the top down because it needs to be a systemic thing that happens through your organisation. I think it’s really good when teams take the initiative to try and be inclusive within their team. But that’s really good when you’re working with your team. But when you go back into the wider organisation, it’s very hard then to see the benefits of what you’ve been doing in your

team. So in order for it to be systemic, the top level or the C Suite, and the people that strategise the organisation needs to be leading the so they need to be the ones that understand the why. What does it mean for us What does it mean for our stakeholders? What does it mean for our employees that we are being inclusive of everybody and specifically disabled people? You know, what is it going to bring to our organisation, they can then trickle down that

message, and it can penetrate throughout the entire organisation. Each department and each team within the organisation can have its own goals for that team. But unless it’s an organisational initiative, it’s not going to work in the culture. Because if you remember,

or if you think about the fact that people talk about the organisation, so when they leave work when they go home in the evening, or you log off in the evening, when they go out to the weekends or have phone calls with their friends at the weekends, they’re talking

about their week and half of what they’re talking about is their work. And so we want people to be saying how your organisation is really inclusive and that the people that

work there really feel they belong in the organisation. They really feel heard. They really feel valued. And the only way they’re actually going to feel like that for a long

period of time. If it’s a systemic mission that the organisation has it’s penetrating

through. However, as I said, it’s everybody’s responsibility. So whilst it has to be led

from the top down, everybody has their part to play. And these parts can be from taking

on a big initiative in a work stream to a smaller part. And being a an ally for colleagues when they need a bit of extra support, when they need a bit of extra confidence for going into a meeting when they want to challenge an idea and all sorts. So everyone has their part to play but everybody’s parts can be bigger or smaller. And but it all makes a

difference in working. So role modelling behaviour and I think again, this has to start with the top down. So the

senior management team needs to role model that behaviour. This setting for the one they’re expecting the rest of their organisation to follow. So that could be as easy as stopping in the corridor to ask somebody how they are. You may have heard Sarah and I talked about in previous webinars about open and closed questions to find out how somebody is doing. So if you ask a question, are you okay, then it kind of suggests to the person that you’re not really listening out for the answer. You’re just looking for a quick yes or no. Whereas

if you ask how you are, then you are inviting and you’re inviting people to open up about how they’re actually feeling. So I think the term how you are has been twisted. How are you sorry, has been twisted to still mean: Oh, I’m okay. Thank you. And so people are quite often surprised when the person who’s asked How are you? continued on to it isn’t

about how they are. However, over time, this will change. So the more you ask the person how they are, the more you stopped to listen to their answer, the more the person will realise that actually you want to take the time to really understand how they’re doing

how they are, that you could if you wanted to, you could ask more specific questions about oh, I heard you’re doing this workstream within your team, how is that going at the moment? And you know, you enjoying it? What are the challenges? How can I support so that’s one way of role modelling you just literally stopping in the corridor, and to get to know your employees to find out how they’re doing. It’s also a good opportunity to engage with them and find out what’s going on for them, and when where the sticking points are and

in, you know, creating that culture of inclusion and what you can do. As a result, role modelling behaviour can also take part in teams and the smaller basis. So for example, if you’re having your Monday meeting, catch up in the morning, and you might have five minutes where you go around the room asking people, you know how they’re feeling this week? How is remote working for you at the moment? And what are the challenges you’re facing? And does anybody have any advice for everybody else in the group to manage this difficult

time. And again, it fosters conversation, it fosters community, and it fosters ideas and development and innovation, which is what we want. And the more you’re role modelling this behaviour, the more your employees are picking up on how to behave in that situation. And they will simulate that in other conversations they ‘re having maybe with your clients or your customers or maybe with the team that they manage themselves as well.

So utilising the experience of those employees around you. So specifically, we can talk about this for a wide range of community groups, but specifically related disability. As I said before, we great problem solvers. So we have lots of experience in there. But also, we as with everything else, we have great experience, we’re intersectional. So we’re not just one thing. I always say I am a disabled person, but I’m also a woman. And I’m also a mixed race. So I come from many different areas of background, I can

use experiences to support. I also as part of my life, living on my own and having jobs for my entire career. I found ways of managing those workplaces, not just problem solving, but knowing how to ask the questions that I need to ask to elicit the responses or elicit their responses to give me the support that I need to go forward. So asking disabled people, you know, how can we develop this service so that can be inclusive of all how can we develop this? I’m working with this one colleague who is disabled themselves. How do you feel

