How Employees with Disabilities Can Help Solve the Labor Shortage with Kandi Pickard, President and CEO, National Down Syndrome Society

In this episode Bill is joined by Kandi Pickard, President, and CEO of the National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS), the leading human rights organization for all individuals with Down syndrome. While the topic of disability inclusion has been discussed before on the podcast, this episode is centered on the labor market and more specifically a focus on the disability community, an important yet greatly underutilized resource in addressing the increased demand for talent many employers face today. Kandi joins Bill to talk further about opportunities for employers to ensure they’re not only looking to the broad community when it comes to hiring practices, but also to ensure that the workplace itself becomes an area for all individuals to thrive.

Bill Harmon is a registered representative of Voya Financial Partners, LLC (member SIPC). 

NDSS is not a member of the Voya® family of companies.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

You're listening to the Hire Through Retire podcast with Voya Bill Harmon tackling all things from 401ks to HSAs and everything in between. We're talking to the best and brightest in the industry to bring you the latest in benefits, savings, and investment trends in the workplace. Come along with us on our journey to help all Americans become well planned, well invested, and well protected.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Hire Through Retire podcast. I'm your host, bill Harmon, and thank you so much for joining me here today. Today we're gonna talk about a topic that's near and dear to my heart and really to all of us here, boy, and that's Disability Inclusion in the Workplace, or IT Guest today is certainly no stranger to Voya. She's Candy Picker, she's the president and CEO of National Down Syndrome Society or ndss, which is the leading human rights organization for all individuals with Down Syndrome. Hey Candy, welcome to the pod.

Speaker 3: 0:55

Thanks so much for having me, bill. I'm thrilled to be here.

Speaker 2: 0:58

You know, before we dig into this topic at hand, and it's gonna be such a great conversation, candy, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and, and your connection to the disability community and how you came to be part of ndss?

Speaker 3: 1:12

Absolutely. Happy to. It's actually a really kind of a, a unique story. I really had no prior connection to the disability community until I had my, my last child Mason, my youngest, I have four kids and Mason was born with Down Syndrome. And so as a parent to someone with Down Syndrome, I have a close personal connection to our mission. Admittedly, I don't do this work just for Mason. I truly love and value this community and I'm thankful that my path has led me here to meet so many incredible individuals with Down Syndrome, their families, as well as passionate professionals across the disability field. After Mason's birth, I quickly got involved with my local Down syndrome affiliate group in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And funny enough, we had a visit from NDSS to talk about ABLE Accounts, and that encounter led me to ndss and I've done with the organization for nearly eight years now.

Speaker 2: 2:03

I've said several times on the pod that I also am a caregiver. Uh, William 21 year old son has Down syndrome, and I, like you really had little, um, affiliation with this incredible community. And if there's any parent or caregiver out there with that why question, why me? I think your story, I'd certainly say mine. It's because it really unlocked a passion to go ahead and help in so many ways and use our platform in so many ways. And boy, you're a great example of this and particularly with this topic where, you know, we, we, we often talk about disability inclusion. We do a lot of it certainly at Voya and we've done it on this podcast, but let's talk about the labor market as a whole. Many prognosticators that are saying that, hey, there's a recession, uh, looming. And we've even seen in the news that there have been some tech companies, for example, that, uh, making headlines about some layoffs. At the same point, there's still still many industries and many employers that have still strong demand for talent, for labor, and they just can't find it. The war for talent's still ongoing. It leads to this sort of shortage of workers. So now you look at the disability community, that's a really important resource and something that could help address this increased demand for talent. But at the same point, it's greatly underutilized. Let me ask you this, you know, what kind of barriers are workers with disabilities facing today, both as job seekers and as employees?

