Sunny Cash Of Bened Life On What You Should Do If Your Employer Is Not Willing To Make Reasonable Accommodations For Your Disability

An Interview With Eric Pines

Speak to your doctor. They will be able to have a conversation with you on what your specific needs are and what accommodations you need in relation to your disability and will be able to write you a note to give to HR. HR will then determine if it is a reasonable accommodation in relation to your current work assignment.

There has been a significant improvement in disability inclusion in recent years. That said, there are still times when employers need to make reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. What recourse is there for someone whose employer is unwilling to make reasonable accommodations? What do businesses still need to learn about making reasonable accommodations for disabled employees or customers? In this interview series, we are talking to lawyers, HR experts, disability advocates, business leaders, and authors about “What You Should Do If Your Employer Is Not Willing To Make Reasonable Accommodations For Your Disability.” As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Sunny Cash.

Sunny Cash is the Community Director for Bened Life and was diagnosed as an adult with ADHD, which she believes to bring many positive attributes to her day-to-day working life by giving her deep focus on her interests & community building. Human connection is her greatest passion, and she’s happily in a position where her neurodiversity is celebrated. Sunny has over 10 years in the psychology and neurodiversity field and outside of work you can find her hiking with her partner William, and their German shorthaired pointer, Freya.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you ended up where you are?

I feel like advocacy has always sought me out regardless of the direction I would try and steer my career. I majored in Psychology from Biola University, and during my summers in college I worked as a camp counselor for a major theme park. While I wasn’t hired specifically to work with disabled kids, I found myself naturally gravitating towards them, and having a complete blast finding ways to ensure their camp experience was fun and exciting.

Being neurodivergent myself, I think it’s something a lot of us can attest to, birds of a feather, so to say! I have always had a heart for justice in ensuring things were done ethically, especially when my skills and knowledge can lend a helping hand and I am in a place of authority to do so.

I have never been afraid to call out issues within my own organizations. From being a camp counselor at a young age, challenging an usher who told an ASL interpreter they couldn’t interpret during a theatrical performance, and calling out that ADA violation, to my time as a professional baseball sales rep and ensuring my disabled clients had the best experiences and accommodations the park could provide (and also going off on security protocols when a client’s service animal was denied access to a game because he wasn’t wearing a service animal vest, not a requirement in the ADA standards, by the way).

I spent time as a therapist for Autistic kids and teens and made sure to advocate for their care in any way I could, be it making suggestions to therapy plans, and questioning the necessity of goals and if they were truly for the wellbeing of the child, or just for the comfort of those around them. A long-time friend and mentor of mine, who happened to be the now CEO of Bened Life, saw this deep passion for advocacy and justice in me, and approached me with an opportunity to be the Community Director for Bened Life at the very beginning.

He was aware of my experience with the neurodivergent community. He wanted to ensure that we protected the communities we served from day one and gave me full autonomy to make business decisions that would honor those communities. Not in any way the trajectory I thought my career would go, but I couldn’t be more proud and humbled to be where I am now.

You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Please share a story or example for each.

I love this question. There were times when I wasn’t always seen as having the ‘successful leader’ qualities. I always knew deep down I would make a great leader if just given the proper environment and circumstances to do so.

In my past corporate office jobs, I never did tasks in the way that was expected of me, because the system didn’t work with how my brain did. I made myself successful in ways that worked with my brain instead of against it. Because of accommodating myself and my brain’s way of functioning, it was seen as ‘not following instructions’ and ‘setting a bad example’ to other employees, because their system was tried and true and everyone could succeed on it. My system was not one that should be encouraged, so because of that, I was never given any opportunities for leadership roles.

Can you share a story about one of your greatest work-related struggles? Can you share what you did to overcome it?

Motivation and focus have been, and still can be, two if my biggest work-related struggles.

At my old sales job, one of my least favorite things to do was make cold calls. They were awful and I was supposed to do a lot of them every day. Not only is cold calling not a very rewarding task, but it’s also very monotonous and not engaging for my brain. I found ways to not make as many cold calls, but still hit the metrics I was required to regarding sales. I would ask for referrals, prospect my own leads, and would even go to sports bars during off hours and meet potential clients by striking up conversations and slyly dropping the ‘I work for this sports team’ card, and more.