that this should be approached, we go to a public place or should we work in their house? And if we’re working digitally Do you have any tips for me for supporting somebody with a disability on a digital platform, Just using all those experiences of the employees around you to develop that. You could also be asking them how they can help to, to, to devote this culture of inclusion. So how you as a disabled person, how do you feel what could be implemented, to support you to feel even more valued within the organisation, and be open to all ideas

so that even the ideas that you might think are not important or not a priority at the moment, so it could be something massive by you know, if the doors are a bit wider than that would be slightly easier for me to get through to something small, like actually, if we can move our 10 minutes discussion every morning, 10 minutes forward, that means that I wouldn’t have to rush so much first thing in the morning. And these things might specifically be related to people’s disability. So they might not be things that you automatically

think about. But actually by hearing from somebody with lived experience, you’re developing your understanding and your awareness of the barriers perhaps that they face. Okay, so consider mental health and well being as part of your inclusive culture strategy. I mean, especially I think it’s especially relevant at this time that a lot of people are struggling with their mental health and mental well being. And so actually just having those conversations going

back to a bit what I’ve seen before, asking people how they are listening to the answer, we’re going to talk about mental health and well being a bit more in a minute, but listening to their answer, and actively listening and thinking about what you can do to support them if that’s what they would like or offering that support when they would like it, it’s very helpful and kind of implementing some of those just informal questions in the day to day running of your job as a manager or as a, as a colleague or as, as any other parts

of the organisation. So that the question after a while it’s not coming out of the blue, it’s almost expected so the person knows that actually, you are there to listen to them. And you are here to support them through it and you do understand or you do understand that they might be struggling and they might need a bit of extra support at the moment. So ensuring that candidates feel included and understand your inclusive cultral goals. So I think I think another

big area that some organisations miss is wanting to develop that inclusive culture working internally with their employees that already exists within the organisation but not thinking about the potential employees that are going to be joining. So in your recruitment process, ensuring that you have, you’re displaying your values and your organisational values towards inclusion throughout your recruitment process and the why’s of that as well. And then having specific areas of the interview process where you explore

what their values are towards disabled people, for example, and how they think these values fit into the organisational values, and then you are hiring people who already feel that your inclusion strategy is a priority. And you’re also setting those expectations for those new employees and that they expect to follow a certain set of values when they work within your organisation. There’s one more. Recognising and celebrating difference. So we’re going to talk about that

again in a minute. And so I want to expand on it just now. Increasing awareness. So the knowledge that you know is make sure that you’re sharing it out with other people. And that could be gaining the knowledge by hiring a professional with lived experience in this in this area that we talked about today, disabled people or whichever lived experience that you’re trying to develop in that area. Or it could be talking to your existing employees about what you know about whether they’d like to

share their experiences, and increasing your awareness all the time and also sharing that out within your organisation. And in all your communications strategies internally and externally as well. Why it’s great to work there, and what the barriers are for some people How they have mitigated it by having certain reasonable adjustments and certain access requirements met and what they have achieved. And as a lot of disabled people feel that there’s a limit to what they can achieve. And either kind of attitudes that are set internalised

by themselves, or attitudes that are set by others biases that are set by others that limit what they can achieve, if they can see through case studies and talking to others who have the same experiences or similar experiences, that there is no glass ceiling, and that will develop confidence and empower people to move forward and to try for themselves. Oh, and another one, challenging oppression and championing ideas. So it’s always a really difficult one challenging

oppression. If you have the confidence to it’s great if you can stand up and say it I agree with that. Because of this reason, I would rather that you didn’t say these things or you didn’t do it like that, but let’s work together to make it better and challenging those ideas as well. And I think that’s why it’s so important within our organisations have champions and allies to not only support and challenge support people who would like to challenge ideas, but also to champion that good behaviour. And that good practice that

we want to see penetrated throughout the organisation. Now, I did write this, this slide deck myself, but obviously, I’ve been surprised by other things turning up I obviously thought a lot more than I thought when I was going through it. So let’s see if I’ve added more if we’re going on to the next one. And one more, so consider private and, sorry, consider provide and communicate access requirements. So it’s so important that when hiring whether you know persons disabled not considering when hiring them after hiring them in the hiring

