Back in Episode 335, I published an interview where we talked about Neurodiversity in the workplace. The episode generated a lot of interest, and many organisations got in touch with me to share their stories. One that really stood out was a non-profit called Creative Spirit, which helps create integrated employment opportunities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Creative Spirit are doing some vital work, and I’m delighted that their Co-Founder Laurel Rossi joins me as my guest this week.
In the interview, we discuss:
▪ Creative Spirit’s backstory and purpose
▪ Being a genuinely inclusive employer and how the pandemic is changing everything
▪ Busting the myths about employment for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities
▪ Success stories and shout outs
▪ Advice to Talent Acquisition Leaders
▪ How to get involved with Creative Spirit
Listen to this podcast in Apple Podcasts
Transcription:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
Support for this podcast comes from Eightfold AI. Eightfold AI delivers the talent Intelligence platform, the most effective way for companies to retain top performers, upskill and reskill the workforce, recruit top talent efficiently, and reach diversity goals. Eightfold AI’s deep learning artificial intelligence platform empowers enterprises to turn talent management into into a competitive advantage.
Matt Alder [00:00:47]:
Hi everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 348 of the Recruiting Future podcast. Back in episode 335, I published an interview where we talked about neurodiversity in the workplace. The episode generated a lot of interest and many organizations got in touch with me to share their stories. One that really stood out was a nonprofit called the Creative Spirit, which helps create integrated employment opportunities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. They’re doing some fantastic work and I’m delighted that their co founder, Laurel Rossi, joins me as my guest this week. Hi, Laurel.
Matt Alder [00:01:32]:
And welcome to the podcast.
Laurel Rossi [00:01:33]:
Well, thanks for having me. Nice to see you.
Matt Alder [00:01:36]:
An absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Could you just introduce yourself and tell.
Matt Alder [00:01:39]:
Us what you do?
Laurel Rossi [00:01:40]:
Fantastic.
Laurel Rossi [00:01:41]:
I’m Laurel Rossi.
Laurel Rossi [00:01:42]:
I am the chief partnerships officer at.
Laurel Rossi [00:01:45]:
Organic at Omnicom, and I am also the very proud co founder of Creative Spirit.
Matt Alder [00:01:50]:
So tell us about Creative Spirit. What does it do, what’s the backstory and what’s the purpose?
Laurel Rossi [00:01:57]:
My favorite backstory about Creative Spirit and what we do are very much related to the industry that we work in.
Laurel Rossi [00:02:06]:
Marketing, advertising.
Laurel Rossi [00:02:07]:
Martech and I met up with a colleague at the Andy awards judging in 2015, or 16, I think it was 15. And we started talking about something he had done in Sydney, Australia, Drogo 5 and that was to hire one individual with down syndrome into the organization. He said it changed their lives, it changed the culture of the company, etc. And at the time, he was aware of the fact that I had a daughter who was quite young at the time with a developmental disability. And he said, you know, you should.
Laurel Rossi [00:02:38]:
Do this in the States.
Laurel Rossi [00:02:39]:
You should do what I did. And so a couple years later, 2017, at Advertising Week, believe it or not, we launched Creative Spirit US And Creative Spirit finds jobs and matches individuals with intellectual, developmental and learning disabilities with fair wage, integrated employment at the best companies in the world. And that’s a mouthful. And the reason that that’s so, so, so important is because 85% of people with disabilities, intellectual disabilities in particular, are unemployed. And it is the largest and most impoverished population on earth.
Matt Alder [00:03:15]:
That’s something that I wasn’t even aware of. How, how does creative spirit work? How does it help people? What’s the mechanics of it?
Laurel Rossi [00:03:22]:
Yeah, we have reached out to the far corners of the US and we’re starting to do much more globally to attract young adults and adults who are looking for work. And we do that via social media. We do it through networking, we do it through our relationships. We do it through academia, university, etc. And attract those candidates and ask them a little bit about their talents. We coach them, we teach them interview skills, we learn a lot about them.
Laurel Rossi [00:03:56]:
And then we work with our corporate partners, of which we have about 28.
Laurel Rossi [00:04:01]:
Today, including the best agencies and companies, client side companies that you can think of, media partners, et cetera. And we make a match. And we do that match by using our expertise. We have a wonderful HR and training team who not only match the candidates with the positions, but also make recommendations to those companies about the accommodations that might be needed on the part of those candidates. So I think one of the things that’s so daunting all the time is.
