In this episode of All Things Work, host Tony Lee speaks with Kara Yarnot, Vice President of Strategic Consulting Services at HireClix, about her firsthand experiences navigating her own hidden disabilities at work, as well as what HR, talent acquisition and the C-suite can all do to create inclusive, supportive environments for employees with hidden disabilities.
Hidden disabilities (e.g. psychological disorders, chronic pain, learning disabilities, and other unseen conditions) don’t manifest in ways immediately obvious to others, and employees aren’t inclined to disclose them to their employers either, whether due to fear of retaliation or other adverse impacts on their careers. In this episode of All Things Work, host Tony Lee speaks with Kara Yarnot, Vice President of Strategic Consulting Services at HireClix, about her firsthand experiences navigating her own hidden disabilities at work, as well as what HR, talent acquisition and the C-suite can all do to create inclusive, supportive environments for employees with hidden disabilities.
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Tony Lee:
Welcome to All Things Work, a podcast from the Society for Human Resource Management. I'm your host, Tony Lee, Head of Content here at SHRM. Thank you for joining us. All Things Work as an audio adventure where we talk with thought leaders and taste makers to bring you an insider's perspective on All Things Work. Today we're discussing hidden disabilities. About 33 million adults in the US have a hidden disability, which are those that don't manifest in ways that are immediately obvious to others, such as psychological disorders, chronic pain, learning disabilities, and other unseen conditions. While hidden disabilities aren't talked about as often as physical ones, they can be just as debilitating, leading to stigma and discrimination that can diminish even the healthiest workplace culture.
Joining us today to talk about this issue is Kara Yarnot. Not only is Kara a longtime HR specialist and recruiter, but she lives with three non-apparent disabilities. Her left eye was affected by a rare cancer resulting in its loss, which has led to depth perception, challenges, and limited left side vision. She also lives with Meniere's Disease, an inner ear disorder that caused deafness in her right ear. And although her hearing aid helps, she still struggles in noisy environments, and she suffers from chronic migraines that can incapacitate her for extended periods of time. Despite those disabilities, Kara thrives as vice president of strategic consulting services at HireClix in Sterling, Virginia. Kara, welcome to All Things Work.
Kara Yarnot:
Thanks, Tony. Glad to be here.
Tony Lee:
Yeah, we're so pleased to have you. So SHRM research this year revealed that nearly half of all employees who have invisible disabilities haven't disclosed their disabilities to their workplace. Primary reason is retaliation or being bypassed for choice assignments or even not getting promotions. Does that surprise you?
Kara Yarnot:
That doesn't surprise me, Tony. Early in my career, I definitely, particularly with my chronic migraines and the challenges that I faced there, I felt that I was bypassed for choice assignments and some promotions because of the challenges I faced with that hidden disability. I was directly told that they felt like I couldn't perform effectively because I was asking for accommodations. So it doesn't surprise me that people feel that way with their hidden disabilities, with their chronic challenges. So I'm not surprised by that, that you're gathering that data term.
Tony Lee:
And those with invisible disabilities who've disclosed their condition, they say are almost three times more likely to report experiencing incivility, such as rudeness or disrespect or insensitive behavior from both coworkers and supervisors. So it seems like there's a good reason for employees to feel like they can't disclose their hidden disability, right?
Kara Yarnot:
And that's unfortunate and surprising because I would like to feel like people want to help others. And often when I do tell people about my challenges, they do want to help. And I think it's unfortunate that in the workplace sometimes that that is what happens, and that my experience has been somewhat the opposite. I've been in supportive workplace environments, particularly in the latter part of my career, and I think that that's because I've been in more senior roles and I've been in the position to be able to help people around me that my disclosure about my disabilities has allowed people around me to also disclose their challenges to me. But I can see where that can definitely be the challenge.
When I did a post on LinkedIn about my disabilities, the influx of people I don't know reaching out to me directly on LinkedIn and through other manners to tell me their stories of their experiences in the workplace about disrespect and insensitive behavior and how they were discriminated against in the job search process was honestly overwhelming and really sad to me. So I'm not surprised that that's what you're hearing through SHRM, to be honest.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. Well, it sounds like, fortunately, that's not something you've ever experienced, which is great, right?
Kara Yarnot:
Yeah, it's definitely, particularly in the last couple of decades is not something that I have seen a lot of or felt a lot of personally. I had very supportive managers throughout most of my career, and particularly here at HireClix, have had a lot of amazing support for my disabilities and a lot of flexibility around that, which has been amazing.
Tony Lee:
Yeah, no, that's great. So let's talk about HRs role in all of this. So just to make sure everyone listening understands what we're talking about here. So some typical examples of invisible disabilities are things like diabetes, mental health disorder, dyslexia, ADHD, Crohn's disease hearing and vision loss, even being on that autistic spectrum disorder. And in addition, the odds of having chronic medical diagnosis rise as people's age and the average age of US workers continues to go up. So when we're talking about HR, trying to figure out how they should help employees who have hidden disabilities feel better, what would you say are the best first steps for HR to think about?
