Several local businesses lead the way in fostering a more inclusive, equitable work environment for all, from providing transportation solutions to accessible technology
By Anna-Rhesa Versola | Photography by Noah Priestaf
More than 50 years have passed since Congress approved the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the first major federal protection for people with disabilities. This became the model for the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Numerous barriers to accessing employment remain, particularly for someone with a sensory, mobility or cognitive disability.
Still, people with disabilities are finding and keeping part-time or full-time jobs. Last year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 22.5% of people with a disability were employed nationwide. This is the highest recorded rate since comparable data was first collected in 2008.
In North Carolina, more than 2.7 million adults have a cognitive, physical or sensory disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Furthermore, data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey reports that approximately one out of every nine working-age (18-64) adults in the state has a disability, ranging from cognitive to physical impairments.
“I guarantee there are people in your organization who have a disability,” said John Samuel, co-founder and CEO of Ablr, a nonprofit subdivision of LC Industries. “They may not feel comfortable disclosing, so you need to build that trust with your employees.”
In honor of National Disability Employment Awareness Month in October, we spoke with leaders and employees at companies that strive to create an inclusive and accessible workplace, including RTI International, LC Industries, Ablr, Part & Parcel and Candor, to understand just some of the physical, digital and cultural barriers that people with disabilities face daily. We also learned what these organizations and businesses are doing to overcome those hurdles, improve the lives of individuals and, in turn, raise the overall quality of life in our communities.
GETTING THERE
“One of the biggest barriers to blind employment is transportation,” said DuWayne Gilbertson, LCI’s chief revenue officer. He was born with ocular albinism, nystagmus and severe astigmatism. “I’m like the luckiest person in the world for visual impairment – I drive,” he said.
Gilbertson uses assistive technology in the form of a bioptic telescopic lens he wears when he gets behind the wheel. He said his condition is stable and will not continue to worsen over time.
Ablr CEO Samuel was born fully sighted and grew up in Cary. He was a college freshman when he learned the cause of his clumsiness on campus.
“I was bumping into park benches and fire hydrants, and my shins were always cut up and bloody,” he said about life before his diagnosis of a genetic, degenerative eye condition called retinitis pigmentosa. It was only a matter of time before he would become totally blind. Until then, he was determined to develop a meaningful vocation.
“I left North Carolina in 2006 because I didn’t think anyone with a disability could actually live here or have a prosperous career,” he said. “There was no public transportation.”
LCI saw an opportunity to address that issue in 2000 when the company moved to its current location on Emperor Boulevard. LCI leased its adjacent property to GoTriangle, allowing about 50 blind and visually impaired employees to commute safely to and from its Durham headquarters, and it pays a monthly stipend for their transportation costs. LCI operates three distribution centers, three e-commerce websites, six manufacturing facilities and 59 retail stores on military bases across the country as well as in Japan. The company employs approximately 260 blind and visually impaired workers, making it one of the nation’s largest employers of this group, said Kristen Parker, director of communications and administration at LCI.
LEVELING THE DIGITAL PLAYING FIELD
There are often also digital barriers, like software that is not compatible with assistive technology, in addition to physical obstacles in the workplace. Jon Herstein, vice president of global human resources business partnering at RTI, said the company saw a dramatic increase in the size of its virtual workforce as more staff chose to work remotely after the pandemic.
“This has shed light on accessibility issues that have not been widely considered in the past, including neurodivergence, vision impairment, hearing impairment and others,” Herstein said. “This has led us to go beyond addressing issues of physical workplace access and to consider the larger work environment. Creating norms like the use of captioning during video conferences or ensuring our staff have the maximum possible flexibility in managing their work hours has helped create a more inclusive work experience.”
This year, RTI was once again recognized by the Disability Equality Index as one of the nation’s best places to work for disability inclusion.
Ablr – which has more than 160 clients globally, including Lenovo, RTI, Red Hat and the Carolina Hurricanes – is bridging the digital divide between employees who are disabled and those who are not by working to ensure websites and digital content are both accessible and usable.
