Disability Inclusion In The Workplace: Cathy Donnelly Of Texthelp On How Businesses Make Accommodations For Customers and Employees Who Have a Disability
An Interview With Eric Pines
Have a point of view and share it — it’s important to show up and be seen, have confidence in your opinions and share them. In a previous role, we had a group HR business planning session and I was sharing my thoughts and views with passion. At the end of the day, I was approached and asked about my interest to take on a larger role — I was new to the company but stood out because I spoke out.
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 Cathy Donnelly.
Cathy Donnelly is the Chief People Officer (CPO) at Texthelp, a global leader in literacy and assistive technology. As a senior HR executive with over 25 years’ experience, Cathy’s role will ensure Texthelp’s business strategy is successfully reflected across all HR activity.
Cathy brings a wealth of experience having spent almost 10 years as the Senior Director of Talent with Liberty IT, an official ‘Great Place to Work’, earning Top 10 placement in the UK and Ireland rankings in 2021. Additionally, Cathy acted as the Global Change Management Lead for Liberty Mutual’s Global HR model which saw her design, develop, and deliver change management and communication strategies across 28 countries and 50,000 employees.
Prior to Liberty IT, Cathy was HR Manager for IKEA UK & Ireland, with responsibility for leading the HR strategy for over 8,000 employees. In this role, Cathy led a team of over 25 corporate HR professionals and 20 HR managers within stores.
As CPO of Texthelp, Cathy will be developing an employee experience where people are coached and supported to fulfill their potential and feel valued. Building a globally inclusive community that recognizes and celebrates diversity will foster a high-performing culture for the company. Cathy will also be working on developing employee engagement strategies that positively impact business results — from talent acquisition and throughout the entire employee life cycle. Based in Northern Ireland, Cathy will split her time across offices in the US, London, Belfast, the Nordics, and Australia.
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?
Thank you for having me! A little bit about me is that I have been working in the HR space for over two decades. Prior to joining the Texthelp team, I served as Senior Director of Talent with Liberty IT. I also acted as the Global Change Management Lead for Liberty Mutual’s Global HR model in designing, developing, and delivering change management and communication strategies across 28 countries and 50,000 employees. Prior to Liberty IT, I was the HR Manager for IKEA UK & Ireland, with responsibility for leading the HR strategy for over 8,000 employees.
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?
Well, I think success begins with the willingness to try, no matter how uncomfortable you may feel. So for me, the first trait would be courage — being bold and brave to take on opportunities that you know you aren’t quite ready for; opportunities that make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. My first role in HR was as Personnel and Training Manager for a chain of bars and hotels. I had never worked in HR before but I seized the opportunity and established an award-winning HR function in the first few years. These opportunities don’t come along every day so it’s important to grab them when they do.
The next would be recognizing and valuing the people around you, who are part of your success. So the second trait would be inclusivity — my team has always been really important to me — at the end of the day, you’re only as good as the team you have working with you. I make a point of showcasing my team members and celebrating their achievements. If there is an opportunity to present a project to a wider audience, I’ll always give it to the team — people hear enough from me so it’s always good to give others the opportunity to be seen. I have numerous examples throughout my career of developing and nurturing talent and have always enjoyed really strong retention rates within my team as their careers grow and flourish.
Lastly, it would be having vision and passion for the business — knowing where you want to go and taking your team with you is critical to success. It’s very easy in HR to sit in a silo and design people policies and practices and not consider what the business needs. I am passionate about understanding the business and ensuring what we do in HR drives business performance. I remember many years ago presenting at a senior meeting on logistics and the number of senior leaders who approached me after the meeting to congratulate me and voice their surprise that I had the interest and knowledge to be able to do so — a successful HR person can and must always be commercial.
Can you share a story about one of your greatest work-related struggles? Can you share what you did to overcome it?
It has to be overthinking things and self-belief — it goes back to when I was promoted into the Country HR Manager role for IKEA which felt like a really big step up for me and I spent too much time questioning why I had been given the role. I started to get in my own way, questioning the decisions I was making, doubting my own ability to the point that I was losing confidence in myself. The Country Retail Manager took me to the side at one stage and asked me what was going on — he reassured me that I was given the role because I was talented at what I did and reinforced that the only person doubting me was me. Once I became aware of what I was doing, I made a conscious effort to ‘trust my gut’ and just get on with it. And knowing I had the trust and support of the country leadership team allowed me to be myself.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
I recently joined Texthelp, a global leader in literacy and assistive technology, as their first-ever Chief People Officer. My new role involves crafting and leading our people agenda across our businesses in the UK, North America, Australia, Sweden, Norway and Denmark — 11 offices in total.