process considering their access requirements for that recruitment process, but also after offering somebody the job, considering their access requirements and making sure that you’re providing them in the way that the person would like them to be provided. So some organisations have very clear processes for applying for access requirements and and providing access requirements to their to their employees who need them. However, I think that what is really important with access requirements is to remember that when somebody has just started within

an organisation, that question is really difficult to answer. So if you answer if you ask a question to an employee who is disabled, what are your access requirements when they first start or expect them to tell you what their access requirements are within the first month, then a very difficult question to answer, because whether they’ve done the same role somewhere else or not your organisation, the organisation culture is different. So they need time to know what the role involves, and what support they will need to do that. And that’s not

going to come overnight. And it doesn’t even come I think from for it helps by being talked through what you’re going to do, but everybody does, they’re all slightly different. So if you give people the opportunity to find out for themselves, but keep having that conversation with them, so dont leave them alone in the dark to find all the answers, but give them the opportunity to try out what’s going to work by maybe putting in some temporary adjustments for them to be able to manage in the short term, and then keep referring back to the

conversation. So whenever you have that monthly catch up or that weekly catch up, having a little question about, you know, how are you managing Is there anything we can do to support you and that could be physical or emotional support. And then again, after a while people will understand that this is part of your culture. And actually, you do want to hear the answer. But not only that, but you have a process in place for then delivering on what people have asked for. So it might be that a disabled person says, Well, you know,

I struggle to type. But I don’t know what can be what I need in order to help me keep up with everybody else. So it’s up to you as an employee, to have maybe a list of signposting lists List or a list of resources that other people have used to give examples of, Okay, well, you know, we have these devices to support people in the workplace, and when their dexterity means they can’t type very fast, or it might be

having that conversation with them that actually the deadline is not as important ass the standard of the work. So it might be that you put more emphasis on your workplace to the standard of the work that’s produced than the deadline itself. So it might not matter. If a person is more comfortable typing a little bit slowly, it might not matter, they are a bit slower, because the standards of the work is great. But you have to communicate that to your employees. So they feel confident

and comfortable to say, Actually, I need an extra two weeks to complete this or however long they might need. But that’s just one example. And whether with reasonable adjustments and an access requirement, I think the important thing is that the conversation remains open and so that you and the employee can return to it as often as possible, and that you are being proactive. So you are taking the responsibility to ask the questions, so that the employee understands that this isn’t something that is you know, a nuisance for you that this

is Something that you are happy to support me to do, because you understand that this is how they will be. They will be able to be productive in their job. So recognising and celebrating difference. So there is I think we we might already know this, but I’m just going to quickly highlight the difference between diversity and inclusion because I think sometimes, occasionally it

gets a bit muddled. So diversity is, is having lots of people from different backgrounds and different experiences. However, being diverse doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re being inclusive. So just by having 10 black people in a room, doesn’t mean that you’re inclusive, you have to have these people in the room and then you have to implement processes to ensure those people feel valued. And they feel as though they can belong and they feel as though this is that place as well. And that could be ethnic, that could be gender,

that could be disability that could be LGBTQ, and all sorts of things. And I’ve heard I’ve heard a few times people refer to being diverse because they are one characteristic. So for example, I was watching I think I told you I told people in this webinar a few weeks ago, that I was watching a TV programme. And they were talking about being a diverse law firm, but they were law. They were a predominantly black law firm, and I

think there was born white person in the law firm. And that wasn’t a diverse workforce, because everybody was still from the same background. a diverse workforce has many different backgrounds coming together. And then inclusion is making sure that all those different backgrounds feel included and feel valued at the same time. So another A statement that people say that I think helps that stops people feeling included is I don’t see your disability. So I quite often get people say that to me quite often, but I don’t see your disability Esi.

And I say, Well, usually when I’m out and about, I’m in my electric wheelchair. And I say to people, well how do you not see my disability I’m sitting in a wheelchair. And people say that because they think we still have this societal stereotype that disability is bad and disability is wrong. And we don’t want to be disabled and you know, poor as for being disabled, but if you’ve been to any of my webinars or if you picked up on the name of my business, disability is something to be celebrated as is every other diverse

characteristic and every other area of background and every individual because we all have something different to bring. So whilst so instead of saying don’t, I don’t your disability your I don’t care that you’re gay and the sentiments right but perhaps change that language a little bit say, That’s brilliant, you know let me know what I can do to support you to feel more included and more valued within our organisation and your, your background doesn’t impact how I feel about you is I think what people are trying to say when they say that to me, but