“What that means is, you may hit all the guidelines and compliance requirements, but if it takes me 10 tabs on my keyboard to get to something to activate, then that’s not necessarily usable,” Samuel said.
“We’re not just looking at visual impairments. We’re looking at all disabilities. Designers and developers aren’t [intentionally] trying to create a product that’s only for 74% of the people; they’re trying to create a product that’s great for everyone. They just didn’t have that exposure to other people to understand their needs, and when they see it, they get it, and they want to make that change.”
Samuel said accessibility can mean transcripts are available, screen contrast levels are higher or that typography is appropriate, including fonts, because some people with different cognitive disabilities may not be able to comprehend text in certain scripts.
“We often say that accessibility is required for a few but useful for all,” Samuel said.
Ablr provides training for organizations that want to become more inclusive and create upward mobility for blind or visually impaired individuals. Ulta Beauty is one countrywide business using Ablr’s disability inclusion training module for senior leadership, hiring managers and recruiters.
“They’re going to get it out to all 56,000 associates [nationally],” Samuel said. “We start to change the mindsets of people and organizations. It’s really exciting, and we’re seeing a lot more companies taking this course and bringing it into their internal systems to have their staff go through it. We want to see that more people [with disabilities] are getting hired, or even getting a chance, because that’s what people want – a chance.”
BUILDING INCLUSIVE CULTURE
Posted on a wall in the backroom of Part & Parcel, a small, eco-conscious grocery store on Chapel Hill Road near Lakewood Shopping Center, is a visual board that workers use to indicate how they feel as they check in for a work shift. The color-coded system allows a manager to quickly scan the mood and energy of the staff, who are people with disabilities.
“It ensures that there’s enough care and interdependent ability to work together on the floor in the event that someone’s coming in on a red day and we’re able to toggle and redistribute whatever needs to happen,” said T Land, founder and strategic design and vision team lead of Part & Parcel and Candor, a nonprofit advocacy group that helps people with disabilities gain access to jobs, transportation, housing, mental health services and food security.
“We do so much work around culture,” Land said. “Through conversations, you learn what people need, and then you put that in place, and that’s how accessibility happens. Regardless of race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status, disability is almost a quarter of our population and growing. So, the work of disability justice touches all other justice movements. It’s all intertwined.”
Part & Parcel is a packagefree, bulk goods store that began during the pandemic shutdown on Land’s front porch. Land surveyed the community and found that people were interested in a sustainable model for buying some of their groceries without all the packaging.
Land was born with a degenerative neuromuscular disorder and has worked as a special education teacher since. Land was diagnosed with autism in 2020.
“Part of the reason I couldn’t see my own autistic identity was because of internalized ableism, to be honest,” they said. “It’s the way we’re taught about disability, autism [and] neurodivergence in school. That was not something that I saw in myself. But the autistic identity is so variable and has so many different profiles, and it took a lot of exploration, and it was something that I denied for a while. I didn’t feel like it could be true. I was afraid of claiming that identity. Given the [advocacy] work that I was doing, I didn’t want assumptions to be made about me. Ultimately, I’ve come to feel that that identity is very true for me, and that knowledge has been really helpful in personal and impersonal ways.”
Land said some of the customers at Part & Parcel may not even realize the staff includes people with disabilities. “We have a lot of folks who honestly could care less about disability,” Land said. “They’re here for the ecoconscious nature of the store,” which is exactly what Land and staff want.
“We do not want to be a pity purchase, and we are not here to inspire anyone,” Land said. “[The package-free store] was a community need; we created it, and it happens to be run by a group of disabled people. … A lot of people who come here don’t even know our underlying mission. That’s part of what makes it beautiful. A lot of people do know our mission, and they want to support that, too.”
The store is financially self-sustaining and does not rely on donations, Land said, proving that it’s possible to combine financial success with a commitment to caring for people. “We’re really not doing much that’s special here,” Land said. “We’re just listening to one another.”
