29. Powerful Ways to Create a More Inclusive and Accessible Workplace with Dannie Lynn Fountain
Also available on YouTube!
Disability accommodations.
What are they? And should you be providing them in your small business?
Join me for an empowering conversation on The Impact Ripple podcast with the incredible Dannie Lynn Fountain as we explore the world of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace, with a focus on disability inclusion and accessibility.
Dannie Lynn is a Disability Accommodations Program Manager at Google and the Founder of Focused on People, where she provides invaluable support to clients and brands with HR-focused DEI strategies.
Together, we unpack the importance of prioritizing disability accommodations in DEI efforts and dive into actionable tips for fostering an inclusive and accessible workplace. You won't want to miss these practical gems that can be implemented right away!
We touch on the language of inclusivity, shed light on challenges faced by individuals with disabilities at work, and explore simple ways small businesses can introduce disability accommodations to attract, support, and keep great team members.
Dannie Lynn passionately discusses the significance of cultivating a culture of accessibility, urging small businesses to embrace diverse working styles and addresses the elephant in the room – the shockingly low employment rates for people with disabilities.
Dannie Lynn encourages businesses to step up and create workplaces that not only accommodate but truly embrace inclusivity. Join us for a conversation that goes beyond buzzwords and leaves you with tangible steps to make positive impact ripples in the world!
In this episode, you’ll:
Gain a better understanding of the language of inclusivity so that it’s not a barrier to creating a more accessible workplace
Uncover the challenges and misconceptions surrounding DEI work
Address the fear of making mistakes head on and emphasizing positive intent in discussions
Learn about different types of disabilities and employee needs and how a “one size fits all” approach doesn’t work
Discover practical examples of disability accommodations that you can implement right away
Mentioned in This Episode:
Keep Your Day Job by Dannie Lynn Fountain – Coming Summer 2024
Authenticity, Identity, and Being Yourself at Work: Harvard Business Review Work Smart Series
Bureau of Labor Statistics: Persons with a Disability Report (2022)
Do Your D+I Efforts Include People with Disabilities? – HBR article
User Guide: A Person User Manual for Working with Me – Friday template
Book a Free Call – www.sprouthr.co/call
Transcription for Episode 29 - Powerful Ways to Create a More Inclusive and Accessible Workplace with Dannie Lynn Fountain
Ashley Cox (she/her) (00:01.518)
Welcome to the Impact Ripple podcast, the go-to source for hiring and leadership made simple, doable and fun for visionary female business owners. I'm your host, Ashley Cox, author, certified HR expert and founder of Sprout HR. And I believe that you don't have to change who you are to be a great leader because you already are one.
Join me as we kiss uncertainty and overwhelm goodbye and say hello to the tools and support you need to grow a profitable, sustainable, impactful team with more confidence and ease. On today's episode, Dannie Lynn Fountain joins me for an informative, resource-filled and encouraging conversation on disability inclusion and creating more accessible businesses and workplaces. Dannie Lynn Fountain is a multi-passionate human.
By day, she's a disability accommodations program manager at Google, and by night, she supports clients and brands with HR-focused diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies. Her focus is on expanding disability inclusion within DEIB efforts by equipping people with the tools to craft change within their own situations, regardless of their seniority at work or authority within their team.
Dannie Lynn has been interviewed or quoted in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Bustle, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Cosmopolitan, Digiday, The Every Girl, Girl Boss, and more. Dannie Lynn's latest book, Ending Checkbox Diversity, rewriting the story of performative allyship in corporate America, was the number one Amazon new release and is available everywhere you buy books.
