AXSChat Podcast with James Emmett — Disability Inclusion Expert.

The James Emmett brand is one of the most recognizable in the field of disability inclusion. James has worked on many of the most visible disability inclusion initiatives with companies like Walgreens, Best Buy, Office Depot/Max, PepsiCo, and Mercy Health. James is the Founder of James Emmett & Company (www.jamesemmettandcompany.com) that provides disability inclusion services to major companies.  He helped plan & execute initiatives that have resulted in over 80,000 jobs for people with disabilities and numerous awards for innovation related to company-owned disability inclusion. James’ career vision is to forever change the business and disability communities by helping hundreds of companies create disability inclusion brands. 

Transcript

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Neil Milliken: Hello and welcome to the first access chat of 2021 we made it through 2020 and doesn't 2021 and feels so different.

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Neil Milliken: We're delighted that we've got James M. It with us today. James has been a star in the field of Disability Employment and has done some amazing work with major corporations, anything you know

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Neil Milliken: Resulting in employment have some 80,000 persons with disabilities and lots won lots of awards and plaudits So James, tell us about yourself and how you came to be in the field, the motivations, etc. And

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Neil Milliken: Welcome

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Neil Milliken: To our first guest.

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james emmett: 20 wide array of assets. Thank you very much. So Neil. Thank you. I'm so yeah I actually, I have been in disability employment, my whole life since I was 18 years old.

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james emmett: On the saw my and my my summer after my freshman year and university, Wisconsin. I got a job as a job coach in my hometown of Manitowoc Wisconsin.

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james emmett: And ever since then I've been in disability employment, I have a physical disability myself. I was born without a left hand.

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james emmett: I have two daughters. Now with with disability. So disability inclusion is my passion, my love, and I've had before my first

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james emmett: Career was was really at the service side working with organizations like Easter Seals and the ark, but the last half of my career has been more on the company side, helping them build disability inclusion.

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Neil Milliken: Excellent. Thank you. So

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Neil Milliken: Obviously this this last year that we just celebrated the end of has had huge changes and huge implications for employment in general. So, and we as a collective talked about the the potential for greater inclusion as an outcome of Cohen and home working and flexible working

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Neil Milliken: And we've seen large companies having to change and adopt new ways of working, what have you seen because you're working with a lot of these these large companies, how's that impacted the programs you're working on, and has that

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Neil Milliken: meant the most more companies knocking on your door saying, actually. Now we want to engage with you.

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james emmett: It's a great question, and by 2020 was a year of change.

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james emmett: And and it really has been an interesting year for my company for James when a company as we provide we we have I think what we retire. I was just talking with my team. We're going to double our book of business by the middle of 2021

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james emmett: For a variety for two reasons, as you said, Neil. Number one, we have a lot of expertise in those essential businesses, right, the distributions.

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james emmett: Future manufacturing food production and those companies in the United States, at least.

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james emmett: It's kind of we're calling it the great divide right we're saying there's this large unemployment, yet these worker these companies can't find good workers.

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james emmett: Who will stay with them. Right. So for them, the essential businesses. And then as you said those companies now also moving other companies moving through the homework.

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james emmett: And starting to think about accessibility and what inclusion means as you start to think about that in homework those companies are coming to us so

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james emmett: If we're really excited about 21 because I think disability inclusion will have more and more of an impact on both essential businesses and those at home, come to companies that have at homework building, you know, kind of into that business into the business structure.

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Antonio Santos: So James, do you do you expect to see some developments in terms of the employment numbers of people with disabilities this year.

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james emmett: I do. I really do. I, I think, you know, we're having

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james emmett: Antonio we're having this interesting component of companies coming to us and not just the large companies anymore, a lot in the United States, these mid sized companies that employ somewhere between 1005 thousand people who are saying

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james emmett: Talk to us about disability inclusion. Talk to us about the benefits about the loyalty. What do we need to do to become more disability friendly more accessible. So I

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james emmett: I really have hope. Despite everything that's happened. I really have hope for more and more companies building disability inclusion as not just a program anymore. Right. But really baking it into the way that they do business on a day to day basis.

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Antonio Santos: When we know that Devin plenty of comments on on this topic that are the pandemic as triggered change.

