“I am very passionate about things that help people find opportunity through work. That’s what really drives me,” says Gayatri Agnew, senior director, head of Accessibility Center of Excellence at Walmart.
WorkingNation sat down with Agnew at 2022 Disability:IN Conference in Dallas.
She notes it’s important to ensure employees with disclosed or undisclosed disabilities feel comfortable at work. “In what ways can we go above and beyond? A very simple example of this is our recruiting materials to candidates. We used to expect candidates to proactively identify a need for accommodation, for example, in an interview – if they needed ASL in their interview.”
“Now in every email that a prospective employee receives, it proactively articulates, ‘If should you have a need for any kind of accommodation, please let us know. And we welcome you to come and work for our company.’”
Having a long history with Walmart, Agnew’s current role is fairly new. “It’s been an extraordinary learning opportunity. And I think the number one learning I’ve taken is that people are afraid across the board. People are afraid to understand ableism because it means, ‘I have perpetuated my ableism and pushed that on to somebody else.’”
“I’ve done that. Not intentionally, but I have done that. And I now understand that. I think, yes, not because we’re Walmart, but because for any employer, it’s a delicate conversation.”
Learn more about Walmart.
Watch more interviews from the Disability:IN conference.
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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.