Cold calls were still on my agenda, though they were the last resort, and I was still consistently number one or two on the sales board.

However, my managers didn’t like that. They said my method was just “getting lucky,” their way was guaranteed results, and they didn’t want me setting an example like that for the rest of the team.

It’s ultimately why I left. Despite the fact that I did things differently, by the numbers, I was a high performer and an asset to the company. I needed something with more autonomy to focus on the things that I’m passionate about.

As with any job, burnout can occur, especially for me, compassion fatigue. I have to be more intentional about self-care and make sure I’m taking care of myself to remain energized to do my job efficiently. If I’m burnt out, fatigued, or anything of that nature, my motivation and focus do get affected.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?

Right now I am working with over half a dozen neurodivergent and/or disabled team members to build out an interactive space filled with free resources for anyone who visits our website, not just customers! It is a very slow, but intentional process that is being completely run by neurodivergent and disabled staff. This space will include things like podcasts, articles, blogs, videos, and more carefully curated content from a variety of experts and advocates in the community.

Fantastic. Let’s now shift to our discussion about inclusion. This may be obvious to you, but it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you articulate to our readers a few reasons why it is so essential for a business or organization to have an inclusive work culture?

For Bened Life specifically, it’s quite literally woven into our ethos. We pride ourselves on hiring from the communities we serve, and to not be an accessible workplace would be quite contradictory to our mission. I feel like businesses are scared of accommodation because there is an ingrained bias, that if they need accommodation then they are not an effective worker, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Can you share a few examples of ideas that were implemented at your workplace to help promote disability inclusion? Can you share with us how the work culture was impacted as a result?

We allow our neurodivergent team members to educate the rest of team on the correct verbiage used to describe certain disabilities, words to stay away from, organizations/social media accounts that portray neurodivergent people in a negative light, etc.

Additionally, we ask them what tasks they excel at, how they work best to complete those tasks, and how we can help. We do not try and pigeonhole them into a role, but rather create a role that best suits them! This has created an environment where our neurodivergent team members are working at things they excel and are successful at. I also feel that I have created a culture within the team that enables all team members, neurodivergent or otherwise to feel comfortable asking questions and contributing in ways that line up with their strengths.

Our company stands strong behind the idea of “nothing about us, without us” it’s the idea that no business decisions that affect the communities we serve will be made without representatives from those communities.

Aside from what is legally required, what best practices can make a business place feel more welcoming and inclusive of people with disabilities? Please share a few examples.

Don’t be afraid to get creative! Bare minimum for your employee is never exciting. Have personalized conversations with your employee on things they know have worked in the past and have baseline accommodations that they can have access to already.

Here is the central question of our interview. What are the best steps to take if an employee feels that reasonable accommodations are not being made to address their needs? Can you please share “five things one can do if a business is unwilling to make reasonable accommodations for their disability?”

Though I am not trained as an HR representative, I have been and currently am in a management position where I have been able to make the accommodations necessary for my staff and have an understanding of what is within my scope and power to do, and when I need to involve HR personnel on a more intensive level.

1 . If you have only approached your direct manager about accommodations and they were denied, go directly to HR with an accommodation request. Accommodation requests are meant to be an interactive process, and your job is required, by law, to work with you.

2 . Speak to your doctor. They will be able to have a conversation with you on what your specific needs are and what accommodations you need in relation to your disability and will be able to write you a note to give to HR. HR will then determine if it is a reasonable accommodation in relation to your current work assignment.

3 . If HR deems that your accommodation is not a reasonable accommodation for your current work assignment, they are required to provide you with alternative roles and options that can accommodate your needs, when and if available.

For example, my partner was in the process of getting a service animal for military service-connected PTSD, but his new position had him working in power plants, very close to high voltage and dangerous equipment. He began having conversations with HR before the service dog arrived, to see what accommodations would need to be made.

Regardless of how well trained a service animal was, it was too much of a safety liability to have a dog on site, so his company offered him a position that didn’t require him to work on power plants 100% of the time, and if he had to go to a power plant, his SA could accompany him but would have to stay in the vehicle while on site.

