Disability Inclusion: Think Innovation NOT Compliance!
It has been 30 years since the passage of the ADA. But even after achieving this milestone, many disability employment efforts are still stuck on compliance. Disability inclusion is not about the ADA. It is about innovation! This session will discuss the most recent innovations in disability inclusion, trends in disability employment, and the Top 5 things every company should be doing to expand their thinking in disability inclusion and what it means to be Disability Competitive.
Learning Objectives:
- Learn the difference between a disability program that is compliance-based and one that is focused on employee and customer innovation
- Understand common pitfalls and bottlenecks that keep companies from being innovative on the topic of disability
- Learn the 5 key initiatives companies utilize to create successful disability inclusion programs
- Review a case study of a company getting it right
Meg O'Connell
Ms. O’Connell is the Founder & CEO of Global Disability Inclusion. She is an internationally recognized disability employment and inclusion expert with over 20 years of experience in human capital management, talent acquisition, performance management, disability inclusion, employee engagement, marketing and customer service programs.
Ms. O’Connell provides strategic program design and implementation of disability employment and inclusion programs for Global 500 companies, US Federal Contractors, colleges and universities, non-profits, and foundations.
Prior to founding Global Disability Inclusion, Ms. O’Connell was Vice President at The National Organization on Disability where she designed and led their national consulting practice, Bridges to Business, providing disability inclusion expertise to Fortune 500 companies. She was the lead architect of the first ever disability assessment tool, The Disability Employment Tracker, and led the analysis of the first data captured on employee engagement of people with disabilities.
Ms. O’Connell also spent ten years at the premier consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. She was a member of the firm’s People Strategy team and led several large-scale talent management projects and diversity & inclusion efforts that transformed business operations for her clients.
While at Booz Allen, Ms. O’Connell developed and led their employee resource group for employees with disabilities, and won Booz Allen’s Global Diversity Award for Individual Contributor. Booz Allen was also one of the first recipients of the New Freedom Initiative Award for their disability employment programs.
Her work has received numerous accolades including the Society of Human Resource Management’s (SHRM’s) Innovative Practice Award. She has been quoted in Diversity Executive magazine, The Huffington Post, DiverseAbility and numerous trade magazines for her insights on employment of people with disabilities. She keynotes and presents at national conferences regularly. Ms. O’Connell holds a certificate in ADA Mediation and she is also conversationally proficient in American Sign Language.
A few of O’Connell’s notable clients have included Aetna, Arrow Electronics, Cummins, HBO, JLL, Lowe’s, NCR, P&G, The Poses Family Foundation, Starbucks, Toys R Us, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Understood 4 All, IRS and the Department of Homeland Security.
Ms. O’Connell is a board member of the United States International Council on Disabilities, which serves to promote global equality for persons with disabilities and is working to promote and ratify the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She is also an expert resource to The Valuable 500, a global organization working with CEOs to include disability on their board agendas.