There has been progress for people with disabilities gaining entry-level work but more needs to be done to ensure there is also retention and advancement, according to Becky Kekula, senior director of the Disability Equality Index (DEI), Disability:IN.
The DEI, according to Disability:IN, is “a comprehensive benchmarking tool that helps companies build a roadmap of measurable, tangible actions that they can take to achieve disability inclusion and equality.”
WorkingNation sat down with Kekula at her organization’s convening – the 2023 Disability:IN Conference in Orlando.
As senior director of the DEI, Kekula says, “The Disability Equality Index is actually a self-assessment. My job is to try to get as many eligible companies as possible to register for the DEI. Those companies who score 80, 90 and a hundred are named Best Places to Work for Disability Inclusion.
Kekula notes, “We have started to collect data around self-identification in recent years. We added a question branch in the self-ID questions that allow companies to share if they’re willing – what the percentages are. We’re seeing that over 15% of the world’s population has a disability whether apparent or non-apparent.”
“The workforce numbers that are being shared with us do not even come close to that number. We revealed in this year’s Disability Equality Index report among the 485 companies who participated that 4.6% is an increase from the 4% in 2022. We think there’s a long way to go.”
Learn more about the Disability Equality Index (DEI).
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Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.
Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.
Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.
Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.
Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.
Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.