From joining Texthelp, I immediately recognized that across the company there’s a real sense of energy and passion — I really felt like the company values were alive and kicking. These are fun, curiosity, tenacity, empowerment, respect and integrity. So, one of the first activities I undertook was to run a series of values workshops in all of our offices to understand if my first impressions were correct, or if the values were just in fact words on a wall. After all, to develop a great employee experience is to first understand how your workforce perceives the culture they work in. The quality of the discussions was great and our employees shared many examples of how our values are living and breathing every day.
Going forward, in my role, I’ll be continuing to develop an employee experience where people are coached and supported to fulfill their potential and feel valued. Building a globally inclusive community that recognizes and celebrates diversity will foster a high-performing culture for the company. I also look forward to working on developing employee engagement strategies that positively impact business results — from talent acquisition and throughout the entire employee life cycle.
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?
Diversity and inclusion have played a large part throughout my career, likely before it was ever known as diversity and inclusion. For example, 20+ years ago, I was Head of HR for a chain of bars and hotels and I introduced flexible working including term time and compressed working which was highly unusual back then — my goal was to attract and retain working parents who were struggling to balance the demands of work with childcare.
More recently, I have done a lot of work with Employee Resource Groups (ERG’s) albeit focusing on gender, disability, race or sexual orientation — educating employees on the experiences of others in the workplace and creating safe spaces for employees to tell their own stories. Diversity and inclusion in the workplace are critical for business success — research by Forbes tells us that decisions made and executed by diverse teams delivered 60% better results and inclusive teams make better business decisions 87% of the time.
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?
Across the globe, 1 in 5 people are neurodivergent — many of which may be your boss, coworkers, or customers. If you think about it — in school, students are typically provided accommodations, such as assistive technology tools, to support their preferences and needs. When they graduate and enter the workforce, it’s important that they still have the tools and support to think, work and learn in their own preferred way. It is important to create a work culture that is inclusive to all in order to provide a safe space for all employees and their different needs.
Additionally, neurodivergent employees must not feel left out or inapt to fulfill job requirements and responsibilities. For businesses, I believe this starts with job postings. Oftentimes, job postings include language such as, “superstar” or “expert.” These terms can be off-putting for neurodivergent candidates that may not have the confidence to believe these qualities describe them. Additionally, listing requirements such as, “must have excellent communication skills,” “strong attention to detail,” and “proficient in technology,” also has the potential to steer neurodivergent candidates away from applying for jobs. Although these may be important qualifications, not every candidate possesses them and we must think about what we can do in the workplace to support these individuals.
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?
Reasonable accommodations are modifications or adjustments to a job or work environment that will enable a qualified employee with a disability to perform essential job functions. They help ensure that employees with disabilities are given an equal opportunity to benefit from the full range of employment-related opportunities as others. A few examples of accommodations may include providing flexible work schedules, implementing or adjusting products, software, and equipment to assist neurodivergent employees, and having support staff, such as translators and interpreters.
When thinking about reasonable adjustments, it’s important to place your focus on equity over equality. Equality means giving everyone the same resources. But at work, our different circumstances and needs can mean that we need different support and resources from our colleagues. Equity takes this into account. Displaying equity involves trying to understand your people, and in turn giving them personalized support to help each person reach an equal outcome.
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.
Businesses should go beyond providing what is legally required by them. As I mentioned before, one way for businesses to be more inclusive is to think about the way they present qualifications and requirements in job postings. After all, the employee experience begins before an employee formally joins a company. It’s important to make sure recruitment processes are inclusive and welcoming too. By thinking about our language choices and requirements in job postings, we are more likely to attract candidates who bring a wealth of diversity and lived experience. Employers should also provide accessibility tools that are easy to use and allow neurodivergent candidates and employees to thrive in their own way. It’s also a good idea to be transparent about diversity and inclusion — share what you do to make the work environment more inclusive through storytelling. This can bring candidates a sense of ease that they’ll have the support they need, and help you to retain the neurodivergent talent you already have.