In this episode, Dannie Lynn shares her personal journey from marketing expert turned DEI advocate and professional. She helps us explore the language of inclusion, encourages us to observe and consider how people interact with the world around them, and gives us loads of easy and actionable ideas to create more inclusive and accessible businesses and workplaces for all of our team members. One of the most.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (02:11.518)
Part of our conversation is the shocking statistic that Dannie shares about how many companies don't actually include disability accommodations and accessibility in their DEI programs. I was blown away and I think that you will be too. So join us on your favorite podcast app, read the transcript at SproutHR.co or watch us on YouTube as you tune in for our conversation with Dannie Lynn Fountain.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (00:01.285)
Hey there and welcome to The Impact Ripple podcast. Dannie, I am so excited to have you here today.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (00:01.41)
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I know we were talking about this before we started, but this feels like a little friend reunion.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (00:12.897)
It does, it does. You know, Dannie and I were actually talking about, for our listeners, how we met. And I told her, I was looking through my emails and we've known each other forever now. So I mean, maybe we just materialized as friends one day, but we figured it out. We met in a Facebook group, Savvy Business Owners, like back in 2015. And that was when Facebook groups were, you know, helpful and a great place to connect and do business. And they weren't full of spam.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (00:24.042)
Maybe we just materialize just friends one day,
Ashley Cox (she/her) (00:42.181)
um and spite um but you know Dannie has been one of my dearest friends and greatest advocates as a business owner so thank you Dannie um just for being there and being a friend and always being so encouraging um i just love and appreciate you so much and i'm excited to bring you to our audience
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (00:53.642)
Thank you so much. We're excited to bring you to our next session. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much because honestly, ditto. When my book came out and all of the things, you were always one of the first people in the comments and I so appreciate it.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (01:12.689)
Oh, you are so welcome. Okay, well, we'll stop our love fest because we could probably go on and on about this forever. But let's get into what we're here to talk about today because you all are going to just soak in this conversation. It is a conversation that we need to have that we're not having enough of. And Dannie is one of my favorite people to follow and to learn from and to understand more about this topic. And our conversations around diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, justice in the workplace. But specifically today, we're gonna be focusing on disability, inclusion, and accessibility. Such, such important topics. And I think that you're gonna, here's some things today that are gonna be very surprising. You might feel called out on, that's okay. That's part of the learning process. But we are gonna go on this journey together and really talk about some important things and ways that small businesses.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (01:50.71)
such important topics and I think that you're gonna hear some things today that are going to be very surprising. You might feel called out on and it's okay that's part of the learning process but we are going to go on this journey together and really talk about some important things and ways that small businesses can create more disability inclusion and accessibility specifically.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (02:08.701)
because there's a whole lot we can do and we have way less red tape to wade through in order to implement some of these ideas that we're gonna talk about today. So Dannie, start us off, tell us a little bit about your wild, amazing, eclectic journey and how you came to be doing this incredibly important work you're doing today.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (02:15.11)
Oh my gosh. Well, when we met, funny enough, at the time, I was a full-time entrepreneur. I had left my first job out of undergrad. I had been working in marketing for like a year and a half, two years. And at the time, I was a full-time marketing consultant, which we talk about this a lot in the online business owner space. But sometimes the things that you're really good at aren't always the things that you love. And that was very much the case for me. Fantastic marketer continues to serve me well, not my zone of passion.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (02:59.433)
Hmm.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (03:08.774)
And so right around the time, 2017, right around the time I got hired at Google, I got hired into a sales job at Google. It quickly became painfully evident, like, yep, okay, we're good at this, but we don't like it, which began this kind of evolution. I ended up getting a master's and a doctorate in HR, slowly, pivoted my career into the HR space. And now we're full-time as a disability accommodations program manager at Google and still run that very same business from over a decade ago, just slightly repositioned as a DEI consultant, author, all of the things, book influencer, I guess.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (03:53.857)
love it. Yes. If you are into reading, Dannie reads like a thousand books a week. I'm sure of it. I'm not sure that that's a very accurate total, but it's approximate. But she always has the best reviews. I love reading your book reviews. I love seeing what you're reading. And it is a wide range of books. So if you have any love of any genre, just follow Dannie. I'm sure she'll read it.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (04:09.812)
And it is.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (04:14.15)
any love of any genre is following the answer. Oh, it is fascinating to me. I'm starting to put together my end of year book post. I know this is not what the topic of the podcast is about, but I think there's like 37 genres represented as of this morning, 500 books I've read this year, which is wild.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (04:34.249)
Oh my gosh. I mean, I know this isn't part of our conversation either, but I think everybody would be fascinated to know, including myself, how do you read 500 books a year?
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (04:38.837)
Everybody will be fascinated to know.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (04:44.502)
Well, I don't watch TV. So in the average, which I found this stat the other day and was fascinated, the average American watches I think 4.6 hours of TV a day. So if you take that and replace it with reading, and then obviously, whenever I'm driving, whenever I'm walking somewhere, whenever I'm doing house tours, there's always an audio book going. So you add those together and there's like my baseline.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (04:46.641)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (04:55.711)
Mmm. There you go.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (05:13.03)
The average human between social media and TV probably spends seven hours consuming that content and that is all reading for me. So yeah.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (05:20.285)
There you go. So you just have your priorities where you have your priorities, whether it's reading or watching TV or mindlessly scrolling TikTok. Look at the weirdest recipe that's popped up this week. I love it. Well, I think that's what makes you so accessible in your content as well. You don't just talk about work all the time. You bring in these other elements of your life and your experience as a human on this earth. And I think that makes
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (05:31.572)
Yeah, exactly.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (05:38.751)
Mm.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (05:49.765)
makes it feel like, oh, okay, Dannie's a friend. And I think that's so important in the work that you do and the way that you show up, because when you have something important to say, people are already leaning in. I think that that's so powerful. So I just wanted to acknowledge and appreciate you for that as well.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (06:07.942)
I just will say, I mean, you've been in this business world as long as I have. We've been hearing the niche down message for the last decade and like my autistic and ADHD brain just can't. Niche is not a thing. I have seven niches.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (06:15.613)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (06:19.273)
Yeah.