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Antonio Santos: And our CIO CTOs who had projects that were somehow frozen in their organizations certainly everyone felt the need

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Antonio Santos: To move forward and improve the way organizations work remotely on on the on that side. What changes have you observed, not only the people that you work more directly, but also in in the market that you usually work.

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james emmett: Yeah, I think it's a great because one of the questions we've been asking lately is

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james emmett: What does inclusion mean when you have a largely distributed workforce. Right. What does that when you have almost everybody working from home.

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james emmett: How do people become included. How do you feel included. What are some of the things we need to do.

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james emmett: Like setting up structured workplaces at home with people with disabilities, helping them understand the rules of interaction on calls and meetings like this, right.

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james emmett: Especially for folks maybe with invisible disabilities who may struggle with some of those social components. How do you set up the, how do you set up the virtual world for for credit, not just with technology accessible technology. Yes, but

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james emmett: Also with the rules. So we're working with a lot of companies about creating those rules for not just the kind of the, the technical pieces of accessibility, but the conversational pieces and how we make sure everybody's included in that and we're seeing a lot of companies.

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james emmett: Starting to ask that.

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james emmett: Question of what does inclusion look like when you have a distributed workforce. I think that's still to be answered in 21 and beyond.

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james emmett: But there's a lot of interesting potential there as well. And I think a lot of companies are going to that, how can we be as productive as possible with with setting up structure.

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Neil Milliken: I think that

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Neil Milliken: We, we are definitely glass half full people

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Neil Milliken: On this, you know, in this group and we see great potential reality.

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Neil Milliken: Let's not forget the, the, the negative impacts that his hand on on our, on our society as well and our community because

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Neil Milliken: The highest proportion of deaths, the impact on health care and services has been significant

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Neil Milliken: But like you, I think that the changes is not just driving in business but but i think that what we're seeing is a sea change within business and and within policymakers.

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Neil Milliken: To try and look at how we can be more inclusive and do stuff in a in a in a different way. So I think people are starting to question

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Neil Milliken: You know, businesses are starting to question things like, well, you know, not only how do we be inclusive and what does inclusion mean but but

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Neil Milliken: What does success mean and how do we define our success and it should only be financial metrics. Now, we don't know already within adults, which is the company that

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Neil Milliken: Attorney and I work for we do parallel reporting that we have a combined reports. So we do financial and non financial reporting and measures and and i think that

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Neil Milliken: That that is really important, but but defining what those measures are also is really important and having some kind of consensus.

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Neil Milliken: On those measures is is something that will really help drive stuff forward. So we do we do all of the major indices, you know, G RI and Dow Jones sustainability index all of these sort of employer indexes and so on. And, and for the most part they're lacking.

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Neil Milliken: Good questions on disability and they're lacking any kind of decent structure around data for this kind of stuff. So I'd love your opinion about, you know, what are the things that we can measure that would allow companies to benchmark and start then creating that for the

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Neil Milliken: ground swell and pressure and system. Yeah.

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Neil Milliken: To improve collectively. Yeah.

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james emmett: Yeah, it's a great meal. And I think it's

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james emmett: You know, it's a great point of great we can't, we can't forget the impact that that the pandemic is having on people with disabilities in the organizations that serve that right with one of the things that I've been

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james emmett: You know, we're seeing, I think, to you. Absolutely. Your point right there is the financial ROI of disability inclusion. That includes reduced turnover.

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james emmett: And, you know, improve safety and and at least equal productivity for folks. But I think there's a lot of things that go beyond that, as you said, and companies are looking right engagement. Right.

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james emmett: The, the ability to look at true engagement of your workforce, right, whether it's people with disabilities or people without disabilities but looking at

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james emmett: True engagement scores and how people feel a part of the brand. Again, not just from a social from a financial standpoint, but from more of a togetherness part. So those engagement scores.

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james emmett: I think you know what some of the companies like yours and Microsoft and are also driving the change and it's coming down now to the mid sized companies is

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james emmett: Bringing people with disabilities also helps you think about

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james emmett: Problems in a different way. Right. You know, and one of the things I hear from a lot of our companies Neil is is when we find people with disabilities. It seems like they run to the problems to solve them instead of running away from

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james emmett: That kind of mentality to so that those engagement scores, the way that you know kind of the creativity and sometimes those are hard to measure.

