Transformation Talks!

Episode #11: Shedding Light on Invisible Disabilities for Inclusive Work Environments

• Transforming Culture Consultants • Season 1 • Episode 11

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Join the co founders of TCC Sharon Wilson and Cindy LaCom in a heart-to-heart discussion as we shed light on a topic close to the heart: the unseen struggles of invisible disabilities in the workplace. Imagine navigating a workday where your challenges are hidden, silently wrestling with barriers that others can't see—this is the daily reality for many. Our conversation aims to pierce through societal and cultural biases, advocating for an essential shift in understanding disabilities through a social lens. We share our personal journeys along with wisdom from scholars like Sarah Buder and Rose Perry, underlining the critical need for acknowledging and addressing the nuances that foster truly inclusive environments.

In this episode, we don't just spotlight issues; we offer blueprints for building more supportive spaces for those with non-apparent disabilities. Addressing the transformation of workplace culture, we discuss the importance of training on ableism, biases, and stigma, touching on language use and the prevalence of microaggressions. We debate the significance of diversity in representation and inspect company practices, emphasizing the integration of accommodations as a fabric of the everyday work environment. Join us in this empowering episode as we extend an invitation to become part of a community determined to bring about change and provide resources to those committed to enhancing their organizational culture.

Copyright: https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/reflection/107904

Copyright: https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/reflection/107904

Speaker 1:

Welcome everyone to Transformation Talks. The intention of our podcast is to provide tips, strategies and inspiration to transform workplaces, communities and lives. I'm Sharon Wilson. I'm the co-founder and chief mindset and growth officer at Transforming Culture Consultants, and I have with me today our other co-founder, Cindy LaCombe, our chief impact and inclusion officer. In our last podcast, we talked about disability equity and inclusion in the workplace and about how that connects to and can be a part of generational stereotyping.

Speaker 1:

Many of us now recognize that the supposedly universal symbol of disability, the wheelchair, does not in fact represent all, or even most disabilities, but instead reinforces a cultural stereotype that disabilities are physical and visible. Today, we want to return to this issue and consider how invisible or non-apparent disabilities might be subject to different kinds of stigma than visible disabilities, and why we want to think of this within the context of building diverse and inclusive workplace cultures. Now, this is complicated and we want to recognize up front that not all invisible disabilities are the same. But, with that said, we believe there are certain social and cultural biases that attach to invisible disabilities and that deserve our attention both in and outside of the workplace.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. We want to acknowledge that ableism remains a widespread problem and we believe that our workplaces need to move beyond minimal compliance with the ADA or the Americans with Disabilities Act. This is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in a number of areas, including employment, despite the ADA.

Speaker 2:

The unfortunate reality, however, is that disabled people still face a number of obstacles, and we can do more than we're currently doing to identify, recognize and dismantle those obstacles.

Speaker 2:

Part of our efforts to do so has to include educating workforces about implicit stereotypes that so often frame disability as less than.

Speaker 2:

As we noted in our last podcast, some of us have grown up in communities that see disability as quote unfortunate unquote something to be pitied or cured. But here at TCC, we reject the medical or cure model for understanding disability. Instead, we adopt what's called a social model of disability where, rather than seeing disability as an individual problem, we see it as structural and social. As authors Sarah Buder and Rose Perry put it in an essay on this topic and this is a direct quote if societies were set up and constructed in a way that was accessible for people with disabilities, those individuals would not be restricted from full participation in the world around them. In other words, the social model of disability viewed the origins of disability as the mental attitudes and physical structures of society, rather than the medical condition faced by an individual. End quote, and in our last podcast we used the example of American Sign Language that if all children were taught ASL, being deaf would not be disabling.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I really like that example, cindy, and even though I think bumper sticker philosophies can be glib, this actually reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw years ago that read social attitudes are the real disability disabled. I experienced something like this recently when I actually had to get a biopsy, and I hate needles, hate shots, hate IVs and I get truly stressed out. It causes me great anxiety and I felt a lot of shame over that over these years and I don't think someone would necessarily see this, you know, which can make me feel self-conscious about saying something at the moment, actually feeling shame about it, like, oh, you're such a big baby. But the feelings are real. And because I wanted to know more about this, I talked to Cindy and Cindy actually told me that there's a name for extreme fear of needles. Am I saying like, try panophobia, exactly yeah, try panophobia, exactly yeah. And that was just so freeing to me to know that I'm not alone.

Speaker 1:

Millions of us experience this in response to injections, immunizations, booster shots, ivs, you know anything. So think about when you have to get an MRI and the first thing I would say is do I have to have an IV? Do I have to have a needle? Is there any needles involved? So learning this made me think of someone we referenced in an earlier podcast, kimberly Crenshaw, who said essentially, you have to name a problem to see it and you have to see a problem to solve it. And after I realized that my fear of needles is real and is in fact, an invisible, non-apparent disability not visible I had the tools to educate other people about its impact and to ask for what I wanted from my medical team, and to feel empowered and to stand in a place of power to talk about it as a non-apparent disability.

