Disability Inclusion In The Workplace: David Flink Of Eye to Eye On How Businesses Make Accommodations For Customers and Employees Who Have a Disability
An Interview With Eric Pines
I wish someone had told me that there are five variables of happiness within a job — people, place, project, pay and passion. For me, passion has been a driving force, as we’re on a mission to empower students with learning differences. But it’s also important to understand that at the beginning of someone’s career, you might not get five out of five of the variables for happiness. But understanding that they’ll come together in time, and someone may not get all five ever fully and that’s okay too — you can still have a satisfactory job with the ones that are priorities.
As we all know, over the past several years there has been a great deal of discussion about inclusion and diversity in the workplace. One aspect of inclusion that is not discussed enough, is how businesses can be inclusive of people with disabilities. We know that the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) requires businesses to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. What exactly does this look like in practice? What exactly are reasonable accommodations? Aside from what is legally required, what are some best practices that can make a business place feel more welcoming and inclusive of people with disabilities? To address these questions, we are talking to successful business leaders who can share stories and insights from their experience about the “How Businesses Make Accommodations For Customers and Employees Who Are Disabled “.
As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing David Flink.
David Flink is a leading expert on the front lines of the learning rights movement as someone who proudly has dyslexia and ADHD. He is the Founder and Chief Empowerment Officer of Eye to Eye, a national nonprofit that works to empower the 1 in 5 in America with learning and attention issues. David was named a Top 10 2021 CNN Hero for his work to support students with learning disabilities, and he regularly speaks to audiences ranging from students and educators to social entrepreneurs, policymakers, and corporate leaders. He is also a published author of Thinking Differently: An Inspiring Guide for Parents of Children with Learning Disabilities, which sets out to expand our understanding of learning and offers new, powerful strategies for teaching, parenting, and supporting students with learning differences.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you ended up where you are?
Every day I have the honor of doing my life’s work. I am somebody who is proudly neurodiverse, and am grateful that the organization I founded at 18 years old and have run for the past 25 years is able to highlight the powerful stories of the 1 in 5 people who are neurodiverse to change the school system and the world. I went from being an 18-year-old and one of Eye to Eye’s first mentors for other students with learning disabilities — or differences as I think of them — to being a CEO, author, and speaker. I’m able to share the messages of young people across the world of what they would like to see in a more open and accepting society.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Integrity is essential. Whenever you’re working with young people, your intentions matter. It’s key for me to have the vulnerability to share my story and listen to other peoples’ stories, as people are entrusting us as a nonprofit to do right by young people. Integrity is a big piece of why, for 25 years now, Eye to Eye has delivered impact in communities that are looking for the opportunity to support students with learning differences.
A commitment to hard work has also been instrumental. As somebody for whom the school system wasn’t designed for, I often had to work harder than my peers to get the same level of equity. I developed a hard work ethic from that experience. Now, when you’re trying to change the world for students with learning differences, I can’t always take the day off. We’ve established a culture of working hard and providing one another support at Eye to Eye, from volunteers to staff.
Patience is also a key character trait, which may be a little ironic as somebody with ADHD whose orientation to the world is inclined to be more impulsive. But it’s important to have the perspective that we’re trying to make a cultural change in America to a place where 1 in 5 people can be equally seen, heard and supported, which takes time. Eye to Eye recognizes that not everyone has gotten what they needed every time they walk into a school, so we’re working towards that. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Can you share a story about one of your greatest work related struggles? Can you share what you did to overcome it?
Within Eye to Eye, it’s not lost on me as CEO that I have a lot of privilege because we’ve built an organization that’s accommodating to all learners. But my job doesn’t just exist in a bubble. I’ve had numerous experiences where the skills that we teach young people about how to advocate for themselves and speak up came up within the work environment. For example, while writing my book Thinking Differently, I was working with Harper Collins. It was important to me that the audiobook version was released at the same time as the print version so that it was accessible to people with learning differences. That goes against the typical process where both the audiobook is released after the written copy and it is often read by the author. As a dyslexic reading out loud is a challenge, but I asked to find a reader in time and have the audio released simultaneously with the print version so that the book could live up to my intention of writing it so that anyone could read it. Coming back to them was hard, but Harper Collins was accepting and found a great reader so that they could be published together.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
For the past 25 years, Eye to Eye has been focused on supporting the 1 in 5 neurodiverse kids who are using their voice to change their school system. This past year, Eye to Eye developed the Neurodiverse Alliance, which recognizes the need for allies as well as students with learning differences to come together and advocate for all learners. We’re really excited about creating spaces that will allow everybody to love across their differences. When you look at the history of movements, allyship is how you achieve massive change. I’m excited about this because it’s a step towards achieving our dream to eventually not have to exist, because our world has changed so much we won’t be needed. We hope the next 25 years will be the best 25 years yet.
Fantastic. Let’s now shift to our discussion about inclusion. Can you tell our readers a bit about your experience working with initiatives to promote Diversity and Inclusion? Can you share a story with us?
The Neurodiverse Alliance is a great initiative to share because quite often, in discussions about DEI, neurodiversity is not part of that conversation. The Neurodiverse Alliance is driven by young people who recognize that neurodiversity is not the only part, but an important part of their identity, which is important in influencing our schools and joining the diversity conversation. Eye to Eye Alumni have made changes at their employment as well — an alum named Micah started a neurodiverse affinity group at his job, taking our work to the work world. I often see the way DEI is being paid attention to as being focused on DE, but it’s also about the I. To reach the I, schools and employers must take the action to make sure everyone is seen and heard in a space, even if it’s invisible. The Neurodiverse Alliance is an amazing opportunity to have young people lead on Inclusion in their schools.