Ultimately, his service dog prospect flunked out of SA school, and just became our family pet, (and she is very well loved and cared for) but this company did the exact steps it needed to, to prepare for a potential accommodation. If you know there is a lateral position open that would be able to better suit your accommodations, don’t be afraid to bring those positions up with your HR representative as a potentially better fit.

4 . In the same vein as number 3, if you know there is a lateral position open that would be able to better suit your accommodations, don’t be afraid to bring those positions up with your HR representative as a potentially better fit. This should be a collaborative process where all parties are bringing solutions to the table.

5 . If you feel your company is not making reasonable accommodations, even after presenting with a doctor’s note, and having conversations with HR, legal representation may be necessary. I am not familiar with legal options, but depending on your state, there may be a labor board, or pro-bono lawyers, or non-profits that can help.

You are a person of significant influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Make work relationships personal again, (within appropriate reason). Know who your team members are on a more than surface-level basis. When your team members feel known and seen, they will feel more cared for, and more than just a number. They will be more likely to be honest and express their needs. This may sound a little creepy, but my ADHD brain can sometimes forget big and small details, which can be awkward when trying to build a good working relationship with someone. I keep a list of small things about my different team members! “Oh, they mentioned they love going to the beach, or their favorite food is this, or they dislike xyz, their pet’s name is ‘Bruce’”. We also have a slack channel specifically dedicated to sharing what we have done with our weekends and sharing fun updates about our families. Your teammates are real people, and I personally love getting glimpses of who they are outside of the office.

Model honest, open, and vulnerable behavior with your team. This opens up a line of trust that allows them to feel more comfortable doing the same. If I am having a hard day, and I know I am short on patience or brain capacity, I let those I know I will be working with closely that day know! “Hey friend, I am having a really hard day, if I seem short, just know it’s not anything to do with you, and you are doing a great job, I just have a very limited bandwidth today, and may not be 100% on it.”

This goes for modeling a good work-life balance too! If I need a mental health day, I tell my staff! I just took one last week, my partner was in the ER last weekend with a head injury and concussion. I was mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted, I knew I wouldn’t be my best self the next day at work, and the exhaustion would only snowball throughout the week. If I had an employee in the same position, I would want them to take a day to recover too, so they would be more mentally ready to take on the rest of the week. Make taking care of yourself first a normal thing. It’s gotten to the point now where my staff holds me accountable for taking care of myself, just as much as I encourage them to do the same! It’s honestly quite beautiful and so incredibly positive. It’s a work environment I have always dreamed of being a part of, and I am so proud I have been able to create it.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!

About the Interviewer: Eric L. Pines is a nationally recognized federal employment lawyer, mediator, and attorney business coach. He represents federal employees and acts as in-house counsel for over fifty thousand federal employees through his work as a federal employee labor union representative. A formal federal employee himself, Mr. Pines began his federal employment law career as in-house counsel for AFGE Local 1923 which is in Social Security Administration’s headquarters and is the largest federal union local in the world. He presently serves as AFGE 1923’s Chief Counsel as well as in-house counsel for all FEMA bargaining unit employees and numerous Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs unions.

While he and his firm specialize in representing federal employees from all federal agencies and in reference to virtually all federal employee matters, his firm has placed special attention on representing Veteran Affairs doctors and nurses hired under the authority of Title. He and his firm have a particular passion in representing disabled federal employees with their requests for medical and religious reasonable accommodations when those accommodations are warranted under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (ADA). He also represents them with their requests for Federal Employee Disability Retirement (OPM) when an accommodation would not be possible.

Mr. Pines has also served as a mediator for numerous federal agencies including serving a year as the Library of Congress’ in-house EEO Mediator. He has also served as an expert witness in federal court for federal employee matters. He has also worked as an EEO technical writer drafting hundreds of Final Agency Decisions for the federal sector.

Mr. Pines’ firm is headquartered in Houston, Texas and has offices in Baltimore, Maryland and Atlanta, Georgia. His first passion is his wife and five children. He plays classical and rock guitar and enjoys playing ice hockey, running, and biking. Please visit his websites at www.pinesfederal.com and www.toughinjurylawyers.com. He can also be reached at eric@pinesfederal.com.