I know I'm always like I know that I want to do any one thing forever. I love to experiment and explore and do different things and try the other. And so I get it for sure. And I love that you mentioned, you know, like my neuro diverse brain because that's something we're talking so much more about. And that's part of the conversation today. So I'd love for you to share a little bit more about how you got interested in this DEI work because I know a lot of it is very personal for you.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (06:56.29)
Oh gosh, yeah, I, to be very honest, I present as a white, straight, neurotypical woman, and I walk through life that way. And I keep calling myself the wolf in sheep's clothing because people say shit to my face that if they knew my identities would never come out of their mouth. And personal life through to professional life through to entrepreneurship. And
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (07:25.354)
If you're familiar with what it means to be autistic, autistic folks are very justice sensitive, very, very strong sense of right and wrong, whatever that is defined for you personally. And injustice in the form of marginalization is just that one topic that sets me the frick off. And so really it came out of.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (07:50.006)
Well, if I'm talking about this all the time, and if I'm arguing on the internet about this all the time, and if I'm telling people in my personal life that they need to stop saying this all the time, why is it not my job? And it's only in the last about four months that personal and professional have collided, that my job at Google is actually also DEI-focused too. But really, it just came out of lived experience, which you will find for many DEI folks is true.
If I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna educate you about my lived experience, I might as well get paid to do it.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (08:23.369)
Absolutely. Pay the people for their labor because it is a labor. It's an emotional labor. It's a mental labor. Sometimes it's a physical labor. I think that a lot of times people love to play dumb. They love to not remember that their phone also has Google, not just the company, but the whole search engine where we can research and we can learn and we can hear different voices and different perspectives.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (08:26.73)
Yes!
Ashley Cox (she/her) (08:51.657)
You know, it's a lot of that unpaid labor or even expected labor that I think like you hit the nail on the head, it grinds your gears to the point where it's like, well, if I'm going to keep talking about this, like, let's get paid for it. It feels fair. That feels just, right? Yeah. So let's talk about one of the first things I think that can be really intimidating to folks when we start talking about DEI. And that's the language of.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (09:06.502)
Yeah, precisely. That's fair that they're just... Mm-hmm. Yes.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (09:21.417)
DEI, the Language of Inclusivity. This is something that you address in your book, which I'm going to shamelessly plug for you right now. And if you're watching this on YouTube, you're going to see a copy of Dannie's book. And it's called Ending Checkbox Diversity, Rewriting the Story of Performative Allyship in Corporate America. What a powerful title. But one of the things that you address in the book is the language of inclusivity. And something that you said was that more people.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (09:22.942)
Mm-hmm. Something specific. This is something that you addressed in your book, which I'm going to shingle. Yeah. Right now. And if you're watching us on YouTube, you're going to be talking about this book. And it's called Ending Checkbox Diversity, Rewriting the Story of World Allyship that you addressed in the book is the language of inclusivity. And something that you said, was that more
Ashley Cox (she/her) (09:51.465)
be inclusive, they want to participate, but we often make diversity language or inclusivity language real fancy. And so people get scared. And I'd love to hear some more of your thoughts on that and some of the things that you have found helpful in talking about DEI and breaking some of that fear down.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (09:51.638)
be inclusive and want to participate, but we often make diversity language or inclusivity language real fancy, and so people get scared. And I'd love to hear some more of your thoughts on that and some of the things that you have.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (10:09.932)
DEI breaking from the fascist era. Yeah, so I gotta tell you, the original working title of that book was Corp in America's Modern Plague and it's in part because of this specific topic. We intellectualize and academicify and over theorize so much of DEI work. I don't know if you or anyone follow Blair Imani on Instagram who creates these modern seconds snippets taking all of these DEI topics in literally 30 seconds or less breaking them down. But that barrier to being inclusive feels so high because there's all of these $10 words involved in the work of DEIB that frankly can't keep people out of it. And it's very hard to be someone who has like, lived your life a specific way and then comes face to face with this understanding that like, wow, my life has been really beautiful because I've been walking paved roads and someone else out there has gravel roads. And you want to dip your toes in, you want to understand, but the Google results require you to have a thesaurus and a doctorate degree to even understand what's going on. And that just doesn't work. And so when we peel back all of D-E-I-B-J, whichever letters you're using, many folks use a different assortment of A in there for accessibility. When you peel back all of that, it really boils down to. Nobody started at the same starting line, but we want everyone to be able to reach the finish line. And when you really simplify it down to that, it gets a lot more understandable. It's really popular on TikTok to watch that privilege walk. And two people start on the same line and they talk about the different things that they had in their life and they step forward if they had these things. And it's a visual demonstration of that. Not everybody starts on the same.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (12:22.446)
starting line, but we want everyone to have access to the finish line. And when you just start to conceptualize it in that way, it becomes a no brainer. Like, yeah, I want my neighbor to reach the finish line, too. But it gets a lot more simple.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (12:39.049)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. You know, even sometimes I think what really freaks people out is making a mistake, right? Like I'm going to say the wrong thing and then I'm going to be ostracized or I'm going to be canceled or I'm going to be shamed or whatever it is. But I would venture to say that that's a small percentage of people who would actually respond in such a negative manner. I believe most people want to
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (12:54.446)
or whatever it is. But I venture to say that respond in such a negative manner. I believe most people want to help each other understand.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (13:07.753)
help each other understand or use the proper language. But what is your advice for people who are like, I just don't want to offend my people, specifically thinking like leaders to teams. I don't want to say the wrong thing. I don't want to do the wrong thing. I don't want to offend my people, but I want to be more inclusive. I want to use more of this language to create a place where people feel like they really belong and they're valued.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (13:11.182)
But what is your advice for people who are like, I just thinking like, who do I speak to? I don't want to say the wrong thing, and I'm not saying the wrong thing, I don't want to offend my people, but I want to use more of this language to create a place for people to be, I think, to be more sound. Yeah, there's almost this balancing of intent and impact, right? We can have positive intent and still have harmful impact. And harmful impact creates labor, creates emotional experiences, creates harm, but malicious intent combined with harmful impact obviously hurts the most.