Speaker 2:

I just love that example and I know that you and I have talked about that before, but I think I really like it because it gets at something very real when we think about how an invisible disability is different from a visible disability. If I use a wheelchair or a walker, or if I have a prosthetic hand, I typically don't have to disclose this to people, but it can usually see that I'm using a wheelchair. They'll probably notice my prosthetic hand. But if I have depression or social anxiety or trypanophobia, I have to make a series of decisions about whether or not or when, to disclose to everyone to my family, to friends, but also to co-workers and bosses. Do I tell my new team that I'm bipolar? Do I disclose to my supervisor that I deal with social anxiety? Do I request accommodations for autism? And if I do, what are the risks?

Speaker 2:

Sure, the ADA offers protections from discrimination, but that discrimination can be hard to prove. It may not look like getting fired, but it might mean losing a promotion or not getting selected to work on a new and important project. This might be due to explicit bias, but just as likely and actually probably more likely it's due to implicit biases, and I actually align this with the metaphor of coming out of the closet, which most of us associate with LGBTQAI plus communities. I've heard this phrase for years, but only in the last decade or so have I really become aware of one of the limitations of the metaphor of coming out. It suggests that it's a one and done process. Right, but it's not that simple. And done process right, but it's not that simple.

Speaker 2:

If I'm queer, I have to decide on a regular basis, sometimes a moment-by-moment basis, whether or not, or how or when to disclose. Do I tell a new co-worker, my new supervisor, if I'm a lesbian? Do I bring my wife to the company holiday party? Put a picture of us at our wedding on my desk? Though I want to be careful not to appropriate this metaphor, there are parallels to disclosure. If we have an invisible disability, I typically won't just disclose it once and then be done. I'll be making decisions on a regular, ongoing basis about who to tell how to disclose, decisions on a regular, ongoing basis about who to tell how to disclose and when to disclose. And because an invisible disability isn't apparent, there's a potentially higher risk that the people I tell may actually not believe me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I agree. I want to believe that most of us aren't mean-spirited or unkind, but all of us have implicit or unconscious biases and, as we've talked about, some of those are ableist in their roots. When you talk about questions of disclosure, I think of the imposter phenomenon, more often called the imposter syndrome. This happens when we consistently doubt ourselves and aren't able to internalize our successes. The term was first used in 1978 by Dr Suzanne Imes, who recognized it primarily among women, but also among other marginalized groups, but since then, research shows that demographics who are negatively stereotyped women, people of color, disabled people, lgbtqia plus people, for instance tend to experience the imposter syndrome at higher rates, having to prove that they have a disability if and when they disclose, and, like many marginalized people, they may feel pressure to prove themselves despite their disability, meaning that they end up working harder and longer than their non-disabled colleagues.

Speaker 2:

Yes, this is definitely worth noting, sharon.

Speaker 2:

I'm really glad you brought that up.

Speaker 2:

That notion of having to overcome the notion of imposter syndrome is so profound and too often it's not discussed with imposter syndrome and this need to prove themselves, typically because they're coping with implicit bias and so they feel a pressure to kind of prove their credentials to be taken seriously because they're navigating these biases.

Speaker 2:

So you may be asking how can we change our workplace cultures to diminish the challenges that are facing all disabled employees, but especially in this case, employees with invisible or non-apparent disabilities? One thing we can do is to develop training that educate employees about ableist, bias and stigma systems. Such trainings might address language use, for instance, do I use person first person with a disability, or identity, first a disabled person and by educating employees about microaggressions. This is another training that I think could be incredibly helpful what microaggressions are and then how to identify and stop them. Trainings could include information on how to increase diverse representation, including people with disabilities, and then making that a reality by reviewing and possibly rethinking everything in your company or your business, from how and where you advertise job postings to how you onboard new employees, to how you build in accommodations so that they're taken for granted part of the fabric of your workplace. There are things we can do as individuals and as organizations that need stabilized ableism to make our workplace cultures more diverse, equitable and inclusive.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

I just imagine a world like that, and that's our mission.

Speaker 1:

There are more strategies to consider, but we want to leave you with these, with the hope that it might invite you to think about your own workplace culture and the steps it is or isn't taking to support all employees in an environment that is supportive, respectful and inclusive.

Speaker 1:

It's our intention to be a support and resource for you and to help you navigate these unprecedented challenges in our workplace cultures and create thriving cultures that have a ripple effect that impact us all in a positive way. We'd love for you to join a community of HR professionals, executive directors and managers that are wanting to create and grow more empowered workplaces and organizations, and you can get free tips, resources and opportunity to attend free virtual gatherings where you can engage with industry leaders and innovators, exchange ideas, strategies and best practices. Just go to transformingcultureconsultantscom slash HR. We're also available to provide you with a free virtual consultation to explore any challenges or opportunities in your workplace culture, like what we've talked about here today. You can apply for that at transformingcultureconsultantscom slash free application. You can connect with us on LinkedIn at Transforming Culture Consultants and. Our vision is a world where employees feel happy, respected, valued and safe no-transcript.