This may be obvious to you, but it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you articulate to our readers a few reasons why it is so important for a business or organization to have an inclusive work culture?
An inclusive work culture honors people’s full selves and their humanity. When we invite young people to be their full selves, it should be replicated in the office. It’s also good business — bringing everybody in allows people to share all that they’re bringing to the table so the workplace is more productive and more affirming, driving businesses to achieve their mission better.
The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) requires businesses to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what this looks like in practice? What exactly are reasonable accommodations? Can you please share a few examples?
Most businesses look at reasonable accommodations as the way in which the minimum gets met. For example, “okay, someone on my staff is in a wheelchair and there are steps to the office, so we need to make sure there’s a ramp.” But as we think about how neurodiversity fits into the landscape of disability, it often falls on the individual. I’d encourage businesses to not wait for the individual to ask for what “ramps” they need, but be proactive and ask them. There are so many resources available right now which could create incredibly inclusive cultural opportunities, so whether we choose to do so is where we can fail.
As someone who’s dyslexic, I struggle with reading still, so in situations outside of Eye to Eye, a reasonable accommodation would look like having standard spellcheck plus something like Grammarly which is wildly more helpful to catch my mistakes than standard spellcheck. I’m currently a part of a fellowship that requires a lot of reading before showing up to our gatherings, but the material we had to read in advance was always sent in a paper format which limited my ability to read it. I asked if they could send it in electronic format so I could read it with my ears with a text to voice software, and the leaders were accommodating. Part of creating an accessible environment means that the leader has to ask, “are we letting everyone into the room, physically or metaphorically?”
Aside from what is legally required, what are some best practices that can make a business place feel more welcoming and inclusive of people with disabilities? If you can, please share a few examples.
Employers have a huge opportunity when employees first start at the company to create a culture of trust within the community. If they start the conversation with “when do you thrive?,” so that employees can share how they work when they’re successful, but also share when they struggle so they can mitigate those situations, everyone can be on their best footing. There’s a learning curve and adjustments that need to be made throughout the job, because an employee doesn’t always know everything that’s going to be asked of them at the outset. But by creating a culture of communication, a person can establish their “user manual” about what they need to work best, and how they like to work, so that others can reference it before meetings and they learn how to do their best collaborative work.
Can you share a few examples of ideas that were implemented at your workplace to help promote disability inclusion? Can you share with us how the work culture was impacted as a result?
In an Eye to Eye interview, we always ask “how do you learn?” because we want to see that our employees are thinking about that and have that awareness. We constantly have discussions about how someone learns best and communicates best. Eye to Eye also established a work IEP (Individualized Educational Plan), like students with learning differences create in school, so employees are able to receive communication and information best. It’s a constant conversation at Eye to Eye, which has created an inclusive culture both for the majority of the staff that has learning differences and staff that don’t.
This is our signature question that we ask in many of our interviews. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started My Career”?
I wish someone had told me that there are five variables of happiness within a job — people, place, project, pay and passion. For me, passion has been a driving force, as we’re on a mission to empower students with learning differences. But it’s also important to understand that at the beginning of someone’s career, you might not get five out of five of the variables for happiness. But understanding that they’ll come together in time, and someone may not get all five ever fully and that’s okay too — you can still have a satisfactory job with the ones that are priorities.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story about how that was relevant in your own life?
“I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.” — E.B. White
I do believe you can find joy in changing the world — it doesn’t always have to be incredibly hard. On some days you are unable to do both things, or one outweighs the other, but if you are trying to change the world and don’t replenish your soul and do things that make you happy, you won’t make it. I’ve had a good life because while I still see challenges out there for students with learning differences, my soul feels fulfilled doing this work.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
The movement we are creating is around learning differences, and the headline would read something like “ your story matters.” Someone’s chance to make their story heard could lead to a change that can lead to a movement. I never thought that sharing my story in a classroom in Providence, Rhode Island would lead to helping the thousands of kids that we’ve touched through this organization, but that shows the power of sharing your story.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Readers can check Eye to Eye out at https://eyetoeyenational.org/ or on social media. They can also learn more about my speaking work and book at my personal website, https://davidflink.com/.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!
About the Interviewer: Eric L. Pines is a nationally recognized federal employment lawyer, mediator, and attorney business coach. He represents federal employees and acts as in-house counsel for over fifty thousand federal employees through his work as a federal employee labor union representative. A formal federal employee himself, Mr. Pines began his federal employment law career as in-house counsel for AFGE Local 1923 which is in Social Security Administration’s headquarters and is the largest federal union local in the world. He presently serves as AFGE 1923’s Chief Counsel as well as in-house counsel for all FEMA bargaining unit employees and numerous Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs unions.
While he and his firm specialize in representing federal employees from all federal agencies and in reference to virtually all federal employee matters, his firm has placed special attention on representing Veteran Affairs doctors and nurses hired under the authority of Title. He and his firm have a particular passion in representing disabled federal employees with their requests for medical and religious reasonable accommodations when those accommodations are warranted under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (ADA). He also represents them with their requests for Federal Employee Disability Retirement (OPM) when an accommodation would not be possible.
Disability Inclusion In The Workplace: David Flink Of Eye to Eye On How Businesses Make… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.