DisruptHR Las Vegas 2023

Thank you to everyone who came out to support DisruptHR Las Vegas on September 28th, 2023! Now that I’ve had some time to reflect and review the presentation, I wanted to share some references and resources from, “You’re Just Not Disabled YET: Accessibility for Everyone.”

First of all, I know the event did not have an interpreter or captioning available for those who are hard-of-hearing or deaf, and I have made recommendations to the organizers on accessibility considerations for next year’s event. The full video (below) does, however, have closed captions and a full transcript available. The venue, Zappos Tony Hsieh Theater, was otherwise physically accessible and a great choice for an event of this size.

I pulled out some quotes I wanted to share references for, but please get in touch if you’d like more information about the presentation!

Presentation Quotes

People with disabilities are the world’s largest and fastest growing minority group. (1)

Up to 1 in 4 (27 percent) adults in the US have some type of disability. (2)
70 to 96% of those disabilities are “invisible.” (3,4,5)
Also, people with disabilities need 28% more household income to achieve the same standard of living as those without disabilities. (6)

Why? They often earn less on average (6), participate in the workforce at a significantly reduced rate (6), while often having increased expenses (6).
Disabilities become more prevalent with age (7), but changes to things like our eyesight and hearing can happen much earlier in life than we expect.

Of all US employees with a disability, only 39% of those have disclosed their disability to their manager. (8)
Even fewer employees, under 25%, disclose their disability to their teammates or to HR. (8)

The one argument for accessibility that doesn’t get made nearly often enough is how extraordinarily better it makes some people’s lives. (9) How many opportunities do we have to dramatically improve people’s lives just by doing our job a little better? (9)

Presentation References

1. Factsheet on Persons with Disabilities – United Nations (UN) Department of Economic and Social Affairs
   https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/resources/factsheet-on-persons-with-disabilities.html
2. Disability Impacts All of Us – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
   https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-disability-impacts-all.html
3. What is an Invisible Disability? – Invisible Disabilities Association
   https://invisibledisabilities.org/what-is-an-invisible-disability/
4. Invisible Disabilities: Break Down The Barriers – Forbes, March 2020
   https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulamorgan/2020/03/20/invisible-disabilities-break-down-the-barriers
5. Invisible Disability – Wikipedia
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_disability
6. The Extra Costs of Living with a Disability in the U.S. – National Disability Institute
   https://www.nationaldisabilityinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/extra-costs-living-with-disability-brief.pdf
7. Ageing and Disability – United Nations (UN) Department of Economic and Social Affairs
   https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/disability-and-ageing.html
8. Why People Hide Their Disabilities at Work – Harvard Business Review, June 2019
   https://hbr.org/2019/06/why-people-hide-their-disabilities-at-work
9. Steve Krug –  Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

Additional Resources

• Videos, Webinars, and Podcasts – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• The Hidden Challenges of Invisible Disabilities – BBC Health, June 2017

Full Video

Song Credit: “This is Me” by Keala Settle and The Greatest Showman Cast

Closing Thoughts

Oh my gosh, I was so nervous! The topic ideas I had submitted for the Reno and Las Vegas DisruptHR events were slightly different, so I made changes to the presentation over the course of only a week. (Did you miss my post on DisruptHR Reno?) And there were so many more people I knew locally that came out to support ATD Greater Las Vegas – which was both exciting and nerve-wracking! Overall, I’m thrilled I was able to get this message out to this audience, and I’m so glad I got to be a part of the inaugural DisruptHR Las Vegas event. See you next year!