Positive intent combined with harmful impact, that's where that like, I messed up, but hopefully people can recognize and come alongside, and then positive intent and positive impact is beautiful. And so most leaders are probably fearful of being in that middle one. They have a really positive intent, but the impact just really isn't there. And there's just a few things that you can keep in mind here. One piece of it is the ego piece. Even if you have really positive intent, that doesn't mean you get to be really defensive when it has negative or harmful impact. It is far better to have negative or harmful impact and really listen instead of saying, Well, my intent was really positive here. So just being open to conversations around it. Also not being afraid to have conversations and to learn. And if you are in a company or a leadership role where you do have a budget accessible to you, paying for that learning, please. So instead of having employee roundtables, have truly compensated.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (15:13.518)
whatever that means. But all of this to say, just don't assume that you know everything or that your worldview is correct. Even in the DEI space, every single DEI practitioner enters this space through their own lens. I name over and over and over again that the way that I feel the most marginalized is disability and so that tends to be the lens through which I look at things because my other marginalizations. I experience a lot of white passing privilege from. And the same is true for leadership. Like as you are learning and understanding and evolving, you're still gonna hold your own biases and just naming that. So all of this that I'm saying is have genuine, wholehearted, like to your core positive intent, but then set aside the ego when you inevitably have a harmful impact or outcome and just be open to evolving.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (16:15.401)
I love that. It's so beautifully said and I love how you kind of tied it all together there at the end because it really doesn't have to be as hard as we like to make it. And I think sometimes we like to make it a little harder when we aren't a marginalized identity. We like to pretend that things are harder than they are instead of saying, you know what, every now and then I'm going to step in the shit and that's okay. Because I think that that's how we learn.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (16:35.886)
Step in the shit and that's okay. Because I think that that's how we learn.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (16:40.905)
You know, if we look at like adult learning techniques, the best way that adults learn is by doing, not by sitting back, not just by reading, not just by listening, but by actually getting involved. And you can't get involved in DEI conversations and creating and building an inclusive workplace unless you actually get involved and you do it. I think that's so important is we have to actively be doing the work and not just giving it lip service as well.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (16:44.366)
The way that it's best learned is by doing. And to come back, not just by reading, not just by reading and creating and building an inclusive workplace as much as you actually get off. You can do it. I think that's so important.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (17:07.31)
Yeah, I think especially in the executive space. In corporate America, we talk a lot about executive sponsorship, but we never talk about follow up. And so for both corporate folks and small business owners, it's not that first statement that matters. It's the continued follow through. It's the demonstration that this is integral to how I and my business or my company operate. That really starts to put that positive into the world.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (17:38.217)
Absolutely, absolutely. So let's talk a little bit about, you know, like really dive into the conversation around disability accommodations. What does this mean? And how do we know if we're doing it or we're not doing it? And what, well, what else can we do? Just kind of start at the beginning and then we'll kind of explore all those conversations. So what are disability accommodations? What do we need to know?
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (18:01.262)
Yeah, so I'm going to ground us in two pieces of context. So first, there is a stat that was published, I believe, in a 2020 Harvard Business Review article that says, although 90% of companies claim to prioritize diversity, only 4% include disability in that, which is fascinating when you consider there are over a billion disabled people in the world. One in four Americans are disabled. COVID was a mass disabling event. That number of disabled folks is only growing.