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james emmett: In the business world, but I think we're seeing that that morale improvement. One of the last things. We also see is

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james emmett: A lot of times we see what we call we call a rally effect as companies start to hire people with disabilities and what we mean by that is

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james emmett: Disability touches all of us, right, whether we have a disability ourself a family member or friend.

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james emmett: And we're seeing more and more as companies go loud and proud to hire people with disabilities.

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james emmett: Site by site, there's this rally effect of kind of that morale improving those engagement score is improving. So lot outside on that. But I agree that social ROI. I think is something really to continue to take a look at companies as we as we come back from the pandemic.

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Debra Ruh: Well, said well said. James, a very interesting conversation. I was just wondering if we could just talk a little bit more just to ground your work because one thing

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Debra Ruh: In the United States, so you know we were working to have impact on employment, but you really have had a pact, an employment. So I was wondering if you would just talk to the audience a little bit about

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Debra Ruh: Some of the companies, you've worked with and what they've done. And some of the successes, they've had because

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Debra Ruh: We used to talk a lot in the United States. I don't hear it as much about the Walgreens success stories. And it's not that you know

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Debra Ruh: That they're not still being successful. You know, I'm sure they are, but it was just at the time it was so revolutionary. So I was but

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Debra Ruh: The thing that I like about the story is that not only did Walgreens, you know, do it. But they learn from other corporations. I know Walgreens was positively impacted by work that cannon was doing, for example, and so

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Debra Ruh: One thing I love about the story is how corporations, learn from each other and then started helping each other. And I know you were a big part of that. I also want to say one more thing, till I turn it over to you is that

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Debra Ruh: Another thing that I thought that was so powerful about you is that, and I'll tell a quick story CVS.

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Debra Ruh: I was talking to CVS about accessibility and they said we really want to employ people with disabilities. And this was years ago because they had seen the success that Walgreens had gotten and their competitor. So, that makes sense.

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Debra Ruh: But what they did was here in Virginia, where I live, they put out a call and said we want to employ people with disabilities and then they had over 250 people contact them service providers.

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Debra Ruh: And many of them would be from the same company and they were just so overwhelmed by the volume of service providers. That's what we call them here in the United States, people that want to provide service to help you.

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Debra Ruh: employ people with disabilities and things like that, that, that they just, they were overwhelmed and so I remember

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Debra Ruh: Talking to Deb Russell, who had been very involved in Walgreens, too. And I said, Well, how did y'all handle that. And she said, Oh, we found Jameson.

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Debra Ruh: Emmett and he was really good, because what he did was, and I should let James explain this. I, from my perspective, what he did was

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Debra Ruh: He figured out how to be sort of the, the front person for the corporation, so that he could filter those 250 people and only bring in, so

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Debra Ruh: That was, that was something that was very new in the US. And I was just wondering if you would explain to the audience a little bit more about that process and how the company's helped each other. Thank you. Yeah.

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james emmett: You know, so for us, the, the still the keyword and I think Deborah. We've talked about this is collaboration. Right.

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james emmett: Whether it's the United States or globally. There are so many people great talented people with disabilities out there who are stuck in our systems, right.

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james emmett: And and we need to collaborate with our corporations to help, though, to help those people come forward and find the right job.

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james emmett: And so for us at Walgreens right we and we started in Anderson, South Carolina, which was the pilot distribution center we we found a

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james emmett: Lead provider. The, the county board and then also the vocational the state vocational rehabilitation in South Carolina.

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james emmett: And we worked with those two entities, but then we were able to bring in goodwill and Easter Seals and all the other local community organizations.

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james emmett: Who all funneled candidates together. It wasn't one ORGANIZATION PROVIDING candidates. It was multiple and what we've done since then. Deborah is take that model.

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james emmett: And even think about it bigger, right, we've we've had some and one of the most interesting statistics. I don't know if this is

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james emmett: Out there in a jet in general sense in the United States that. So the process. Family Foundation, which is now understood understood or who we consult with

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james emmett: A couple years ago we did a study and we found that we call it the 9010 rule. So actually 90% of eligible job seekers with disabilities in the United States, at least.

