Hiren Shukla on making hiring practices more inclusive

Industry leaders discuss business disability inclusion at the 2023 Disability:IN Conference
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“Employers are doing a number of things to create safety around neurodivergence,” says Hiren Shukla, global neurodiversity leader, EY.

WorkingNation sat down with Shukla at the 2023 Disability:IN Conference in Orlando.

“Are we adapting, adjusting hiring practices to be neuroinclusive?” asks Shukla. Suggesting a pivot to performance-based interview processes, Shukla notes, “Are we looking at behavioral-based interviews which don’t often allow neurodivergent individuals to present themselves as best?”

Referencing the rise of artificial intelligence, Shukla says, “The topic of skills today is more relevant than ever, especially because generative AI like ChatGPT. When we think about the skills that need to be unlocked, employers really need to see past what they would think as standardized performance measures – such as how eloquently does somebody speak versus what is their interaction with an open AI source and how are they able to extract value and data?”

 Shukla – who was just diagnosed with ADHD in recent months – continues, “When you start educating your managers, your line members, your team members around creating psychological safety and belonging, that means people show up differently. And that’s okay, because once we start breaking that paradigm of having to show up in the way that everybody else shows up, that’s where we start really looking at building rapidly new skills which is something in today’s workforce that are either going to make or break companies.”

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

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.