Disability Inclusion In The Workplace: Lytana Kids Of Flex HR On How Businesses Make Accommodations For Customers and Employees Who Have a Disability
An Interview With Eric Pines
Try to keep everything in perspective, you’re going to have highs and lows, stay true to your values.
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 Lytana Kids.
Lytana Kids is a Senior HR Consultant for Flex HR. Lytana has over 35 years of HR experience in multiple disciplines within HR including; HR Business Partner, Talent Acquisition, Shared Services, Employee Relations, Employment Compliance, Compensation Management and Mergers and Acquisitions. Flex HR is an all-inclusive human resources outsourcing and consulting firm. Lytana currently supports multiple clients by providing solutions to their HR needs and challenges.
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?
I am a Human Resources professional who worked for a fortune 50 transportation company for over 35 years. While there I had the pleasure of managing multiple businesses and projects, many of those in the HR Shared Services and Compliance discipline. While overseeing Global Talent Acquisition the ADA law was created therefore requiring me to become familiar with the regulations and the impact to the applicant, employee, HR and the company.
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?
- Optimistic — My leadership style was to remain optimistic and positive all the time, as I found that allowed people to get to know me better as a person, to trust and follow me as a leader, I always had a smile on my face, often times people would say, “your always smiling”.
- Integrity — Integrity was in my DNA since childhood, I ended up working my entire career who’s number one principle was integrity.
- Devoted — I was always devoted to both the company and the employees. As an HR professional you must learn to be an advocate for both, which sometimes can conflict with one another. A mentor once told me, when in doubt give the employee the benefit of the doubt, if their intentions were good, it will all work out in the long run, if not, then it’s just a matter of time before that is recognized and dealt with.
Can you share a story about one of your greatest work related struggles? Can you share what you did to overcome it?
There were multiple struggles in my career, but the ones that stand out the most for me were on projects that were entirely new to me, and I had to rely on others to carry me during those times. Also, just the sheer number of hours and demands of the job were at times challenging to balance my work and raising a family. Ultimately, I found that the times I struggled the most were when I grew the most as a person and an HR Professional. To overcome these struggles, I relied on colleagues and family to support me.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
Recently I completed a project that included creating 32 job descriptions and a compensation plan to support those job descriptions. Last year I finished an exciting project that included supporting a client with their employee relations needs which also included the creating of an ADA committee and accompanying company and employee policies.
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?
As an HR leader I was instrumental in the creation of employee resource groups (ERG’s), which began with creating program fundamentals; in order to have your charter approved they needed to support the business in some way, have a philanthropic aspect and a networking component. The charters grew from 1 to over 30 within two years, some of those ERG’s were Black, Asian, Hispanic, Veterans, Women, Accessibility, and many others.
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?
The reason for a business to have an inclusive work force is first it must represent the customers they serve, secondly it allows for more creative and innovative thinking and lastly for career growth, as young leaders need people above them that look like them.
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?
In practice the ADA requires companies to consider accommodating an applicant or an employee who has a need that may be out of the norm from others. For example; maybe you have an employee who has a back problem and an ergonomic chair may provide the support they needs, or a hearing impaired applicant and that employee may need an interpreter to assist with their interview, or technology added to their computer that allows them to receive information differently rather than audio.
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.
I believe that it starts with setting the right tone and culture in the company of being acceptive of differences, once this happens it’s not a special program that people have to follow, it’s a culture. I believe one very important aspect is training both for managers and HR professionals. Both groups must know and understand the law, be realistic in their approach to accommodations and be willing to think of the box. Another very important best practice is an “accessibility” employee resource group. This group not only has to be supportive of each other but should have an executive sponsor who learns from them on what they as employees may need but what can this group provide that may support the growth of the business. This is a win-win for both the company and the employees.
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?
A few examples include purchasing a desk that raises and lowers may be an accommodation for an employee with a back condition, an employee with dyslexia to have a bit more time to complete a required assessment or test, or a sight impaired employee may need software added to their computer to allow them to visually see their work better. All these accommodations are generally nominal in costs and do not cause a business an undue financial hardship. Each company should decide what is reasonable for them, as a small company may not be able to accommodate a need as much as a larger company, but what’s important is that answer is not an automatic “NO”, it should be “why not”. This is an important approach to creating a long-lasting culture of acceptance.
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”?
- Don’t be afraid to let them know you don’t know all the answers.
- Someone did tell me this and I am glad they did, don’t be afraid to keep growing and changing, don’t get too complacent in one role.
- Try to keep everything in perspective, you’re going to have highs and lows, stay true to your values.
- Keep a solid work life balance, your work shouldn’t be your entire life.
- Trust others, don’t think you have all the answers.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story about how that was relevant in your own life?
Keep the glass half full, keeping a positive attitude toward life and work allowed me to appreciate it all more.
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. 🙂
Believe that everyone has good intentions, until or if they prove you wrong.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
https://flexhr.com/our-team/#Lytana-Kids-Bio
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lytana-kids
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: Lytana Kids Of Flex HR On How Businesses Make Accommodations… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.