And disabled folks are one of the largest and most intersectional marginalized identities out there. It doesn't matter your national origin, your race, your sexuality, you can be disabled too. It is intersectional. And also, there is also a growing cohort of folks that use the phrasing temporarily able-bodied, because as we all age, or if we experience a freak accident, we can become disabled too. Once you hit 60, 70, you're doing more dying than living. And disability may become a part of your life too. So all of this to say, one of the largest, one of the most intersectional identities, and it's the one with the lowest barrier to entry. You can't change your race, but you can certainly change your ability status, and sometimes not even by choice. So.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (19:27.017)
Yeah. Ugh.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (19:29.166)
All of that is a foundation. Disability is at the same time, one of the least understood, most challenged, marginalized identities as seen in that stat that only 4% of companies are prioritizing. So, yeah.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (19:44.809)
Yeah, let's talk about that just for a second. I want you to repeat that statistic because I want for people to listen. So if you'd missed it, here's your chance to listen. Tell us the stat again, Dannie.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (19:55.374)
Yeah. Yeah. Although 90% of companies as of 2020 claim to prioritize diversity, only 4% consider disability within that.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (20:07.785)
That's just such a mind blowing statistic. Absolutely mind blowing. If you are saying that you are prioritizing DE and I in your workspace, and you're not including disabled individuals in that programming, you're part of that 96%, right? That's not.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (20:09.998)
Yeah, painful, painful.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (20:26.542)
Yeah. This is one of my favorite topics too. Let's also separate the medical and legal definitions of disability as well. So pregnant folks are considered temporarily disabled during the course of their pregnancy. Obese folks aren't always medically considered disabled without a comorbidity, but frequently are legally considered disabled because they can experience discrimination based on their body size in the workplace. So let's also be aware that like what we traditionally, historically think of as disability is a limiting definition of wow. As well as like we start to talk about neurodiversity, chronic illness, especially, yeah. There is so much to disability that unfortunately is not surprising that it doesn't get included.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (20:56.809)
Yes. Invisible disabilities.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (21:22.51)
But yeah, so hopefully this is all grounding to then understand disability accommodations is then whether in corporate America, whether in small business, whether in how you show up online, disability accommodations is again, if someone's not starting at the same starting line, we want them to reach the same finish line. So disability accommodations in corporate America is a formal process that provides accommodations, making it, helping the starting line so that someone can do their job successfully. Disability accommodations, both online and in small business, you may not have those, you may not have employees, you may not be providing those sorts of accommodations, but what you can and should be doing is weaving accessibility through everything that you do.
So, I mean, Instagram has inbuilt captions. If you are posting an Instagram story where there is noise, no excuse to not have captions. Just that base sort of stuff. If you're posting text-based images, please put that text in the Instagram caption as well. Just all of those components that should be standard business practice today is kind of the starting point.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (22:42.537)
For sure. And we still see comments. Like I saw, this might have been two or three weeks ago. Somebody had put the text captioning over their Instagram reel or story or whatever it was. And somebody in the comments literally said, how annoying is this text? We're not deaf. And the barrage of comments of individuals who were hard of hearing and deaf came in that comment educating this individual that you might not be but there are plenty of us who are and we appreciate those captions.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (23:15.822)
That's and just the accessibility in that. So as we're recording this, it's about a week and a half after the release of the ballad of songbirds and snakes, the Hunger Games prequel, that movie came out on a Thursday night Friday. I had to wait until the following Saturday to go see it, because I had to wait until AMC had one of their open caption showings. That's the most accessible way for me to go to the movies.
Captions, you would be amazed at the number of people who use captions on a day-to-day basis and not putting them in your Instagram stories, not having them on the movie screen, like can really, I had to wait. I mean, boo hoo, I had to wait a week and a day to see this movie, but if I wanna participate in the discourse around this movie, I'm eight days behind. Captions are so major and such as like a baseline thing to do.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (24:08.457)
Great.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (24:12.169)
Yeah, it really is. And it's really become so much more accessible for us to even use caption because they're built right into so many of the online tools that we use. You know, it's not that it's something that we have to pay thousands of dollars for, it's literally accessible at our fingertips and it's the click of like two buttons.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (24:32.718)
Yeah, Google Meet and Zoom both have live availability. I'm not familiar with the other platforms, but I'm sure GoToMeeting and WebEx do as well. But I mean, Instagram is again, a fantastic example. If you're posting a story where you're talking, click that caption sticker, please. Yeah.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (24:46.249)
Yeah, dude.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (24:49.929)
Yeah, for sure, for sure. So that's one simple way that we can all create more accessible content, connection, building relationships with people and making sure that people are not excluded from the conversation, but they're able to participate in real time, not on a delay, not after they've had somebody else come in and interpret it for them.