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james emmett: Are not in the disability system. That's right. So they're not being served by vocational rehabilitation or Easter Seals or the community organizations. So part of

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james emmett: Building now. Now our model is part of building sustainable pipelines with our corporate partners, again, we've worked with Pepsi ups. We're right now working with advanced auto across, for example, large employers.

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james emmett: Is not just partnering with a vocational rehab, which is important, right, all those organizations, but we also have to go

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james emmett: Get the word out where where people with disabilities are not in our traditional system going to religious organizations, going to the YMCA.

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james emmett: Getting out on you all are experts, getting the word out on social media and other and and and you need to. Will this this combination of collaboration, so that the word about

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james emmett: Opportunities gets to everybody with a disability. And so that's really been our focus of our work, Deborah is really thinking about

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james emmett: The multiplicity of places where candidates are and let's go get them. Let's communicate that there is an opportunity within corporations that want to build that and want to that value their skills and that's really been the focus of our work over the last couple of years.

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Debra Ruh: That is so brilliant and I knew that, but just the way you explained it, it's like, wow, you're right, it is the 9010 rule because my daughter had Down syndrome. But I didn't really

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Debra Ruh: Feel that give putting her in the Voc Rehab system was going to do anything for our family. So I went and found her a job and then I brought voc rehab in. So that's such a powerful point. But I think Neil wants to come on comment on this too. So let me turn it over.

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Neil Milliken: For our

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Neil Milliken: For our international audience, I'm guessing the vocational rehab is your government sponsored projects to get people into work.

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Neil Milliken: Whether they, you know, and I'm assuming that a lot of that came from the sort of medical system, but also some from I'm guessing military rehabilitation as well. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah okay and so

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Neil Milliken: Yes, or a similar programs around around the globe. But, but, yeah. And what we find is that like you. Most people who would qualify as being disabled. Don't use those systems.

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Neil Milliken: Maybe because they don't know about them. Maybe because the other thing is that they don't identify as being disabled. Yeah. And so that really was leading on to the next point.

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Neil Milliken: Was that actually

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Neil Milliken: self identification of disabilities. We employ loads of people with disabilities. And I know loads of people with disabilities in my own organization that are not, you know, considered disabled employees because they've never declared it and haven't even self ID.

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Neil Milliken: Or not efficient yourself. I need you know they itself. I need some people but then that they're kind of half in, half out of the disability closer. So do you do work in that area as well to help companies build the kind of

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Neil Milliken: Culture where employees feel confident to self ID and then also

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Neil Milliken: Access the the additional benefits of those sort of vocational rehabilitation or government funded

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Neil Milliken: Services that can help them be, you know, more effective employees or or the employer support them to be you know better employees, if you like, or you know or have a better quality of employment experience.

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james emmett: So it's a great meal. It's a great right self identification and it for me.

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james emmett: We throw the word self identification around a lot in the field of disability inclusion.

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james emmett: But we're still still in our infancy of building helping companies understand how to how to build that culture to encourage self identification. Right.

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james emmett: I've only seen a few kind of large scale really successful self ID campaigns, but yes. So we do meal work with our core with our companies on messaging.

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james emmett: And and really believe that and encourage all our companies to be loud and proud right to borrow from the LGBT Q community.

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james emmett: Be loud and proud, from the very beginning about their disability efforts and their disability goals to not again, as you said, not just encourage candidates to come in.

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james emmett: But the all the people that are in that company. We want them with disabilities. We want them to come forward and be leaders. We want them to come forward and be a part of it. And just to give an example.

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james emmett: We, as I said, we work with advanced auto and advanced auto parts here in the United States, very large auto parts retailer.

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james emmett: And my colleague john stoops does a lot of what we call team member trainings, where we bring folks in from the stores or from the distribution centers.

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james emmett: Who are working there and we do 20 minutes on what this is what the disability inclusion initiative is

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james emmett: And almost Neil by a by a group we typically bring in 20 to 30 people at a time, whether it's I'm in. And we almost always get somebody saying

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james emmett: I have a learning disability or I have, I have a child with autism or is closing almost all the time.