Kara Yarnot:
There are so many things that HR can think about. So one of the first things, and HR has done great things over the last five to 10 years when we're talking about DE&I training, as well as sensitivity training, things to think about there. We tend to focus on race and gender sensitivity training, those types of things, but we're not necessarily putting disability training into those categories. And let's broaden our spectrum. Let's start thinking about the concept of just flexibility. When I think about myself in the disability community and the people that I meet and talk to in the disability community, and often it's just what are the flexible arrangements and what are the things that people in the disability community need in order to do our jobs? And often it's just small tweaks and a little bit of flexibility, and we're not a monolith.
There are small adjustments that can be made to our work environment, to our work hours, to our work situation that allow us to bring our best selves to work. So when I talk to HR professionals, I start with just suggesting, asking the individual what does that individual need in order to bring their best self to work? So I use my own example to help them think through things. So from my vision and hearing situations, I need to be able to control the light and sound in my work environment. So sometimes that means I need super bright situations for my vision impairment, but then when I talk about my chronic migraines, sometimes I need complete darkness. So I need to be able to control the lighting in my workspace.
So depending on the work environment that I'm in, now I primarily work from home, so I have complete control over my lighting in my office space at home. But if I were working in a traditional office, that flexibility, I would need to work with HR to say, "I need a workspace where I can control the lighting." So just working with HR to say, "What is it that you need to allow you to work in your best space?" So asking those individual questions, and that's usually something that most workspaces can accommodate. And from chronic disease situations, mental health disorders, what flexibility do they need? Do they need to be able to take breaks at certain times? Do you need to have access to certain facilities? What are the things that those individuals need? And treating it on an individual basis. So when you're asking how should HR respond when they learn that an employee has a hidden disability, there's a stigma that comes with that.
And as a person with a hidden disability, it's not something you can see. And we all in the disability community have different levels of comfort with sharing our story and having that sensitivity that not everybody is as comfortable as I am with sharing their story, and that's completely fine. But asking them, "What are the things that you need in order to bring your best self to work and to do your best work?" And when you ask it that way, it allows the employee to take a pause and say, "Okay, what is the environment? What is the situation in which I can do my best work?" And they'll bring that forward and make those requests. And often they are small things that are easily accommodatable. Those are things that HR can work with the individual employee on.
Tony Lee:
Yeah, no, I'm so pleased you brought up accommodation because I can't tell you how many times I've spoken to a senior level HR person about potential accommodations. And of course the response is, "Yeah, that can get costly." And it really doesn't get costly. Most of the accommodations you mentioned are free. They're about flexibility, not about building ramps and things like that, right?
Kara Yarnot:
Right, right. I'm not looking for doorways to need to be widened and all of those things. From a hidden disability standpoint, it's often something requiring flexibility. Maybe it's having breaks at different times, starting your day a little bit later or working at different hours. And if that's possible, in knowledge worker situations, there's always often opportunities for a lot more flexibility. So it's just asking those questions. It's having an office that has more light or has less light. Those are things that are definitely flexible and often doesn't cost any money or very little money. And I think from HR, we're always often, having worked inside HR in corporations for 17 years myself, I understand the perspective there. We immediately go to, "Oh my gosh, what is this going to cost?"
And coming at it from a very different perspective, employees are often afraid to ask for additional help because we don't want to be seen as the person that needs extra or needs to be treated special. And often they are quite simple requests, and it's just asking, "What do you need to be able to bring your best self to work and to do your best work?" And when you frame it that way, the individual with the disability is thinking about it from a positive light. They feel like the HR professional that they're working with is trying to help them be their best self. I use this phrase a lot with my own team, we're all sitting on the same side of the table, so let's all sit on the same side of the table and solve the problem together. And it quickly becomes something that's easy to adjust and find a good solution.
Tony Lee:
Yeah, and the other thing that surprises me is with company size, you would think, "Oh, well, big companies, they can handle this type of thing." I found, and I think the research beared out that small companies tend to be the most flexible here. It's big companies that have rules and they don't want to make exemptions to the rules.
Kara Yarnot:
That has been my experience as well, Tony, that the smaller organizations tend to be the more flexible, they tend to be more willing to help. And the large number of people in the disability community that do reach out to me for job search advice, and I tell them to really look to those small to medium-sized companies because they tend to be more flexible and tend to have fewer rules and tend to understand the talent shortage challenge better, and be willing to look in different places for people with the skills that they're after and want to be flexible to get them on board.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. So you brought up the talent shortage. Let's talk about that. Your background is in recruiting. So severe talent shortages out there, employers are basically turning over every rock to try and find qualified candidates. And we have seen a lot more examples of companies that are reaching out to non-traditional talent and perhaps people on the spectrum. So do you see this continuing? Is this a one-time thing, or do you think this is the future?