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?
This for us starts at the recruitment stage when we advertise opportunities, making sure we consider any adjustments that we need to make to allow applicants to be at their best throughout the process. For example, we advertise our Read&Write for Work software on our careers page, making it available to anyone who needs it before they apply and therefore, making the application process that much easier.
This continues as new hires join the company — they and their family members have access to our full product suite, supporting their communication, and ensuring they can understand and be understood.
We have also organized education sessions for employees on various disabilities so they can really understand the lived experience of others which has created a real sense of empathy amongst our employees. We also train employees on creating accessible communications — after all, our business is all about accessibility so it’s really important that we practice what we preach internally as well as externally.
We have a very strong set of values; fun, curiosity, respect, integrity, tenacity and empowerment — we live and breathe these every day which drives our culture and behaviors and creates that feeling of inclusion for all.
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”?
1. Have a point of view and share it — it’s important to show up and be seen, have confidence in your opinions and share them. In a previous role, we had a group HR business planning session and I was sharing my thoughts and views with passion. At the end of the day, I was approached and asked about my interest to take on a larger role — I was new to the company but stood out because I spoke out.
2. Actively seek feedback, demonstrate a growth mindset — we have all heard it; feedback is a gift and many of us see it as the unwanted Christmas gift that we want to pass on to someone else. My advice is not to wait for feedback to come your way but rather go and ask for it. Throughout my career, I have sought feedback from my team on what I could do better, how I could support them differently — what should I stop, start, continue was always a feature in any kind of performance discussion. It leads to trust and transparency.
3. Find your person or people — every role I have been in, I have always had my person or people who tell me exactly as it is. They tell me when I have done really well but also when I could have done better — they are the person/people I trust most and our relationship is mutually beneficial. We spend a lot of our time at work and we all need that person we can seek out as needed, bounce ideas off and enjoy spending time with.
4. Enjoy your job, have fun — anyone who knows me knows how much I like to laugh and have fun at work. If this isn’t happening, it’s important to explore why or make the decision to move on.
5. It’s okay to say ‘I don’t know’ — no one has all the answers and it’s okay to show vulnerability in the workplace; indeed I think it’s actually appreciated. When Covid struck, I remember as we moved to mandated work from home, we had an all employee call and I shared some of what was going on at home with the family as well as my thoughts on how we managed work and I was really clear, we were working this out real time and needed everyone’s thoughts, input and experience to find the best way forward. I got lots of feedback that people appreciated my honesty and in reality, it made them feel more comfortable that the senior team were feeling just as they were.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story about how that was relevant in your own life?
“No regrets — never ruin a good today by thinking about a bad yesterday.”
We won’t get everything right all of the time and I think we can all spend too much time thinking about what has happened in the past and we let it take control of the future. My outlook is that we should always assume positive intent — people don’t set out to fail, mess up or get it wrong — if we assume positive intent, we have to accept that people may get it wrong sometimes but so long as we take the learnings from the situation, we should move onwards and upwards.
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. 🙂
To truly celebrate difference. I would love to see a culture where difference is seen as good, and where people are proud to be different and feel safe and confident to share their differences — a true celebration of diversity and individuality. I have a family member who is neurodivergent and I have watched him struggle with this throughout his teenage years. He wants to be like everyone else because he feels and sees how he is treated differently every day — imagine a time where he carries his autism with pride because it makes him special.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can follow Texthelp For Workplace on Twitter @TexthelpWork to stay up-to-date on trends, thought leadership, and our accessibility tools that support an inclusive workplace.
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.
Mr. Pines has also served as a mediator for numerous federal agencies including serving a year as the Library of Congress’ in-house EEO Mediator. He has also served as an expert witness in federal court for federal employee matters. He has also worked as an EEO technical writer drafting hundreds of Final Agency Decisions for the federal sector.
Mr. Pines’ firm is headquartered in Houston, Texas and has offices in Baltimore, Maryland and Atlanta, Georgia. His first passion is his wife and five children. He plays classical and rock guitar and enjoys playing ice hockey, running, and biking. Please visit his websites at www.pinesfederal.com and www.toughinjurylawyers.com. He can also be reached at eric@pinesfederal.com.
Disability Inclusion In The Workplace: Cathy Donnelly Of Texthelp 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.