This article is part of a series for National Disability Employment Awareness Month produced in collaboration with Making Space CEO and disability rights advocate Keely-Cat Wells. These pieces examine the barriers that disabled people face to participating fully and thriving in the workforce, as well as potential structural solutions. The illustrations for this series were created by Dana Chan, an artist discovered through the Making Space platform.
Positive corporate culture, encompassing collective pride, purposeful engagement and camaraderie, often happens through employee resource groups, or ERGs. These affinity groups were created to strengthen bonds among smaller groups of employees, especially in larger organizations.
These more intimate collectives welcome employees from various, often marginalized communities, such as Black workers, women, LGBTQ+ people, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and those with disabilities, among others. At 1 billion-plus people across the globe, those living with disabilities are the largest marginalized group, but disability ERGs are often the newest and tend to comprise fewer employees.
I’m sharing these insights from the perspective of someone who has been blind my entire life. My Ph.D. and professional career have focused on advancing disability inclusion, and accessibility in advertising. I’ve been with boutique ad agencies that, because of their smaller size, didn’t have ERGs, and am currently employed within a multinational agency network with dozens of ERGs, several of which focus on disability, chronic illness, and neurodiversity.
Goals vary, but central to most ERGs is that they are volunteer-based and create safe places to share personal and professional knowledge between members of the ERG and among the larger corporate workforce, support mentorship, and in some instances aid business objectives through personal insights.
Disability ERGs are a bit different because employees across any race, religion, or identity, can become disabled at any time. While ERGs have the potential to powerfully support and shape psychologically safe conversations, broader learning and corporate commitments, there are challenges particular to scaling disability ERGs.
Visibility may be hampered in part, because there may be fewer people with disabilities hired within a workforce, due to under-employment and under-education of many among disability populations. Exacerbating this are continuing misperceptions that identifying openly as being disabled will bring negative professional repercussions, along with outdated societal norms that push the topic away from perceived appropriate conversations.
Some employees may already be disabled when joining a company and comfortable in openly discussing the complexities of their own narrative, while others may progress into disability, and don’t know how to start talking about it, or how it even relates to others at work, who may have differing disabilities.
To combat these and other challenges, many companies are creating internal campaigns, employee surveys, self-identification programs, and inviting leaders from different ERGs to come together to learn about membership, programming and growth.
Beyond a corporation’s own efforts to encourage membership within disability-centric ERGs, employees are seeing more visibility of disability in media and entertainment, among disabled content creators, businesses and brands showcasing inclusive design, adaptive products, and policies, such as the European Accessibility Act, gaining editorial coverage. The hype around this year’s Paralympics is a perfect example.
In addition, advocates have elevated disability in our day-to-day life, by creating dates including National Disability Employment Awareness Month in October, International Day of Persons With Disabilities in December, Global Accessibility Awareness Day in May, and Disability Pride Month in July, among many other dates. All these societal avenues of awareness create moments for employees with disabilities, neurodiversity, chronic illness, and allies to consider becoming an ERG member, and for the ERGs, programming opportunities to showcase momentum among conversations and actions.
Too often for those who don’t connect with disability or neurodiversity, it may appear that accessibility and reasonable accommodations are the central tenants and focus of these employee resource groups. Those topics are critical, and every employee’s right, but these communities comprise people that are multifaceted and intersectional, where sublime conversations about disability culture and pride have the potential to layer onto a foundation of accessibility.
Like any other marginalized group, disability isn’t monolithic, and ERGs that focus on disability, while still relatively new, are evolving and expanding interpretations. Many resource groups are going beyond sensory, mobility, and cognitive disabilities to welcome neurodiversity, chronic illness, and non-disabled allies who may be caregivers or family members.
Because disability and neurodiversity research and insights are still relatively new among companies, teams may turn to these ERGs to learn, ideate, and co-create, with these communities. While this is a wonderful opportunity for marginalized employees to share personal stories, test products, and be at the table as projects progress, it’s critical to recognize the commitments made and that each person involved is compensated beyond an existing salary, commiserate with any other research project that would incorporate outside participants. Importantly, it’s critical that non-disabled employees collaborating with disability ERGs recognize the vulnerability of conversations that may be shared, and that they are facilitated with psychological safety, reasonable accommodations, and accessibility.
I’ve been a part of corporate culture long enough to remember when disability and neurodiversity weren’t openly discussed, part of business goals, or considered as communities that could align into an ERG. Many with disabilities are part of inter-abled families where no one else is disabled, and for me and others, it’s wonderful to connect with disabled colleagues, through this ERG, that share similar backgrounds and goals. For those and other reasons, I’m honored to be the executive sponsor of VML’s North America disability employee resource group, “Resilient Together,” welcoming employees with disabilities, chronic illness and allies. (We also have another valuable ERG called “Neurds,” which brings together neurodiverse employees.)
At this precarious time, where headlines share a changing landscape of corporate equity and belonging commitments, it’s important that we support, nurture, and elevate marginalized employees that are dedicated—including those with disabilities and neurodiversity. Employee resource groups have the potential to enhance experiences not only for members, but for all employees, and, in turn, have a positive effect on the overall performance of the business.