Speaker 3: 3:29

Yeah, I Bill, I first wanna start and just kind of give a little bit of stats just for your audience to, to better understand what this looks like. People with disabilities make up the third largest market segment in the country. However, they have the highest rate of unemployment, which is more than double that of workers who do not have a disability. And the US Chamber of Commerce announced in September of this year that there are approximately 10.1 million job openings in America with 5.8 million unemployed workers. So the big question is, why aren't more companies hiring individuals with Down syndrome and other disabilities? Right? And I think that there's many factors that we can discuss, but some of the common reasons is the stigma and implicit bias that employers may hold when it comes to people with disabilities. Society focuses too closely on what they can't do versus what they can do. And job seekers also face barriers such as transportation. Do they have a driver's license? Is public transportation something that they have access to? There's paratransit, which are local disability transport services. People with disabilities have the fear of losing government benefits such as Medicaid. There's service navigation. They don't even know where to start to apply for a job. And I give an example, I think, you know, imagine working part-time in an entry level position, say for Voya Financial. And you live in a rural area where there's no public transit, so you commute having a disability, you qualify for a local pair of transit service. But the downside is that the services can be so unreliable they could show up an hour before your scheduled pickup time or even an hour after. So that right there sets them up to look like an unreliable employee. And so the other option that employees may have with disabil is that they could do an on demand transportation service using an app. However, that cost for paying for that app eats into their portion of what they pay for working. So it's a little difficult.

Speaker 2: 5:25

Well, boy, I tell you, if there's ever a time to go ahead and be creative and find it a way to solve this, you've got this huge gap between the demand and the supply opportunity over here. We could really get creative and particularly we've also learned to work in different ways. It's not the old nine to five in the office, right? Clocking and clocking out. There's new ways to work and we could all get creative. So, so let's take it one step further. So the listeners probably nodded their head when you talked about the stigma. Like, yeah, I, I certainly understand that. What can't they do? I always focus on that instead of saying, well, tell me more about what they can do. But before they do that, we really need to go ahead and share a good business case. How is disability inclusion critical to driving stronger performance for that company and creating real value for those companies?

Speaker 3: 6:13

Diversity leads to new perspectives which can lead to innovative strategies, solutions, and even products. And in addition to unique perspectives, people with disability can absolutely be some of your most reliable and hardworking employees. And I think you tapped onto something a little bit earlier with this just different work environment we're living in now. There's so many different options to what works looks like there's remote work, there's part-time work, there's just such a new creative way for work that includes people with disabilities. I think what's really interesting is that people want to work where they feel included and have a sense of community. And that sense of belonging is a tremendous motivator. Inclusive hiring has been shown to improve company culture, improve employee retention, as well as increased empathy, productivity and teamwork among your employees. And I think lastly my big piece is that this corporate social responsibility has always been a driver, but now more than ever, consumers are looking for organizations they align with. So again, the question for business leaders is how did they ensure that their organization is at the forefront of this responsibility that they do have?

Speaker 2: 7:23

We've talked before on the podcast about what employers are dealing with so many new things of the great resignation or quiet quitters. And yet now we're talking about a population that I am so happy to go to work. And I think that that could actually be infectious in the workplace to go ahead and help people again, find that sense of purpose, um, when they go to work rather than clocking in, clocking out. And just kind of a prison sentence of, oh my gosh, I just don't like being here. I'm surrounded by people. Like why do you, why are you so happy? Why do you wanna be here? Someone says, I love this, I love what we do. I think it really could be, I'll say it again, infectious. Knowing all of this background right here, what can our listeners and really many of them are employers, what could they do to ensure people with disabilities are not left out of this conversation? How could we be intentional in our hiring and recruiting practices?

Speaker 3: 8:17

One word connect. Connect with organizations like ndss Connect with other businesses that are really leading these practices. CEO Commission for Disability Employment is a great resource that is providing tools and supports to help people along this journey of disability inclusion. I think some of the, the biggest calls that we have is folks just don't know where to start. So like you mentioned, right? It's just taking those first steps. And again, I think folks avoid what's new and unfamiliar. So again, with connecting, I mean connect with other companies, business leaders, HR professionals, you know, really help us learn more instead of avoiding and and missing out on a great opportunity to improve your business and ultimately really close the gap on this critical social equity issue. Company culture's always been important, right? But now more, like I mentioned with remote work, companies are really looking to be very introspective about culture and environment and what they wanna foster and broadcast up to the community. So my biggest kind of touch points here, focus on abilities, what they can do, how you can support their skills versus focusing on what they can't do. We do that for our employees without dis disabilities, right? We play to their strengths and the disability community deserves that too. Inclusion should always be a priority in hiring and recruitment processes. I think that's critical that folks need to include that in everything that they do. And everyone needs to be on board. This just can't be an HR announcement or a short term DEI initiative. You need buy-in across the organization and your staff needs training. I think that our human resource personnel, our catalyst and turning a vision into reality, but hiring managers need that training to help push this vision forward. And there are some local resources I think that folks can look into. Um, there's state resources like the state voca, a vocational rehabilitation, sometimes known as vr, and local employment networks can be found across the country. And NDSS is always helpful to put folks in touch with those right people. And then highlight disability hiring in your ads or highlight inclusion in your, in your ads looking for folks. People look for those kind of ways that they feel like they belong and then this is an organization that works for them. And then there's also workplace accommodations. So there's the job accommodation network that are known as Jan, which is a great resource for understanding what accommodations could be needed in the workplace for your employees.