But I think that that's something that I've still kind of blown away that we don't see more of that. And like you said, also, if you're putting out text posts and they're in the, you know, in the carousel format and you've got like five or six slides to scroll through, e-readers and things online can't read those photos. And so maybe you think it's being accessible for people, but if you're blind, if you are, you know, unable to see well, if you can't see on a tiny little screen that's only like two inches wide, maybe you just have a hard time seeing. That's also something, putting it in the caption allows those tools to be able to read that out loud for people.
So here we're tackling from two different sides. We've got the visibility accessibility and then the auditory accessibility as well. So here we're kind of tackling a completely different side. We've got the visibility and sensibility and the audibility as well.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (26:00.366)
Yeah, and even just, even if the accessibility component to you doesn't make sense, which is a whole separate conversation, spend a day observing. How many people around you watch Instagram stories and TikToks with their sound off, with no headphones on?
Ashley Cox (she/her) (26:26.601)
Me, me, I read almost everything online.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (26:29.646)
Yeah, I mean, the day that TikTok released 2X speed was life changing because I started listening to things again. But even if the accessibility piece isn't sinking in, just observe from a social... There was a stat that was like millennials are now the largest users of captions on Netflix, et cetera. Just observe.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (26:55.849)
Oh yeah, my captions live on Netflix. I feel like as soon as I turn them off, I'm like, I don't know what's going on. And I'm like, you know, if you need me to pay attention to something, I need to have captioning. And if somebody's talking too slow, I'm such a fan of the 2X speed as well. Like my brain has already either left the studio or it's 10 steps ahead. And I'm like, I know what you're going to say. Hurry up already.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (27:02.798)
Truly, yeah.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (27:07.15)
I mean, Instagram needs to get on that, because it's literally to the point now when I see someone post a reel on Instagram. I go look up their username on TikTok so I can watch it on 2X speed.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (27:32.777)
I love that. I love that. Find your own ways to be more accessible to content. Oh my goodness. So let's talk about some of the ways that, or some common challenges perhaps, that people with disabilities face in the workplace. So now we've got an understanding about accessibility and how do we create content and reach out to people in multiple different ways that they can participate, in multiple different ways that they can participate.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (28:02.953)
Yeah, overcome some of those challenges that people are facing in the workplace. But how?
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (28:07.726)
Yeah, that is, whew. So I'm gonna come at this from the neuro-intervention lens because obviously that's my lived experience, but then also in my day job at Google, I have some other thoughts as well. Two big things that really get my justice sensitivity going is remote work and 40 hours of work.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (28:32.11)
So remote work massively levels the playing field on accessibility. We have mutual friends here online with chronic illness that benefit from remote work because it makes the care for their chronic illness a lot more accessible. We also in corporate America see reduced need for short-term disability leave if folks are able to work remotely because it makes their chronic illness care a lot more accessible. Remote work also is really supportive of neurodivergence. It's supportive of second and third trimester pregnancy as well. First trimester too, honestly, with that morning sickness, if you don't want to travel into the office, amazing. And then the 40 hour work week too. This one, so usually these two comments go hand in hand. Oh, I don't know if I can allow my employees to work remote because how do I know that they're working 40 hours a week?
Ashley Cox (she/her) (29:27.625)
Yes.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (29:28.878)
Can we let go of the Henry Ford mentality, please? Because I talk about this with colleagues all the time. In my job as a program manager, half of my job is case management, but then a lot of my job is also ideation, strategy development, et cetera. A teammate and I were working on a project together and he would get so frustrated because I would produce in 30 minutes what took him three hours to produce. And it was the benefit of ADHD and Autistic Hyperfixation Just like, both of my books, so the book that you have in your hand, the book coming out in 2024, don't tell my agent or editor, but both of them were written in the 36 hours before manuscript deadline, because of hyperfocus. And if, oh yeah.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (30:13.705)
Oh my gosh. Which is such a benefit that employers should be able to leverage, but not require a 40 hour work week because nearly.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (30:24.782)
Well, and that's, yeah. So I was talking to this coworker and I was like, yeah, I do that in 30 minutes, but then literally I spend the next two hours reading, just like emptying my brain back out. And so technically it takes you and I both three hours because I produce in 30 minutes and then need to like get my brain right again, and it takes you three. But if we think about the work week as this traditional. 40 hours of consistent output and production, eight hours, it doesn't work like that. If me and this co-worker are producing the same amount of work in 40 hours and I'm meeting two hours first of reading and he's diligently at a consistent pace doing his work in 40 hours, we have to pivot to an output-based structure.
So, in corporate America, those two are the biggest and the most umbrella over all disability. If you're measured based on output instead of butt-in-seat hours, and if remote work is a consistent option. But other forms of accessibility include the traditional things that you might think of, like major employers typically will provide ASL interpreters. Other major employers will also provide ASL education for teammates of deaf members, deaf team members.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (31:54.633)
If you're not familiar with ASL, American Sign Language.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela
American Sign Language, which, and if you're not in America, BSL, FSL, the appropriate language, yes, yes, yes. So that is a big one.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (32:03.305)
The common sign language in your language form. Yeah.