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james emmett: And what we realized is people just haven't been given that opportunity and discussed, what's in it for them if they provide that disclosure. So yes, we I think building internal

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james emmett: Capacity and culture is just as important as building the external referral referral sources so that those two combined to really create kind of a disability and friendly environment.

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james emmett: And it's a journey right it doesn't happen overnight. As you know, right. It especially in big companies, it's but it has to be a plan full build. So, that's right.

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Neil Milliken: Yeah, so, so in the UK, there's a

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Neil Milliken: scheme called disability confidence. You know, there's various different levels that the the the company's going to engage in, and you start off with committed and then he gave it and then

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Neil Milliken: The point is that right, it's not just about confidence. It's about competence as well right and and and and so it's it's very

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Neil Milliken: Good to be confidently are employing people with disabilities but you've once you've got people through the door or they're there, you still need to be

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Neil Milliken: Have the infrastructure behind it to walk the talk. And I think that sometimes I feel that a lot of the initiatives that we see that that talk a lot about employing people

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Neil Milliken: Across the world. And this is, this is not a UK, US thing. But there are a lot of disability inclusion initiatives that there are more about numbers than that they're quantitative rather than qualitative

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Neil Milliken: So, you know, particularly in countries where the recruiters.

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Neil Milliken: Right. So it's all about the numbers of people you employ rather than the quality of the jobs that they're getting in, you know, careers, actually, because that's what I care about. I care about.

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Neil Milliken: Careers, you know, it's important that people are employed. That's, that's an absolute baseline. Right. But beyond that, it's about, you know, you shouldn't be stuck in that entry level job, so, so, so, so how do we systematically as an industry as a collective of industries.

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Neil Milliken: Start moving away from thinking about, you know, giving people jobs is enough to actually

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Neil Milliken: Enabling this across the organization is making sure that we have people who identify as disabled or as part of the community or as allies in leadership positions in, you know, in large corporations or or playing thought leadership roles or, you know,

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Neil Milliken: And having that opportunity to progress because the there's still this sort of soft bigotry of low expectations quoting caveman from perverse base here.

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Neil Milliken: around disability. That means that, you know, you know, once you're through the door, you might have got through the door, but then you're not not really going anywhere. So, so how do we address some of that stuff.

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james emmett: Why, and I think that, again, is sometimes in some of the companies in the United States, especially in my experience.

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james emmett: Sometimes companies are labeling disability jobs, to your point, right, like there's a certain level of job that people with disabilities can work. And that's it. And then maybe not officially labeling it but they're there. That's kind of the implicit message.

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james emmett: And and the first message to our to our companies listening right is every job right needs to be. It needs to be accessible and needs to be available from the CEO to your entry level and everywhere in between.

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james emmett: But I think, to your point, more importantly,

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james emmett: We have to start measuring not just numbers in terms of hires, but how many folks have been promoted how, what is the number and that's one of our formula in our is is not just number of folks retained but number of folks promote it and

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james emmett: Being able to support and watch those careers of people with disabilities.

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james emmett: Within a company is so critical to the long term success of that initiative, right.

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james emmett: And having the experts, the external experts and the internal supporters, making sure that we're not just sending somebody in a facility and supporting them and then forgetting right we're watching and we're asking the question.

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james emmett: We had a we have a situation recently. And one of our partners in the in one of our distribution companies where the gentleman who is death.

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james emmett: He was the best worker and the fastest worker. But the question why and he was ready to be the supervisor of that department.

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james emmett: But then the question was how does he communicate, can we promote him and all that and the answer is absolutely yes. Right.

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james emmett: He's the he's the best worker. So let's figure out the communication structure that we need to make him the department supervisor and now he is right and we build that will we can build that structure around that.

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james emmett: Those type of things. Companies need to be asked those questions of how many people have you just hired. But how many people have you promoted and most importantly

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james emmett: I will more you as point lead. How many leaders with disabilities are in your company, right, what, what does that look like we're so worried about representation at the leadership level.

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james emmett: In other diversity, but we've kind of continue to focus on bringing leaders with disabilities into our into our companies or promoting from within.

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Neil Milliken: Yeah, to kind of follow up on that. I'm sorry.