Speaker 2: 10:47

Right. So let's take what you just said right there and expand a little further because there's really, you know, only so much that one manager or one company can do. So how can you think about change at a higher level if he had that magic wand? What kind of systemic or policy change at the state or national levels do you think could have the biggest impact?

Speaker 3: 11:09

I think we recognize that this issue goes beyond just one or two companies hiring practices. And we're talking, as you mentioned about true systems change. And so I summarize it in three words, policy planning and partnerships. And I'll start at policy at the federal level, the broader disability community is always advocating such for policy such as able expansion, Medicaid reform around asset limitations and the abolishment of the use of sub minimum wages. And then we go into planning and, and individuals with disabilities are protected from the individuals with disabilities education Act, better known as I D E A while in school. And this law requires a formal transition plan be in place by the age of 16 to outline from school to work to the next steps in life. And it's imperative that individuals and families have access to this information and resources so they can understand what their government benefits are, such as able accounts, special needs trusts, so that way these can be put into place to help promote financial sustainability and stability really. And then lastly, partnerships. As I mentioned before, we're always here for resources, but there's also other partnerships that are out there like Voya Financial that can really help exchange information and create different resources like our financial wellness guide that helps teach individuals and their families about financial tools and challenges that are unique to the disability community. I think through some of these partnerships, we're able to share our perspective to policymakers, to really enact changes that are gonna benefit job seekers with disabilities and create more opportunities to thrive.

Speaker 2: 12:46

Candy, this is just fantastic. I really wanna thank you. I think this conversation has been phenomenal. One really that the audience like so valuable. I mean, we talked about this huge need, this demand, this war for talent. Let talk about this supply, this talent supply, but you need to think differently. You need to look at abilities rather than sort of the stigma and the disabilities. There's such a need out there that could be satisfied. So if we could, bringing things full circle, let's say that you are an employer who's being intentional and inclusive about bringing in employees with disabilities. How do you make sure that you're not only just hiring from this community, but perhaps more importantly that you're ensuring that you've created an environment in which these employees can thrive and contribute to the overall success of the business?

Speaker 3: 13:35

I think I give the example of ndss. I mean we have about 33% of our staff has Down syndrome and they are included in all decision making opportunities across our organization. So I think we build it into our strategy and I think I see the folks that are truly successful in this space, they build it into their strategy and they include people with disabilities in this discussion. I don't think Bill, you or I would be able to speak for our kiddos about what they want or what you know, works best for them within an employment setting. We need to include the folks that are truly valuable voices and making sure that we're moving the needle within an organization, but also throughout the broader disability community

Speaker 2: 14:16

That is so right. And I tell you, I need to come to your office sometime cause I can imagine that is the happiest place on earth right there. Or

Speaker 3: 14:23

It's a little hectic some days, you know, at all the fun. But it's great. It's great.

Speaker 2: 14:28

Oh, thank you again, candy free time. I so, so appreciate you being here today.

Speaker 3: 14:33

Thank you, bill. It's been an honor. It's always fun.

Speaker 2: 14:36

Wow, what a great conversation. And this concludes another episode of the Hire Through Retire podcast to our audience out there. As always, thank you so much for sharing part of your day with us. It's truly an honor. Thank you again for joining us and stay well.

Speaker 1: 14:50

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