Or even just having documents written in different languages that are represented by your employees, you know, whether that's Spanish or it's Croatian or it's, you know, whatever that language, Mandarin, it might be. I think that that's something that's generally pretty accessible for folks to find a translator, get the documents transcribed and pay very nominally to create documents that folks can read, understand. Could you imagine trying to read and understand a contract that's not in your first language?
Ashley Cox (she/her) (32:40.041)
It would be incredibly difficult or a project scope proposal or something. So I think even thinking about how can we take the documents that we have and make sure that if somebody on our team doesn't have English as a first language, and that's our default, that we say, would this be helpful to have this document in your first language?
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (33:01.198)
Mm hmm. Yeah, that's, that's a, there's this concept of prestige language. So prestige language is the language in the workplace most commonly used by executives and those in power. And if you are not a fluent speaker, or a native speaker of the prestige language, there can be a tremendous amount of exclusion there that I can spend hours on that topic also. Yes, yeah.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (33:22.185)
Mm-hmm. This could seriously be its own separate podcast entirely. But we're gonna tackle as much as we can today.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (33:30.51)
So, but coming back to, I think, two more accommodations that folks don't typically think about, travel accommodations, I think we default to the most cost-effective, but not all employees can fly in the morning up. Some folks need to fly in the night before. And then around travel accommodations too, just because an employee is traveling to the site doesn't mean that they also want to do after-hour social stuff. So travel.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (34:00.142)
And then as well, if the employee traveling is a mother, if the employee traveling has a physical disability or a chronic illness that requires considerations, building that in. Especially, I feel like 2023, like we were back to business travel. So that's, I think, something important to think about. And then also meeting structure. If your job is wall to wall meetings. No.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (34:15.337)
Thank you.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (34:29.422)
Having a culture that at least finds a balance between live and asynchronous meetings. There's three types of meetings. There's information sharing, decision making, and brainstorming. Most information sharing meetings can be in email. Say it again sister. Oh, so those, when we're thinking about small business too, these are like some of the more.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (34:46.697)
Yes, say it again sister. Oh my goodness.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (34:56.078)
broadly applicable accommodations. There's a ton of accommodations that are case-by-case very individual and consultative, but these are some of the broader things that we can think about.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (35:04.169)
Yeah. I love this. Thank you so much for sharing these because I feel like a lot of times, as small business owners, we think, well, we have one employee. That one employee still matters, and their needs still matter. And if there's an opportunity for us to create a more accessible and inclusive culture for that one person, we should do it. I think that it's easy to think, oh, but when I have a hundred employees, that'll matter. That'll make a difference. One employee
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (35:31.246)
Well, I think the legal minimum requirement is either 5 or 15. Not that we need to only adhere when it's a legal requirement.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (35:35.081)
Well, it's different in each state. Like what you're required to do is one conversation. What you should do as a human is a whole different conversation. But yeah, there's states that have a minimum of five, and the federal government's minimum is 15 for actual Americans with Disability Act accommodations. So if you have a team of 15 or more, you're at least federally required.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (35:43.278)
It's a whole baseline. Yeah.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (35:55.534)
Yeah.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (36:01.641)
to provide accommodations. But if you have under 15 and you're a team of one or a team of five or a team of eight, like, be a good student. Yeah, it's the right thing to do. But I think that, you know, just some of the conversation that we're having around this, there's so many easy and accessible and free, or at least low cost ways that we can create more accessibility. And I think, honestly, the conversation can start with how can we make our workplace better?
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (36:07.118)
It's still the right thing to do, yeah.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (36:23.886)
that we could create more accessibility. And I think, briefly, the conversation is pretty smart with how can we make our workings better together? If we just normalized as part of onboarding or during your one-on-one conversations asking what is your working style, we would eliminate the need for so many accommodations. At one company I worked for, I literally had to get accommodation for feedback and writing.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (36:31.209)
Together.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (36:45.545)
Yes.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (36:52.526)
because, oh, that's a working style. No, literally my brain will not process your feedback unless you give it to me in writing. If we can normalize just having conversations around folks' working styles. That'd be great.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (37:07.657)
Yes, yes. And we're allowed to ask that. That's okay for us to say, hey, what's your preferred working style? How do you work best? Is there anything we can do to support you doing your best job? You know, those are easy conversations for us to have, and they should be happening right at the onset of employment. If you haven't had those conversations, it's okay to go back now and say, hey, every day I'm learning. And this is something that I've learned today. What can we do to make our workplace better? Let's brainstorm this together.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (37:10.222)
Yeah.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (37:24.302)
If you haven't had those conversations, go back now and say, hey, every day I'm learning, and this is something that I'm learning today. What can we do to make our work better?
