Easterseals’ and The Aspen Institute’s IDEA Convene focuses on practical steps toward disability inclusion

By: Jessica Tuman, VP, Voya Cares & ESG Practice COE

The Aspen Institute’s IDEA Convene brought together leaders in leveraging the talent of people with disabilities in their workforces. Speaking at the luncheon keynote, Voya Executive Chairman, Rodney O. Martin, Jr., put a real face on the process, it’s successes and failures.

Celebrating Voya’s disability inclusion progress

I was privileged to attend the Easterseals’ and The Aspen Institute’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) Convene Oct. 19, in Washington D.C. The daylong program brought together leaders from employers that have successfully leveraged the talent of people with disabilities in their workforces and those that are working hard to do so.

A series of case studies showcased best practices for cultivating an inclusive organizational culture that prioritizes disability and diversity as a value driver. Representing Voya, both a sponsor and a presenter, I was struck by how far we have come in advancing disability inclusion in our organization.

Voya Executive Chairman, Rodney O. Martin, Jr., spoke at the luncheon keynote, and he put a real face on the process, its successes and failures.

As I look back on that intensive day of learning, I’ve compiled three key takeaways:

1. All attendees recognize the imperative, but few know how to get started in a sustainable way.

Disability inclusion is not a one-and-done project but one that resonates across all areas of a business. We often hear the sentiment that the effort needs to start significantly with a big move that will irrevocably change the culture and business model. However, organizations that are serious about making disability inclusion a priority need to make smaller, more considered moves to get started. And most importantly, they need to be willing to make mistakes and course correct. Rod Martin addressed this concern in his remarks. He recounts that his response to the often-posed question, “How do you know it’s not going to be a wrong move,” is, “We don’t.” There really is no proven “guidebook” to becoming a truly disability-inclusive organization. It’s really one that is being written, revised and rewritten on the fly.

2. It’s not a top-down effort, or a bottom-up effort, it’s both.

The old chestnut that any significant change has to “start at the top” is often applied to the process of disability inclusion. If the CEO is onboard, everyone else will fall into line and pull application of disability inclusion down through the ranks into all aspects of the business. Another often repeated trope is that lasting change has to be a grassroots effort, one that the “rank and file” gets behind and pushes up. The answer is that it’s both. When push and pull meet in the middle, you have an entire organization working toward the same goal.

3. It takes a series of small steps to make change.

As noted above, it is rare that an organization can effect meaningful and lasting change in one grand gesture. At Voya, Rod Martin described the start of our disability inclusion efforts and the journey that we still are on. We started with senior leaders, presenting an awareness session at an offsite leadership meeting that surprisingly prompted colleagues to open up and emotionally describe their own connections to the disabilities community. At that point, Rod says, he realized that disability inclusion is more than a business decision; it’s also the right thing to do for our customers and our colleagues.

We then gradually undertook a series of steps to embed change in our organization: listening to what our employees told us, starting a cross-functional task force, evaluating our benefits programs, embarking on education and awareness programs, purposefully including the disabilities communities in our external and internal communications and connecting with external nonprofits to advise and guide the process. And recently, we are focusing on hiring more employees with disabilities through virtual work opportunities, supporting them more concretely with personal and professional mentoring and working with more disability-owned vendors.

My most gratifying take-way from the Aspen Convene, however, grew as we talked with fellow participants. We were struck at how far Voya has come in the process. All these small steps have created a marked difference in our organization — for the better.