Laurel Rossi [00:04:30]:
People believe, and there is a myth.
Laurel Rossi [00:04:32]:
That the accommodations that people with disabilities need to do their job are just overwhelming.
Laurel Rossi [00:04:36]:
And the truth of the matter is.
Laurel Rossi [00:04:37]:
Sometimes they’re just, I need a 15 minute break every two hours, which who doesn’t need that? Frankly, that’s some of the great mechanics. And the last thing I’ll just add.
Laurel Rossi [00:04:45]:
Is we also provide a lifetime coach.
Laurel Rossi [00:04:48]:
To that candidate and that coach or coaches follow them through their employment journey, through hopefully all their promotions and all the managers that they’ll have.
Matt Alder [00:05:00]:
You mentioned there about the very sort of poor employment prospects. One of the topics that we’ve, we’ve covered a lot on the, on the podcast in the last year or so has been diversity hiring. And we had a conversation about neurodiversity hiring a few weeks ago. So it’s a very big topic in the HR industry. What focus do you think employers are currently giving to people with intellectual, developmental and learning disabilities? Because it sounds like not very much.
Laurel Rossi [00:05:32]:
Well, I think it really varies like everything else.
Laurel Rossi [00:05:35]:
I think that everything in DE and.
Laurel Rossi [00:05:38]:
I is somewhat nascent at this stage of the game.
Laurel Rossi [00:05:41]:
Disability has two definitions. You can talk about disability as a medical in the context of a medical model, and you can talk about it.
Laurel Rossi [00:05:50]:
In terms of a social model.
Laurel Rossi [00:05:52]:
I think one of the things that’s.
Laurel Rossi [00:05:53]:
Been helping us help companies do a great job has been to get away from a medical model.
Laurel Rossi [00:05:59]:
So rather than saying people with autism or people with Williams syndrome or people.
Laurel Rossi [00:06:04]:
With down syndrome need X.
Laurel Rossi [00:06:07]:
We really are looking at the individual.
Laurel Rossi [00:06:09]:
And helping them with their individual accommodations.
Laurel Rossi [00:06:13]:
That they need to get their jobs done.
Laurel Rossi [00:06:14]:
And I think the companies who onboard.
Laurel Rossi [00:06:16]:
That and embrace that are the ones that are doing the best job, if you want to judge it a little bit. And the other is most companies are just not as keenly and deeply engaged in the conversation, even for their, you know, let’s say, neurotypical population around what is needed to make everybody feel comfortable. If Covid has taught us anything, it’s that we all need a little extra TLC these days and probably are all very challenged in terms of executive functioning and time management and screen fatigue and all those things. And it’s funny because a lot of the remedies that people are putting in place and companies are putting in place right now really come out of the disability world.
Matt Alder [00:07:02]:
That makes a lot of sense. And certainly employers are looking at work in a, in perhaps a very different way to the way they were before the pandemic. From the, the conversations that you, you have with employers, you sort of got into this a little bit, but it’d be great to sort of dive into it a bit deeper. What are the barriers that they perceive in terms of hiring people with IGDs and how much of that is just perception?
Laurel Rossi [00:07:29]:
Yeah.
Laurel Rossi [00:07:29]:
Oh, such a great question. And I actually have a data filled answer for that. We did a study in December. We wanted to do it right, sort.
Laurel Rossi [00:07:42]:
Of in the smack in the middle.
Laurel Rossi [00:07:43]:
Of COVID or toward whatever you’re thinking.
Laurel Rossi [00:07:45]:
About, whatever cycle we’re in right now, but certainly in the throes of COVID And the significance of that is we wanted to understand if Covid was slowing down or speeding up employment in general for DNI initiatives. And we learned that, you know, things had sort of amped up over the summer and have not slowed down since. And as it relates to that, we.
Laurel Rossi [00:08:08]:
Asked lots and lots of questions about, you know, disability hiring in the context of this amped up DE and I hiring frenzy, let’s call it. And we learned that, you know, 80 to 90% of companies are really heavily focused on diversity employment, but only 12% of companies were hiring people with disabilities or were focused on that. And the barriers attached to that were three things. One is companies don’t believe there’s a pipeline. Two is they don’t have the staff.
