Almost a year ago, the DRC released its award-winning Disability Inclusion Toolkit, presented by Ernst & Young LLP (EY). Last month, DRC staff shared more about our disability inclusion work at the Disability:IN North Texas event focused on spotlighting the DRC’s work at Accenture’s Dallas office.
Starting the conversation is the first step toward disability inclusion.
The DRC created the Disability Inclusion Toolkit (DIT) as a resource to help organizations improve their own disability inclusion in the workplace.
“We want this to be a conversation facilitator and a tool that people can go to where it has a ton of resources and different things that can help them be able take that next step forward,” said DRC Director of Opportunity & Impact Chatashia Brown. “Maybe they’ve started the conversation but don’t really know where to go next, or maybe they haven’t thought about it, and they want to know where to start. This is what this toolkit is all about.”
Sparking conversations is the crucial first step.
“It’s really about being able to have the open conversations that we think is missing in a lot of corporate environments,” said DRC Storyteller and Data Journalist Nicole Ward. “Let’s make disability not be a dirty word.”
Disability inclusion benefits the bottom line.
Disability inclusion is an asset to the businesses that prioritize it.
“Disability inclusion is just good for business, period,” said Brown. “Companies that emphasize disability inclusion have a lot better employee retention and engagement. They are a lot more innovative. It’s just good business practice.”
According to Accenture, companies that lead on disability inclusion see 1.6 times more revenue, 2.6 times more net income, and twice the profit.
Providing an up-to-date look at an ever-changing landscape.
The data that informs the DIT is the most up-to-date data the DRC has, but it doesn’t mean it won’t change.
“A lot of disability data is based on self-disclosure, which can be really hard to get,” said Ward. “And even in data from government sources, the way a question is asked, the way responses are collected, and the number of people who respond can impact the overall ‘disability story.’ That’s why we want to keep evolving the toolkit. We don’t want this first iteration to be the last word.”
“Our hope is that through the toolkit, companies can improve, and disability inclusion numbers like unemployment will improve, too,” said Brown. “The more comfortable people are having those conversations, the more accurate the data will be.”
To learn more about the DRC’s work in this area, explore our Disability Inclusion Toolkit.