Summary.
Talented deaf people are everywhere. They are CEOs, doctors, Fortune 500 executives, NASA engineers, mayors, lawyers, scientists, gaming champions, athletes, and Presidential appointees. Still, this minority remains largely overlooked by most employers today. The experiences of the deaf community build an abundance of innate skills that are invaluable to every workplace. They enhance communication and can also provide a competitive advantage by better understanding your market and customers. Deaf employees on your team, if embraced, supported, and empowered, can improve the quality of your products, services, and the overall customer and user experience. Equity and belonging are cornerstones of achieving inclusive excellence. These values foster environments where differences are embraced as catalysts for growth, learning, innovation, and competitive advantage. To hire and retain deaf and diverse talent, organizations must commit to a culture of belonging and inclusive excellence. Employers who open doors and engage with this sizable population will discover a deep pool of talent that will enhance and advance their organizations.
The experience of being “hearing” and using spoken language to communicate anchors most of our world and workplaces today. Meetings are conducted in spoken languages, colleagues and customers make phone calls to share knowledge or voice concerns, most professional services are conducted through people speaking audibly with each other, and many people rely on video, radio, podcasts, and television for information, learning, and entertainment. This nearly ubiquitous experience influences the common belief that deaf people, deaf employees, and especially deaf children must learn to speak and use adaptive technology to be successful in the “real” world, and that the solution lies in curing hearing differences or getting accommodations to bridge communication between deaf and hearing people.
It can be difficult to imagine a different way where people primarily engage with the world not through spoken language but through visual communication and visual language. Equally challenging can be understanding how this different way of being can be advantageous, joyful, and fulfilling. To understand requires shifting our mindset and being willing to step into a liminal space to explore this unfamiliar territory, where being deaf and using sign language creates dynamism and beauty in our own language and culture, and seeing how those experiences translate into significant value and talent in our world and our workplaces.
The concept of Deaf Gain offers a radical reframing that views being deaf not as a “loss” but an advantage — a different and remarkable way of being. Deaf people bring a positive gain to the workplace through the innovation generated by their lived experiences. From creating sign languages to developing texting nearly 60 years ago to building a multibillion sign language economy, deaf people have been the engine for countless innovations and significant wealth creation. (In this article, “deaf” includes diverse people who live with significant hearing differences, including deaf, hard of hearing, and deafblind people who use sign languages, including ASL, Black Sign Language, and Native American Sign Languages, and those who do not.)
The experiences of the deaf community build an abundance of innate skills that are invaluable to every workplace, from advancing greater human diversity to driving bottom lines. Every day, deaf individuals navigate the world and systems not built for them. They constantly adapt, problem solve, and innovate, often reinventing technology and discovering new resources with universal appeal. For example, soon after Covid-19’s onset, deaf people brought attention to key flaws of major video meeting platforms, resulting in significant design modifications benefitting all users. And, as a Wall Street Journal article illustrates, captioning on video media, once solely seen as a benefit of deaf viewers, is now a must-have for younger generations.
Deaf people also enhance communication. Navigating a society dominant in spoken language requires deaf people to constantly hone their communication skills and persistently adapt in a variety of settings. The presence of a deaf person can require hearing people to adjust the communication cadence, which can be advantageous for everyone. When the group slows down and ensures turn-taking, the change in pace often creates greater clarity, resulting in more effective communication and teaming. Also, the increased levels of patience and compassion strengthen team commitment and collective success. As a top technology executive once shared with me, deaf people uniquely can drive a culture of effective communication, both benefiting the multilingual talent in the room and strengthening global teams.
Deaf people are not a monolith; they are a community with deep diversity and intersectionality who expand workplace perspectives and experiences. More diverse and inclusive workplaces are more productive and innovative. Having deaf individuals in your organization can also provide a competitive advantage by better understanding your market and customers. Deaf employees on your team, if embraced, supported, and empowered, can improve the quality of your products, services, and the overall customer and user experience. Companies that offer inclusive working environments for employees with disabilities achieve an average of 28% higher revenue, 30% greater economic profit margins, and double the net income of their industry peers.
Equity and belonging are cornerstones of achieving inclusive excellence. These values foster environments where differences are embraced as catalysts for growth, learning, innovation, and competitive advantage. To hire and retain deaf and diverse talent, organizations must commit to a culture of belonging and inclusive excellence. Here’s how:
Assess Your Culture:
Rigorously examine the impact of physical, sensory, and social barriers in various environments throughout your company. For example, does your organization practice and value linguistic diversity, including visual languages? Do you actively address the challenges of negative attitudes and stigma toward deaf people with multiple and intersectional identities (e.g., a black deaf man or a white deaf LGBTQ woman)? Are you building awareness to support employees who are losing their hearing and are likely struggling to adapt to their ever-changing workplaces? Assessing your current environment allows you to see where you can improve.
Create a welcoming culture:
Use what you’ve learned in your assessment to make improvements. Go beyond minimum compliance requirements in laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Title IX. Decisions about accommodations must be informed by technical requirements, often from lawyers and compliance officers, but must not stop there. When discussing specific accommodations, use language focused on organizational values, such as creating an environment where everyone belongs, which will convey a more deeply impactful message to employees. Ensure that deaf people feel comfortable about their accommodations requests and that they receive them in a timely and effective manner.
On the individual level, encourage employees to deepen their learning about each other, including what each person needs to thrive. Urge managers and supervisors to ask deaf employees questions about their experiences and for ideas and suggestions for how they can contribute to the organization and your goals regularly.
Hire deaf team members:
There is much work to do to effectively shed biases, misconceptions, and falsehoods related to hiring deaf people, including that deaf people are too expensive to hire or are not capable. Look at your hiring systems and manager training to see whether you are tackling these issues. Does your organization include specific training and awareness about deaf people and the linguistic and cultural diversity of this group? Hiring deaf DEI trainers to help with this task can strengthen organizational and customer capacity.
This article was written by Roberta J. Cordano on October 11th 2022 for Harvard Business Review.
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