Laurel Rossi [00:08:36]:
And the training internally to really understand the segments.
Laurel Rossi [00:08:40]:
And so, you know, HR departments have been given these enormous goals in terms of diversity hiring. And they have not been given, you know, the support to be able to do that with the kind of expertise they’re used to.
Laurel Rossi [00:08:53]:
And then the third thing is if.
Laurel Rossi [00:08:54]:
I were to hire, the belief is that if I were to hire somebody with a disability and my other choice was somebody who was neurotypical, let’s say, I don’t believe that that person with a disability could do as good a job. And so we have since, in the, you know, three, four months since really focused our attention with corporations on myth busting. You know, creative spirit provides that wonderful pipeline. Number two, we always present very qualified candidates. So everything from, you know, front end developers to copywriters to HR managers. So we’re always presenting really qualified candidates for the position. And then the last thing is we are providing now consulting. We just started a consulting practice where we’ll actually go in and train a leadership team on how to hire people with disabilities and what that means to their organization and culture.
Matt Alder [00:09:47]:
Talk us through some of the success stories that you have where things have really changed.
Laurel Rossi [00:09:51]:
We have found great success in the companies that have been really systematic about.
Laurel Rossi [00:10:00]:
Improving their game all the way through.
Laurel Rossi [00:10:02]:
So I’ll use two examples and there may be three and three great shout outs too. We started some of our very early on employers were Voya Financial, who also in is a big grant writer for us. They support our coaching program. They have been really focused on helping families in general with people with disabilities in their family structure. And the reason for that is if you don’t have someone with a disability earning a fair wage, that person puts.
Laurel Rossi [00:10:34]:
A huge financial drain on the family.
Laurel Rossi [00:10:37]:
And in turn creates a multi generational.
Laurel Rossi [00:10:40]:
Problem in terms of people being able.
Laurel Rossi [00:10:42]:
To live above the poverty line.
Laurel Rossi [00:10:43]:
So Voy has been a great partner.
Laurel Rossi [00:10:45]:
They’ve supported our coaching. They are actually the presenting sponsor of our fundraiser this year. And they are on a mission to hire people who have disabilities into their call centers, into these jobs where not only does somebody get to earn a fair wage, but there’s plenty of upward mobility opportunity. Another success story is, is how Verizon has handled the hiring of people with disabilities. And we are really on a very.
Laurel Rossi [00:11:15]:
Smart schedule with them where we meet.
Laurel Rossi [00:11:17]:
On a very regular basis, you know, voice to voice, face to face, zoom to zoom. And we’re presenting candidates and we’re going back and forth and we’re looking at all kinds of job descriptions across the.
Laurel Rossi [00:11:27]:
Board and the richness that comes out of that because we piloted early on with them to, to understand exactly what.
Laurel Rossi [00:11:34]:
We needed to do to accommodate folks. And so in those cases, you know, we have one young man, I love this story, who by, I don’t know.
Laurel Rossi [00:11:42]:
Probably four or five months into his.
Laurel Rossi [00:11:45]:
Job as a developer, said, you know.
Laurel Rossi [00:11:48]:
I really wanted to be doing AI.
Laurel Rossi [00:11:49]:
Coming out of school, and I really. I’m gonna, you know, maybe I should, like, quit and go somewhere seriously, you know, was advocating for himself in a big way, and he.
Laurel Rossi [00:11:58]:
We coached him to talk to his.
Laurel Rossi [00:11:59]:
Manager, and he ended up running AI for the HR department and got himself a 60% raise. So we’re clearly teaching our candidates advocacy as well. And then probably the last example I’ll.
Laurel Rossi [00:12:13]:
Use is we also started very early on working with Emma McCann, and I don’t even know how many candidates they’ve hired so far. But not only are they all happy in their jobs, they’ve all volunteered to be fantastic ambassadors, and they love telling their stories, and they tell their stories in such a way where Chris Smith, who’s an HR manager at mrm, talks about the fact that he really had absolutely nothing to do before he took.
Laurel Rossi [00:12:44]:
He got his job at mrm, and.
Laurel Rossi [00:12:46]:
Today he leads a super productive life.
Laurel Rossi [00:12:49]:
And he is super busy, super engaged.