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Neil Milliken: I think that this you know this is a kind of almost duality of things going on. So,

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Neil Milliken: There's a still a management culture, sort of, you know, infallibility. You know, and you must not admit any weakness.

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Neil Milliken: Right, so, so we know from looking at figures, there's quite a number of senior people that have a disability but you wouldn't know now.

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Neil Milliken: And not just because they have disabilities but because they're deliberately hidden disability. You know that, apart from the legal paperwork. You know, it's not it's it may have been disclosed.

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Neil Milliken: To HR, but it's not something that they talk about in public. So they're not, you know, they're not making it part of their management persona.

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Neil Milliken: You know, so, so I think that there's there's some stuff around that. Because, you know, at the moment is either sort of the two tropes it's you know it's that sort of

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Neil Milliken: Core disabled cousin or it's the, you know, you know, inspiration porn and we need, we need to normalize this and, you know, and the more that we can get people to talk about the

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Neil Milliken: Disability their issues, because again, as we age. And we've have an aging population around the globe, more and more people are going to acquire

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Neil Milliken: Disabilities impairments or or just generally the usual sort of having to wear glasses, being a bit stiff.

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Neil Milliken: As part of life and and and and opening up about all of this stuff and being human actually makes us more relatable leaders, but it's I guess some of that sort of, you know, it's a it's a cultural thing and not just a country cultural thing but a management cultural thing.

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Neil Milliken: So are the companies that you've worked with where they are displaying that kind of open leadership that servant leadership and then I'll shut up and all that. Deborah has the final say.

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james emmett: Yeah, I mean we just recently way we when our work with advanced auto

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james emmett: There. We're, we're working with. There's several leaders who have either a comment disclose their disability or had been promoted up through the project into leadership right and

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james emmett: We're talking about creating a culture, not just of accessibility acceptance. But beyond that, a true culture where disability inclusion is business as usual. That is just so critical, right.

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james emmett: We had just last week and I think we're pretty soon I'll be able to tell the story of this company. I don't want it, but last just last week, one of our mid sized manufacturers who we just engaged with

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james emmett: Had on our leadership. We did a 40 minute leadership disability awareness training and their CEO who has been their CEO for 20 years came out and said, I have never said this before.

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james emmett: But I have a learning disability and that's one of my passions here of and and right it's that as you're saying

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james emmett: Having to not just her but anybody having to hide that culture from that culture of infallibility right we have to not just not just encouraged in disability inclusion.

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james emmett: At the entry level and secondary level, but that leadership level and the message is getting to those leaders, it's

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james emmett: If that doesn't happen things won't scale. So we've got to as you're saying, he'll continue to scale that component of leadership within company and folks with disabilities being critical to that.

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james emmett: What you just said, I just great points.

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Neil Milliken: And perfect. Did you, did you want to follow up before we close so

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Debra Ruh: No, I'm good, because James actually covered what I was going to say. So I just so impressed with his work because

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Debra Ruh: The thing that I love about his work, as I say, No, I don't want to. And then I comment but I just he's actually having impact, he's actually doing it. He's changing the world. And so that's why I appreciate him so back over to you.

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Neil Milliken: And that's a great story. By the way, about that, about the CEO, because that that moment.

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Neil Milliken: Is going to be an inflection point within, within the culture of that company. Yeah, that that that will be the trigger first significant cultural change because that kind of top down leadership and openness.

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Neil Milliken: Gives the green light for other people in middle management and and employees to feel safe to be able to take those things.

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Neil Milliken: So, so, you know, that kind of leadership, super important.

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Neil Milliken: It's been really fantastic conversation. I'm really looking forward to the Q AMP. A on Twitter on Tuesday. As we know our, our community because they were asking us where we were last week damages for not doing an interview on the

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Neil Milliken: Yeah, I know we had a long break with it.

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Neil Milliken: So, but hey, we're raring to go for, you know, Year seven have access, yet we're only here and sustainable because we have the help of our partners and supporters like Barclays access

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Neil Milliken: My clear text and Michael ink so need to say thank you to them. Thank you to our community. Thank you to our guests, and thank you, James, we, we really look forward to you joining us on Tuesday.

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james emmett: Thank you. Thank you for having me. This is awesome.