Kara Yarnot:
I think it's the future, and I hope it's the future. And I definitely have seen more organizations thinking creatively about how do you engage people in the disability community. The neurodiverse community has definitely gotten a lot of attention in the last several years, and I'm hoping that that continues to expand to say we have a need for people with all kinds of skills, and we have to start thinking differently about how to find them, engage them, select them, get them on board and keep them here. And that needs to cause organizations to think differently. And it has to start with the area of my expertise of how do we select them? We have to think about our selection process differently because the traditional way of interviewing automatically excludes a whole lot of people in the disability community. And the neurodiversity community really has gotten a lot of focus because your traditional folks on the autism spectrum just don't do well in traditional interviews.
So those organizations that have thought about this differently and have changed their selection process are really doing well in that space. I always give a out a shout-out to Dell, who is very well known for their neurodiverse programs and selecting people in the organization that way, really focusing on skills and do these individuals have the skills we need to be successful here, and using valid and reliable assessments to look at skills and then providing folks with support they need to be successful in their culture and in their environment. And it really is a way to expand your talent pool to find individuals with the skills you need for your organization.
I'm really hoping this is the way forward because the disability community is significantly underemployed, and that's visible and invisible disabilities alike, and there are individuals with great skills out there that can help fill those skill gaps. And it's not just the highly technical skills. There are a whole host of folks in the disability community that have skills that organizations can use that can help build those gaps that are needed for organizations to grow the way they need to in the decades to come.
Tony Lee:
So I think we've both seen examples of recruiting teams, talent acquisition teams doing a great job of identifying these candidates and bringing them into the organization for the interview process. And then people managers who are not comfortable or who are not trained, submarining those people's chances. So what can HR do to get people managers on board with this?
Kara Yarnot:
So I think this might be my next crusade for the next part of my career is... People managers, in general, I think that we have an epidemic in organizations of promoting people into people manager roles because they are just really good at whatever skill they have. We promote the best salespeople into sales manager, the best engineers into engineering managers, the best IT people into IT managers, whether or not they actually show aptitude for managing people.
So we really need to rethink our selection process for people managers, and it's even more important if you as an organization are going to expand who you are bringing into your organization for any skillset. So I really want to encourage organizations to rethink not just their manager selection process, but their ongoing manager training process. We really need to get into bias training for all managers, and it needs to include training for disability bias, as well as diversity bias across the board. And it's not a one and done. Those things cannot be a one and done training, oh, I went to my diversity training for the year checkbox. And that's not effective in any way, shape or form. And it's not just training. It has to be an ongoing thread throughout your culture in your organization. And you have to reward, regularly reward, those managers who show those behaviors and are managing effectively and adjusting their styles to each individual's employee needs.
Just like I talked about helping HR pros earlier, you work with those in the disability community for what is it that you need to bring your best self for work to work? That's the exact same thing every people manager should be doing for every person on their staff. What is it that you need to bring your best self to work, those in the disability community and those not alike? And providing that regular coaching and training. And this is where HR can be a linchpin in the whole thing, providing that regular coaching to their people managers to help everyone in the organization thrive.
But if you as your organization are really going to embrace expanding who you are recruiting into your organization to include the disability community, you've got to support your managers to onboard them and integrate them and keep them and retain them in the organization regularly. You can't just drop somebody onto their team and expect them to know how to manage these people and help them grow and contribute and be an effective member of the team without regular support. So it requires a significant mind shift and significant support for it to be successful throughout the organization.
Tony Lee:
And do you think HR gets the support from the C-suite to do this, that the funding, the resources they need?
Kara Yarnot:
Very few of them do just yet. I think this does need to come from the top. The C-suite needs to understand in order to fill this skills gap, they have to think differently and to think differently, you have to fund things differently. It is just not going to magically happen overnight, and it doesn't happen without money, and it doesn't need to be a significant investment. It's the same thing. Getting back to the accommodations don't have to be huge costs, but you have to think about them differently, and you have to fund these types of programs differently, and you have to educate and train your HR team so they can train your managers and support them effectively. So it does need to indeed come from the top down.
Tony Lee:
Yeah. Well, Kara, we could go on and on and on, but unfortunately, we're out of time. So that is going to do it for today's episode of All Things Work. A big thank you to Kara Yarnot for sharing her story and offering guidance on assisting employees with hidden disabilities. Now, before we get out of here, I want to encourage everyone to follow All Things Work, wherever you listen to your podcast and listener reviews have a real impact on a podcast visibility. So if you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to leave a review and help others find the show. Finally, you can find all of our episodes on our website at SHRM.org/podcasts. Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next time on All Things Work.