by saying I don’t see your disability, it turns it turns my disability into a negative. So the the the diversity has to be part of everyday culture, the inclusive process sorry, has to be part of everyday culture. It can’t I mean, we have awareness weeks and we have years of… and that’s great that we highlight certain things at certain times, but I think sometimes what it promotes

is, oh, well, that was there. Now we can move on. So I said, there are lots of awareness week. So they’re brilliant. Just before the lockdown. I’m talking at an event on International Women’s Day. And the speaker before me said, this year is the year of inclusion. And I said, well, what’s next year? Is it the year of exclusion. And I know that that’s not what he meant at all. But what it suggests is,

we’ll concentrate this on this for a year and then that’s done that’s fixed and we can move on to everything else. And as we know, everybody, people are unique, and people are always going to be unique and always different and always need to feel valued and included. So we can’t just put them into a yearly kind of strategy, or an awareness week strategy and do a couple of things and change our diets for a week and all talk about disability for a week and then forget about it. It needs to be part of everyday Culture, which is why

again, I was suggesting embedding it in your monthly catch ups and your daily captures in your weekly catch ups in your communication, and internal communication outlets, whatever they may be, and on social media as well so that people begin to understand that this is something that is here to stay and it’s not something for a Tuesday morning. It’s something for every part that will be a systemic part on how the organisation runs. And remember that everyone’s intersectional I was saying a minute ago, but nobody is just one thing.

And just like the old kind of idea that a teacher stays in the closet until you’re ready for school, but the teacher has a life she has a family or he has a family, they go shopping, they do all sorts of things. So remembering that nobody is one thing. So if people arrived for example, and they’ve had You know that they’re slightly down or seem more down than they were the day before. It might be something that’s happened in the day and in the evening. And I know that you might know this. However, it’s important to just remember it that actually

just because Esi is a wheelchair user doesn’t also mean that he doesn’t want to join in that conversation over there. And she doesn’t just stay at her place as a wheelchair user, she wants to mingle and she wants to be part of the wider culture. Okay, access requirements. I think we’ve been through a few of those a minute ago, but we’ll see. And so they don’t always have to be associated with disability. We often talk about access requirements, and associate and reasonable adjustments were in association with disability, but they don’t

always have to be. So somebody might need a reasonable adjustment to leave early in the day to pick up the children or to take care of their mother that’s moved in with them, or anything else; because of a religious reason or anything, so they don’t have to be specifically related and associated with disability. And so involve the individual in a conversation, explain what they are and how the organization/business will support the person to a positive outcome. So, I would call myself a professional disabled person

because I am disabled but I also chose this as a profession. But not every disabled person will understand what you’re asking of them when you ask what about what their access requirements are. So talking to them through what an access requirement entails, on what and how the process works and how they support the individual in the organisation will really help the individual to not only open up their

thinking to what they might need support with But also help them to understand that this is an organisation that really appreciates and values me and wants me to get the most out of my work as possible. Therefore, I’m going to work with them to find the best solution for this. And also give the employee time to think about process. I did discuss that before, but actually, you can’t, it’s hard to expect somebody to come up with an answer then there, especially when, let’s say it’s an interview process, you’re on the end of

the phone, and somebody says, Okay, do you have any access requirements? I mean, I, as a wheelchair user, know what my access requirements are, in terms of getting into the building, but I don’t know what they are in terms of what you would like me to do an interview. So if you were able to give more information about Okay, in this interview, you’re going to be doing x, y and z, maybe delivering a presentation, speaking in a focus group or speaking with other people who have been into viewed and doing some on the job work, then

the person might be able to Okay, so I need an interpreter. And I need step free access into the room. And I need to be able to have a computer that has such software on it. And that might be them bringing their own computer, but unless you have supported them to understand what’s expected of them, and they’re not gonna know. And it gives them time to think and process so not everybody’s going to be able to come up with the answer on the spot. So it allows them to go away and maybe arrange a time to call them back or say that you want

to or offer them to call you back when they’re ready to. Return to the conversation often remind employees that they can come back to you. So we discussed that. But the point of that is to make sure that the employees know that this isn’t a closed discussion if they haven’t got anything sorted now, then it’s tough for the rest of their career, and that this can be returned to because we have to remember that the disability is fluctuating. And so things change people’s job roles change. So

