The Value of Diversity and Inclusion

Published in the October 2013 issue of Public Relations Tactics 

Diversity. Disabilities. Inclusion.

You often hear and see these terms used in discussions, in articles and on corporate websites, but what do they really mean and why are they important? Communications professionals thrive on words and digging into the deeper meaning and relevance.

To get to the definition of inclusion, you have to start with diversity.

Merriam-Webster defines diversity as: “the condition of having or being composed of differing elements: variety; especially: the inclusion of different types of people (as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization.”

Sound reasonable? Yes, of course, but it hasn’t always been that way.

Changing the Law

Less than 60 years ago in the United States, it was legal to discriminate against an employee or job applicant because of race, color, gender, religion, country of origin, age, pregnancy or disabilities. Recruiting, hiring, job assignments and promotions didn’t have to include or go to the most qualified applicants or employees.

Signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson and enacted on July 2, 1964, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin or sex.

Title VII was landmark legislation, but it didn’t go far enough, so several laws were amended to protect the rights of additional groups of people being discriminated against. These included:

• The Pregnancy Discrimination Act
• The Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA)
• The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA)
• Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA)

Eliminating Barriers

Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prohibits private employers, state and local governments, employment agencies and labor unions from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities in job application procedures, hiring, firing, advancement, compensation and job training, as well as other terms, conditions and privileges of employment.

By eliminating barriers to their participation in many aspects of living and working, the passage of the ADA in 1990 was a huge step forward in enabling PwDs (People with Disabilities) to join the workforce with reasonable accommodations and to share their valuable talents and skills.

According to the U.S. Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), accommodations in this context are intended to ensure that qualified individuals with disabilities have employment rights that are equal to — not superior to — those of individuals without disabilities. A reasonable accommodation is a modification to a job, a work environment or the way someone works that allows an individual with a disability to apply for a job, perform essential job functions and enjoy equal access to benefits available to other individuals in the workplace.

Being Aware and Open

When people think about diversity in the workplace, they often focus on creating work environments with ethnic, racial and gender balance that reflects the society we live in today. However, they often overlook PwDs. Considering that about 56.7 million people — 19 percent of the population — have disabilities, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, that is a large group of employees and clients to overlook.

In the Diversity Dimensions article I wrote for the June issue of PR Tactics, “Ability Beyond Disability: Understanding Accessibility,” I discussed disability and accessibility, and mentioned inclusive communications. But inclusion goes deeper into the DNA of our society and of an organization.

There isn’t a legal definition of inclusion, and while it’s a fairly common term in our education system, defining it with a general lens is difficult. Inclusion Network does a good job explaining with this list:

• Inclusion is about all of us.
• Inclusion is about learning to live together.
• Inclusion treasures diversity and builds community.
• Inclusion is about our abilities and gifts, and how to share them.
• Inclusion is not just a disability issue.

“People with disabilities represent a critical talent pool that is underserved and underutilized,” said Shirley Davis, director of global diversity and inclusion at the Society for Human Resource Management.

As a communications professional, you can practice and promote inclusion by your awareness of the issues surrounding diversity and by making your communications accessible to PwDs.

In today’s global, social and hyper-connected world, organizations routinely interact with clients, employees and vendors who speak different languages, come from different cultures, have different levels of technological literacy and have widely varying physical and cognitive processing abilities. So, excluding any individual means missing out on important ideas, insight and opportunities.

Quick and Accessible Communication Tips

This is not a comprehensive list, but incorporating all of these actions into your communications can help your messages reach a broader audience:

• Use plain language.
• Use respectful language.
• Include images of people with disabilities in everyday situations.
• Create accessible PDFs.
• Caption videos.

Ability Beyond Disability: Understanding Accessibility

Published in the June 2013 issue of Public Relations Tactics 
Diversity Dimensions 

What is accessibility?
One of the first steps in understanding how communicators can reach audiences of people with disabilities (PwDs) is to understand exactly what accessibility is and why it is so critical.

“Accessibility is a measure of the extent to which a product or service can be used by a person with a disability as effectively as it can be used by a person without that disability,” according to the e-Accessibility Policy Toolkit for PwDs.

People often use the word in terms of physical access in areas such as transportation, public access and housing. With respect to information technology (IT), accessibility means enabling IT hardware, software, Web applications or websites so that more people can use them, either directly or with assistive technology.

Others use the term to specifically talk about Web accessibility. The World Wide Web Consortium, an international community that develops Web standards, says: “Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web.”

We include the aging population in this broader category of people who can benefit from technology created for PwDs because by 2025, this segment will grow to comprise 20 percent of the population in most industrialized nations, according to the World Health Organization. As people get older, they essentially join the PwD population through the acquisition of age-related disabilities, such as limited vision and reduced hearing.

The 4 Main Categories of Disabilities 

To understand accessibility, you should be familiar with the four main categories of disabilities: visual, hearing, mobility and cognitive. Technology accommodations exist for each of these disabilities, but must be implemented for PwDs to eliminate or minimize the barriers to access.

• People with visual disabilities are blind, have limited vision or have color-blindness. 
• People with hearing disabilities are deaf or hard of hearing and require visual representations of auditory information, such as closed captioning or transcripts. 
• People with mobility disabilities can have difficulty with movement and fine motor controls, limiting typing or mouse control. Alternate input capabilities, such as voice input, are often required. 
• People with cognitive disabilities, such as dyslexia and short-term memory deficit, may have limited ability to perceive, recognize, understand, interpret or respond to information. Consistent design and simplified language are two helpful solutions. 

