Communication Tools to Support Disability Inclusion

Most organizations have developed policies and practices that support disability inclusion in the workplace. Managers and supervisors play a key role in implementing these policies, and research has shown that an important factor in how they do that is their belief that top management thinks disability inclusion is important.

Sending the Right Message

Communication Tools to Support Disability Inclusion enables workplace leaders (HR, Diversity and Inclusion, company owners, executives) to send the right messages to the right people in the right way:

• The right messages focus on the importance of disability inclusiveness to business success.
• The right people are managers and supervisors. They set the tone for disability inclusiveness in their own teams and across the organization.
• The right way is to use short messages that are simple, clear, relevant, and engaging.

Communications Templates

Each template has sample communications you can adapt to your own organization and tips for using these messages with managers and supervisors:

1. Why this matters: How disability inclusiveness helps our business
2. Setting the tone: The importance of managers and supervisors
3. Building trust: Making it safe to come forward with a disability
4. Defining disability: Obvious and non-obvious disabilities
5. Working together: Interacting with people with disabilities
6. Getting talent: Recruiting and hiring people with disabilities
7. Disclosing a disability: When an employee tells their manager about a disability
8. Federal contractors: Encouraging employees to self-identify as a person with a disability
9. The accommodation process: Questions about accommodation
10. Our manager resources: Disability information, contacts, and services
11. Our employee resources: Disability information, contacts, and services

To learn more about these topics, contact the Northeast ADA Center or check out the Just in Time Toolkit for Managers by Cornell’s Yang-Tan Institute.