I need what I need at the moment, but I don’t know where I’m gonna be in the I don’t know how much Celebrating Disability will have grown. And so I may have to hire other people to come and support me. And so my requirements are going to change and it’s the same for the lifecycle of your employees. And don’t make assumptions but also prompt suggestions were appropriate. So like I said,

Not everybody’s going to know all the answers of what they’re going to need and how they go to utilise there. But if you have suggestions from research that you’ve done, or feedback that you got from other people, it would be really good to to offer those suggestions. But at the same time, we don’t want to make assumptions. So just because you have one person, cerebral palsy in your organisation, you don’t know how what the other person was celebrating with cerebral palsy you’re just coming into your organisation is going to

need. So let that question come from them. And in a moment we’re going to talk about open questions in active listening. And I think that comes a lot into that their work together to find the answers and utilise out of the box thinking. So it’s a joint responsibility, finding a reasonable adjustment that works for everybody. It’s not the employees responsibility alone, and it’s also not yours as line managers or employers responsibility. It’s a joint responsibility

to find those answers. Make it business as usual and add it into your monthly appraisals, catch up some team meetings, and also your good news stories. So that people within other teams can see what you were doing. So I worked for an organisation last year, Illumina, who are they, they work with genetics. And they had their head offices in Cambridge. They’re a multinational organisation. And one of my first suggestions was, they were doing a lot of good work to support disabled people in the workplace, but they weren’t talking about

it. So one of my first suggestions was using those boards that they have all these massive TVs that they had in their Open Office at the front that had the news streaming on them to share good news stories of how disabled people were being supported within their organisation and what a difference it made to how these disabled people felt valued, and sense of belonging. Okay, so a little bit of mental health and well being I’m just going to type in a check A little bit of gone went with mental health and well being. So what is mental

health, and we all have mental health just as we all have physical health, and how we feel can vary from good mental health to bad mental health, and from good mental well being to different feelings and emotions to severe mental health problems. And that comes from mind. So the mental health is the state of mind that we’re in. What is mental well being mental well being is the ability to cope with day to day stresses of life, work productivity, interact positively with others and realise our own potential. So that’s just a quick

summary of mental health. So when supporting people to have good mental health and to have good mental well being and to feel supported in the workplace, if we bear in mind And these things, my apologies, we bear in mind these things, then then it helps us to frame how we’re going to support people. And we’re going to look at the minutes about how it is for people. So when supporting people to have good mental health and to have good mental well being

and to feel supported in the workplace, if we bear in mind these things, my apologies, we bear in mind these things, then it helps us to frame how we’re going to support people. And we’re going to look at the minutes about how we can support people. So engagement, engagement and engage sorry when there’s many people from different areas of the business or organisation as possible. So this is when again, you’re creating your inclusive culture. After you’ve

decided the why you’re doing it, you want to broaden that out to the wider workforce to help them understand your why but also to ask them the why for themselves. Why do you want to work in a place where you feel belonged? It might sound like an obvious question, but the answers might vary. And the more people you involve, the more people will feel engaged in the process, even if they only engage in a little way and help people to understand as I was saying; the why and the how there’s different levels of engagement and means of

engaging. So from starting conversations in the corridor to formal focus groups. So we talked about starting conversations in the corridor earlier, but formal focus groups, says what he does on the tin, setting up focus groups to talk about a specific subject within your inclusive culture. So that might be, you know, something to do with the wider workplace community and engaging with each other and interacting with each other and our might be on a specific task. But setting up these formal focus groups to find out how people

would like things to be and also not forgetting to make these focus groups and those engagement processes accessible for everyone. It could also be things like employee surveys, that you’re just asking somebody specific questions. But when you are when you are engaging and writing your employee surveys, don’t forget to include disabled people. So a lot of people avoid asking specific questions about disability,

