Why Most “Disability-friendly” Companies Aren’t

What they won’t tell you is they favor a compliance mindset over an accommodation mindset.

By Tim O’Brien

A few years back, I sought and received national certification for O’Brien Communications as a “disability owned business.” As a sole proprietorship, this means I own the business and I have a disability. Mine is a mobility disability that does not require a wheelchair, but rather a cane or two.

The process for vetting me was arduous, and I was happy about that. As someone with a disability, I see quite often how some fake having a disability to obtain certain things like accessibility parking placards. Yes, I know that not all disabilities are visible, but the situations I’m referring to are ones where I actually know the individual lied to get the placard and other “perks.”

As part of the vetting process to certify my business, I had to go through a panel discussion, where two disability and inclusion experts interviewed me. Neither had a disability, and yet they were the experts on disability inclusiveness. I’ve seen this more often than not when it comes to the field of helping people with disabilities.

They asked me why I wanted certification. I said I want to have something on my website and other materials that tells potential clients or others I may do business with that I have a disability in advance of our meeting each other. I don’t want them to be surprised. It feels awkward for me to insert that into our initial conversations, so I’d rather that info be readily accessible to them. If that’s an issue for them, I’d prefer they ‘de-select’ themselves from our relationship before it goes any further.

That last part froze my interrogators.

They then hit me with a barrage of questions that can be summed up as: “What do you mean you want them to remove themselves from the process of hiring you? Why would you want that? Are you encouraging discrimination against yourself?”

My answer then as now was ‘no.’ I don’t want to encourage discrimination against me or anyone else. But for me, life’s too short for me to spend working with people who have a bias — hidden or otherwise — against people with disabilities. Or, I recognize, it’s quite possible that the need they have to fill may actually call for someone with better mobility than me. I’m not going to judge. But I do know I don’t want to work with people who have an issue with my disability. Let’s get that off the table up front.

The reviewers didn’t understand. I didn’t expect them to. Both were members of DEI-protected classes and they made it clear to me they favored the notion of putting potential clients and employers under a certain amount of scrutiny, if not outright pressure, to hire those in protected classes.

Again, I’m the last person to favor any sort of discrimination. But in my situation, I just don’t want to waste my time working with people who aren’t comfortable working with me because of my disability. The last thing I’m going to do is try to force them to work with me. That negativity is just not something I want.

Well, I passed the review and my business was certified.

After Certification

From there, I tried to leverage my new certified status. I featured my certification prominently in all my communications. I stayed abreast of everything the certifying organization communicated and did.

In concept, the whole certification thing showed much promise. But in practice, it was a different story.

The organization was run by largely “able” people. They were good at fundraising, spreading the gospel of inclusion when it comes to disability, holding meetings and conferences, managing a vibrant web presence, and giving awards and recognition to some of the biggest companies and organizations in the world.

The focus was mostly on disabilities in the workplace, and more often than not, the hiring of younger disabled people with low or no skills. There was less of an emphasis on disability owned businesses. For those of us who are disabled and who run businesses, they didn’t really know what to do with us.

You could try to use your certification to get government work, but that’s not my market. The cold reality was that most of those global corporations getting awards and recognition from the certifying organization for their support of people with disabilities didn’t really embrace the hiring of disability owned businesses at scale.

During the years I maintained my certification, I came to the following conclusions:

• Companies who tout their inclusiveness, specifically when it comes to disabilities, want to focus on low-level employees in the workplace. They do this because it boosts their numbers pretty quickly and easily, and that gives them bragging rights.
• Those same firms really don’t want to hire higher level consultants with disabilities because that’s more complex, they don’t want to interfere with their own managers’ decision-making, or the field is simply too narrow. The ROI just isn’t there.
• The professional field centered on helping people with disabilities is largely run by ‘able’ people with master’s degrees in their chosen profession. They are expert in what they were taught. They spend most of their time reconfirming their own biases, and almost always operate as though anyone with a disability should simply be quiet and be grateful to them.
• Related, as a field, they can be very exclusionary to the people they say they serve. There is a passive aggressive tenor throughout the disability inclusiveness field that often keeps people with disabilities from attaining positions of influence. You can have a perspective fed by the fact you have a disability 24/7, but your understanding is not the same as theirs because you didn’t go to school for it. There’s an obvious reason for this defensiveness. Once people with disabilities take control of their own support networks, the able-bodied people in charge fear they will be forced out due to their lack of true understanding.
• The vast majority of companies and employers with disability inclusiveness programs only do it to generate favorable publicity, enhance their employee recruitment efforts, and mitigate the risks of disability-related claims and litigation.

As a result of this, I let my certification status lapse and I ended my relationship with the certifying organization. I don’t need it. No one who has a disability and who owns a business needs it. It’s a charade that benefits everyone involved except the business owner with a disability.

Business owners with disabilities are the chattel.

An Iconic Hotel Brand Drops the Ball

While this example is not centered on challenges faced specifically by business owners with disabilities, it reinforces how some iconic corporations who are widely recognized for their service to the disability community so often fail.

A recent trip I took involved staying in three hotels over the course of a week. Two of the stays were with the same well-recognized hotel brand. I’ve been a frequent customer of the most iconic hotel brand involved.

In all three hotels, I stayed in an ADA-compliant room. Yet in only one case was the room actually outfitted to accommodate someone with the full range of mobility disabilities.

It’s almost like they let the handyman down the street decide where to place the handrails in the bathrooms. They were all over the place and/or missing altogether. In one room there were three rails around the toilet and only one very low-hung rail on the other side of the bathtub. For me, this made taking a shower an extremely risky proposition.

In another room within the same hotel chain, there were no rails whatsoever near the toilet, another low rail on the wall above the tub, and a strangely placed rail near the tub/shower. For me, this is a high-risk scenario.

In the third chain, the room was outfitted for a roll-in wheelchair shower and rails.

In all three cases, none of the tubs or showers provided a place to set a bottle of your own shampoo, a washcloth, or a bar of soap. Someone who has trouble standing simply can’t do it. And something missing in every ADA-compliant hotel room, no matter where you stay, are rails in a bathroom when you’re not next to a tub, shower, or toilet.

To grasp the risks involved, imagine having trouble walking and then having to navigate a slippery tile floor with nothing to hold onto from the door to the shower or toilet. Steam creates huge risk on tile floors. Canes? Rubber tips and wet, slippery surfaces are a recipe for disaster and a lawsuit. Rails make a difference.

In some hotels over the years, I’ve seen it done right. A more permanent bench was provided in the bathtub or shower area for those who need one. There are soap holders and places for washcloths and shampoo. And rails are placed so that someone having trouble standing has something to grab onto when getting in and out of a shower.

These are highly simple and inexpensive accommodations that, sadly, are terribly inconsistent and wrong more often than not in designated ADA-compliant rooms.

When hotels decide to adopt a compliance mindset to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), instead of an accommodation mindset, this is what you get. Not to mention that in their minds, all people with disabilities use wheelchairs (electric ones at that). If you have a mobility disability and you don’t use a wheelchair, you’re out of luck.

So, what’s my message?

If you run a company or an organization stop patting yourselves on the back and forget the awards. Do the right things for the right reasons. You’ll find you will get the recognition you want. And you will reduce the risk of claims and litigation. But to do so, you have to be willing to do the one thing you’ve been fighting against for so long. You need to hire people with disabilities at a senior level to advise you and consult with you. Then you need to listen.

Tim O’Brien, a veteran, senior-level corporate communications, crisis and issues management professional, operates O’Brien Communications, a Pittsburgh-based firm.