Guidelines for Inclusion 

Inclusive communications by definition don’t exclude anyone. To ensure that your communications are accessible and inclusive, follow these guidelines:

• Use people-first language, such as, “people with disabilities” instead of “the handicapped or disabled.” (See the TCDD website for a full list of terms.)
  
• Do not use color to convey meaning. When content is presented by color alone, a person who is blind or color-blind will miss that information. 
• Add alternative or “Alt” text for relevant images, charts and graphs. 
• Use text links instead of URLs. Screen readers often have a links list function that shows all of the links. 
• Provide sufficient contrast between background and text. 
• Always use spell check. 

 Accessibility is about all of us. It extends the capabilities of technology to accelerate social innovation and create shared value for all citizens. Without accessibility, there isn’t inclusion. And inclusion matters, because excluding any individual means missing out on unique ideas, insight and opportunities.

Repost from IBM Social Business Insights: Inclusive Social Business

Social networking and accessibility are passions of mine, so I'm thrilled that I'll be blogging regularly about accessibility and social business as an IBM Redbooks Thought Leader on the IBM Social Business Insights blog, alongside some very smart and very connected people — a mixture of IBMers, Business Partners and well-known experts in the field. 
I'll be reposting those blog posts here on my personal blog, including my first one, Inclusive Social Business, originally published on January 29, 2012, and owned by IBM. 

Inclusive social business

When you see the phrase “inclusive social business,” these questions might come to mind:

• What is inclusive social business?
• Why does it matter?
• Why should I care about it?

I’m going to address these questions in this post.

What is inclusive social business?

To answer that question, first let’s make sure that we have a clear definition of social business. At its most basic level:

A social business cultivates trusted relationships and encourages innovation and collaboration to make people more effective.

Diving a little deeper, IBM has identified the three fundamental characteristics of a social business. A social business is:

• Engaged: It allows the right mix of talent and information to come together to deliver new insight.
• Transparent: It gives each individual the opportunity to participate meaningfully to improve the business.
• Nimble: It leverages networks to speed up business, gain insight and make quicker, better business decisions.

In this context, inclusion is the enablement of all people to participate and collaborate fully, regardless of ability or disability.

Because a social business is fundamentally about enabling new levels of interaction among people, it’s important to understand the demographics of potential users and tie it into some real numbers. As of October 31, 2011, the global population was 7 billion(1) . This includes an incredibly diverse variety of individuals with vastly differing abilities:

• People with Disabilities: More than 1 billion people have disabilities(2); a number that will continue to increase because of advances in healthcare and longer life expectancies. Disabilities are often divided into four categories: visual, hearing, mobility, and cognitive. (We’ll talk about these more in a future blog post.)
• Aging population: More than 600 million people are over the age of 60(3). By 2050, that number is expected to rise to 2 billion to more than 20 percent of the world’s population.
• Non-native language speakers: Using English as an example, 500 million – 1.8 billion(4( people worldwide speak English as their first or second language; which means that up to 6.5 billion don’t. In the U.S. alone, over 55 million citizens speak a language other than English in their homes(5).
• People with no or low literacy: 793 million worldwide(6)

In addition to these demographics, there are many others for whom technology must be more flexible, adaptive, and intuitive to be optimally effective. Take mobile workers, for example. Today’s workers are no longer tied to a desk in an office, but work when and where they want using multiple device types (smartphones, tablets, laptops) in multiple types of locations (airports, cars, public transportation, client sites, and others). As a result, they often encounter what we call situational disabilities – in noisy coffee shops, at airports or while driving in a car requiring hands-free access that impair their ability to connect and collaborate.

Why does inclusive social business matter?

If your tools, websites, applications, and collateral aren’t accessible, you are, by default, excluding a significant percentage of your potential collaboration pool – which isn’t good business any way you look at it. Inclusive social business should value every voice and every idea.

In addition to the three fundamental social business characteristics identified by IBM, two others should be considered by enterprises evolving their collaboration strategy. An inclusive social business is:

• Consistent: It provides barrier-free access across platforms and applications for a consistent brand experience.
• Everywhere: It enables the work and web experience to happen where, when, and how it is most effective, regardless of environmental or ability-based inhibitors

Why should you care whether your social business is fully inclusive? 

Here’s the bottom line: In today’s global, social and hyper-connected world, excluding any individual means missing out on important ideas, insight, and opportunities. Making inclusion a top priority can help you differentiate yourself from the competition, expand your reach in existing markets, enter new markets (such as India where 50 to 64 percent of the population does not meet basic literacy requirements(6)) and drive new levels of innovation.

If you're becoming a social business, the key question to ask yourself is: Are you making the most of the wealth of knowledge and expertise you can tap by including all potential collaborators?

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1 As world passes 7 billion milestone, UN urges action to meet key challenges
2 World Health Organization: 10 Facts on Disability
3 World Health Organization: Aging and life course
4 Wikipedia: English language
5. Language Use in the United States, U.S. Census Bureau

6. UNESCO Adult and Youth Literacy Fact Sheet