I would say definitely do it. Because disabled people have a lot of experiences and a lot of ideas to share. But sometimes unless we’re asked, we don’t think about sharing them. So asking specific questions related to disability could be; if you have a disability, and how do you find the overall it could be something like the overall physical access of the building? Because don’t forget that unless somebody can access the space they can’t possibly feel included. Because they can’t get it to

feel included in the first place. Or it could be something more broader; if you have a disability, how do you feel supported and valued by your line managers, and so on and so forth. But there’s nothing wrong with asking specific questions related to disability and engagement process. Strategies for understanding ideas and feedback. So it’s very good. I’ve been to lots of focus groups as a disabled person myself, as a participant, but also and as a consultant supporting businesses

to put together a focus group. And people are very good at putting on focus groups, but not very good at thinking of ways that they can gather the feedback from people. And so, again, it sounds very obvious, but this really supports with engagement. If people feel that you’re not taking down what they’re saying, or you’re not hearing what they’re saying they will become disengaged over and over again and then the next time they’re not going to engage with you. So having those strategies for for understanding those ideas

in the first place, and then feeding back those ideas is so important. And strategies to communicate feedback as well. So after you understand those ideas, how are you going to feed it back to the people? It’s not the you always have to do what everybody suggested. But you have to explain the reasons why you’re doing what you’re doing. And the reasons why this was a good idea at the time, but might not work in this priority. And but the more you can involve people and the reasons why you’re doing it, the more people will stay

engaged with the process. And ensure access for all as I’d say, physical access all the way through from timings of events, food, activities and venues. And I’m saying it again unless a disabled person can access or anyone can, can physically access the environment you can’t possibly feel included. Again, I was working with an organisation – a business, a transport business at the beginning of this year. And I asked them about accessibility. And they said, Oh, no, we’re working on inclusion first. And I pointed out to them that actually

unless you the two come hand in hand, the two are very different things, but they also come hand in hand. And you can’t look at inclusion unless you’re also looking at accessibility, because you can’t engage in the conversation if you can’t get to the table. Okay, so active engagement. So when we, when we talk about listening to people, we’re talking

about doing it actively and not passively. So what is entailed in active engagement? So active engagement is actively showing that you’re wholly engaged in the conversation. So think about the signs that somebody is really listening to you so the nodding of the head, the eye contact. Paying attention and not getting distracted by other things, the leaning in and all those things. I mean, obviously, if you’re standing in a corridor, it might be inappropriate to leave in. But the definitely the eye contact is so important.

And maybe you know, these signs of listening like, Oh, yes, no, I agree. Ah ha ha, yet brilliant, and maybe even paraphrasing and summarising back to them what they’ve said, as well really show somebody that you’re actually engaged in what they’re saying, and ask some follow up questions as well. Okay, this might be a really good thing to think about in the future. So can you think of an example of when you have not fully engaged in the conversation? And then can you think of a time where you have not been fully engaged with? So maybe

starting with the latter one, when were you not fully engaged with how Did that make you feel? And also how did you know that you weren’t being fully engaged with? And then that turn that round to now think of a time when you yourself is not fully engaged in that conversation? And actually, what what did you miss out of that conversation that you could have got if you were engaged? So active engagement means asking open questions, and also establishing rapport to get to get good activity engagement. Those are the things to utilise.

So a few next steps for you. So my first next step that I would like to suggest is so if you’ve seen the information provided the previous webinars, that’s great, but if you haven’t, please do go ahead and look. So the first step is the information provided in the previous webinars in this series will support with a lot of what we were talking about today. Have a look at this on YouTube, so go and look on YouTube. And a lot. As I said, a lot of the stuff that’s

involved in this presentation is talked about in more detail in previous Celebrating Disability webinar series. So please do go and look them up. And so the second one, consider one way you can practice and implement active listening the next time you have a conversation with a colleague or employee. And the third point is considered one thing you can implement as a result of that conversation to support an inclusive workplace culture. So that involves you asked me some questions about how people are feeling or it might naturally come out

in the conversation. But then think about maybe with support, how something quite small or a bit larger can be implemented to support. Okay, are there any questions? We’ll just wait a few more minutes. I think we’ve got a few minutes before the end. The problem with running a webinar in your own is when there’s no questions, you can’t continue the conversation.

I’ll just wait a couple of minutes and then we’ll close the meeting down early and nobody has anything. Hopefully that means I’ve covered everything. But if there are some more questions that come up afterwards, I’d be happy to field them if you email me and so if it says No, as I think you have covered it all beautifully, thank you. Well, thank you very much. That’s really nice of you to say. And well, in that case, if there are no more questions, we will close

the webinar early. Thank you so much for joining me, everyone. This is the last in the series of webinars, but if as I said before, but if you would like to hear anything else, and please do send me an email, and I will send you a feedback form along with the along with the recording of this session, and please put anything in there and then we might return to it in the future. So watch this space. Thank you. Bye, everyone.