Ashley Cox (she/her) (37:36.905)
And again, if you are thinking about, well, I don't wanna belabor the point with people, I don't wanna make them do that labor, hire somebody. There's some incredibly talented people out there. Dannie, who do you recommend to do this work with? I'm assuming perhaps yourself.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (37:37.55)
And again, you know, if you are thinking about...
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (37:51.118)
For a lot of the accessibility work on Instagram, Mabel Iquillo, Aaron Perkins is amazing. For corporate accessibility, there's a number of folks and resources, yes, myself as well. What I would really encourage, maybe I'm jumping ahead here, but what I would really encourage is…
If you do nothing else with the teams that you work with, create user guides. So you can Google user guide. But if you've ever unboxed a new blender and read the manual on how to set up the blender, it's basically a parallel. User guides talk about working style, when someone prefers to log on and log off. Do they prefer email, chat, phone call, video call, blah, blah, blah.
If you create or download off the internet a template and just do that for everyone, that is a phenomenal zero cost baseline place to start because then you can aggregate them all in one place as new employees on board. They can even for contractors like please, this contractor does their work overnight. So that's when they're going to do their best work. Easy, low cost, low barrier to entry.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (39:16.078)
Is an accommodation without needing an ADA process.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (39:19.433)
Yes, yes. The ADA process is definitely something a little bit more robust and nuanced, but this is just a simple way to ask for what people need and not make assumptions. Because when we make assumptions, we can go all sorts of sideways with that.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (39:30.35)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, you also might discover that every single person on your team hates the Monday all hands meeting because they prefer to do deep work from nine to noon. But you're gonna learn things about your team doing user guides.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (39:45.097)
Yeah.
For sure. And if you're struggling with hiring, well, let me just drop this little nugget in there because I looked this up the other day. And the latest data that we have from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is 2022, reported that only 21.3% of employees with a disability were employed or people with a disability were employed compared to 65.5% of people without a disability.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (40:16.745)
So we have a huge gap of people who are not employed, who want to be employed, who could do brilliant work if only we had an inclusive and accessible workplace for them to be able to do that work. So if you're thinking about hiring, struggling to hire, think nobody wants to work anymore, there are plenty of people out there who want to work. And we can create incredible workplaces, incredible cultures where they feel welcomed.
And where they feel included and where they can participate just as much as anyone else in the workplace. So just something to think about there as well. So as we wind down our conversation today, it's time for our final and favorite segment of the show, which is Imagine the Impact. And so, Dannie, I'd love for you to help us paint the vision for our listeners of the kind of impact they could create with one key thought or takeaway or action item from our conversation today, either something you've already shared or
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (40:59.342)
I think the one thing that I would say both in corporate America and in small business, we talk about repurposing content all the time.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (41:13.225)
So something new that maybe you haven't had an opportunity to talk about yet.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (41:25.39)
Taking one piece of content that may have been a blog post, making it an email, making it an Instagram post, et cetera. Think about accessibility in a similar way. Ensure every piece of content that you create has two or more entry points. So if it's a video, it also has captioning. If it's a photo, there's also an image description or alt text. Just make sure that every piece of content that you create has two or more entry points.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (41:48.937)
I love that. I mean, just imagine the impact that we could create by allowing ourselves to explore the opportunities that exist with accessibility. I think we could touch more people, we could create more welcoming environments, we could hire more people, we could give more people opportunities to do meaningful, impactful work in this world who maybe otherwise have been left on the sidelines. So, Dannie, this has been such an amazing conversation, as I knew it would be.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (42:13.614)
So, Manny, this is a special conversation, as I knew it would be.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (42:18.633)
I feel like I could just talk to you forever and ever in all eternity on this topic. And it's so nuanced and so detailed. So I know that folks are going to love to connect with you. Where can they do that to learn more about you and the work that you do?
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (42:29.582)
Yeah, definitely the best place is on Instagram at Denny Lynn Fountain. That tends to be the hub that I have going on.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (42:39.081)
Perfect, perfect. So we've mentioned a lot of really fantastic resources today. I'll make sure that we drop all of those links in the show notes for you so that you can have access to that quickly and easily. All of our podcast episodes are transcribed and uploaded to our website. So if you can't listen, you can join us by reading. You can also view it on YouTube if you like to watch instead of listen or read. So we've got lots of entry points here for our podcast. And we're always looking for opportunities to create more accessible content. So if there's something that would help you to access our content better, just let us know. You can always drop us a line at hello ar SproutHR.co. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much, Dannie, for joining us today on the Impact Ripple podcast.
Dannie Lynn Fountain, she/her/ela (43:25.294)
Of course, have a good one.
Ashley Cox (she/her) (43:27.113)
Thank you. And thank you, dear leader, for tuning into our conversation today. I hope that you found it enlightening, inspiring, encouraging, and so much more. As always, it is an honor and a privilege to be here with and for you on your leadership journey.