Laurel Rossi [00:12:52]:
And just couldn’t have envisioned a better future for himself. So all these stories are extremely heartening. And you visit our YouTube page, you’ll.
Laurel Rossi [00:13:00]:
Get to see some of them.
Matt Alder [00:13:01]:
I definitely will. And I’ll post a link to the YouTube page in the. In the show notes as well. Obviously, lots of recruiters listening, lots of talent acquisition professionals, lots of HR professionals. What would your advice be to them?
Laurel Rossi [00:13:14]:
I think the journey to intellectual, developmental, and learning disability hiring is not as.
Laurel Rossi [00:13:22]:
Nuanced as people think. I think it is a matter of.
Laurel Rossi [00:13:26]:
Being fastidious about hiring any great talent where you’re really listening for those individual factors that make somebody successful. They may just be a little bit different for people with disabilities at times. In the same way you might think about somebody with a physical disability, you know, you’re thinking about some of those physical things like, you know, elevators and ramps and accessibility. It’s really the same across the board on the intellectual side. And I would also say that a lot of the accommodations that we are putting in place today for our friends with disabilities are super helpful, super motivating, and super energizers for the rest of the talent pool. And when I think about technology and how far it’s come and all the facilitators and helpers along the way in terms of tackle, a lot of these.
Laurel Rossi [00:14:17]:
Things are things you can Implement across the board.
Laurel Rossi [00:14:19]:
I think the peer culture factor in terms of how happy having a neurodiverse population amidst the organization is, I don’t.
Laurel Rossi [00:14:30]:
Think you can measure it anymore.
Laurel Rossi [00:14:32]:
I know from our own surveys that companies who hire people who are neurodiverse have far more positive cultures.
Matt Alder [00:14:39]:
As a final question, tell us how people can find out more about the Creative Spirit and get involved.
Laurel Rossi [00:14:45]:
Thank you.
Laurel Rossi [00:14:46]:
Well, first of all, you can go to our website and it is creativespirit-us.org.
Laurel Rossi [00:14:52]:
And you can click on the employer button and register, or you can send us an email.
Laurel Rossi [00:14:59]:
And email is inforeativespirit-us.org and our talented HR team. We have a director of talent and we have a director of employer relationships, and either one of them will get back to you, and it’s as easy as that. And then we will work with you on a systematic basis to really improve anything that you need to know to improve your diversity hiring and disability hiring. And also, you know, you’re helping us get to know the population better. We’re doing things all the time for the community. We’re doing research all the time. And I think our whole goal is not only to make Creative Spirit a destination for both employers and candidates, but.
Laurel Rossi [00:15:41]:
It’S also to give back to the.
Laurel Rossi [00:15:42]:
Community and make sure that we’re educating everybody about having great representation among people with disability.
Matt Alder [00:15:49]:
And you’ve got an event coming up in May.
Laurel Rossi [00:15:51]:
We do. May 6th.
Laurel Rossi [00:15:53]:
It’s our second annual fundraiser. We had a smashing success on our hands last year. We didn’t know what to expect because we hadn’t done it before. We had a packed room right before COVID lockdown. So you can imagine how nervous we were right after with 440 people jammed in a room in New York City. But this year we have plenty of capacity because we’re doing it virtually. And it’s going to be a fantastic night.
Laurel Rossi [00:16:17]:
We have top Chef Adrian Cheatham, who’s.
Laurel Rossi [00:16:20]:
Going to teach us why American cuisine needs a seat at the table. So you get our metaphor here.
Laurel Rossi [00:16:26]:
And also we’re going to have Madison.
Laurel Rossi [00:16:28]:
Cayley, who performed on the Grammys. You may have seen her beautiful harpist who plays pop music and classical and is really giving everybody a refreshed look at what classical music really looks like. So we’re going to have a really fun night.
Matt Alder [00:16:40]:
Fantastic stuff. Laurel, thank you very much for talking to me.
Laurel Rossi [00:16:43]:
Thanks for having me.
Laurel Rossi [00:16:44]:
Really appreciate it.
Matt Alder [00:16:46]:
My thanks to Laurel Rossi. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts on Spotify or via your podcasting app of choice. Please also follow the show on Instagram. You can find us by searching for Recruiting Future. You can search all the past episodes@recruiting future.com on that site. You can also subscribe to the mailing list to get the inside track about everything that’s coming up on the show. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
