It doesn’t have to be hard — that’s the message Tricia McIntosh has for companies that are considering incorporating “accessibility” into their diversity, equity and inclusion strategies.
McIntosh is the senior technical program manager at Unity and also the chair of the company’s Access employee resource group. Access was founded in 2022 and works to raise employees’ awareness of accessibility issues through meetings featuring guest speakers, with topics including augmentative and alternative communication, communication forms that do not include speech or writing; the use of guide dogs; and American Sign Language. The ERG’s goal for 2023 is to mainstream accessibility in the company to ensure disabled and neurodivergent employees can build full careers.
If that sounds hard, it’s because it can be. Forming a new ERG is not easy, nor is doing the work required to assess career ladders and professional development opportunities to ensure they’re accessible to neurodivergent and disabled employees. As McIntosh notes, though, you don’t need to take this big of a first step to begin incorporating accessibility into your DEI strategy.
“If you simply look at the ways people are creatively accommodating themselves already, take those examples and turn them into best practices throughout your organization, you will greatly improve accessibility,” McIntosh said.
Built In San Francisco spoke with McIntosh about the steps Unity has taken to increase accessibility, both in the office and virtually, along with her advice for how companies can begin to incorporate accessibility into their DEI strategies.
Video game developers, movie studios, car companies and more use Unity’s technology to create real-time 3D content.
How do you make accessibility part of your DEI strategy?
We believe that accessibility for one means accessibility for all. Accessibility is at the center of our DEI strategy because when we create a more welcoming, accessible and inclusive space, everyone benefits. We hope that by identifying ways we can make Unity a better place to work for everyone, that intersects many other groups who can take advantage of those improvements. The following are a few examples from our DEI strategy.
We ensure our workplace is accessible for employees with disabilities to fully engage and work to reduce the stigma around disability through employee resource groups that address unconscious bias. In addition, we’re also increasing workforce representation — and compliance — across our global offices and making reasonable accommodations for employees and applicants with disabilities.
Accessibility often comes from very simple solutions that are just a bit outside the norm.”
How do you ensure that you promote accessibility when all team members might not be in the physical office?
We have always been a highly distributed and global company, and this makes us very good at being thoughtful when it comes to hybrid working situations. For example, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we took action to make sure that automated transcripts were enabled for every Zoom meeting. This was previously a setting that individuals could turn on themselves but we felt it was best to have it on by default, and many people who did not even realize this feature existed were able to benefit from it. We are always trying to improve our communication between team members in different locations, whether that be from home or an office, and we have learned a lot from our neurodivergent employees about how to do this well!
For companies who have not incorporated accessibility into their DEI strategy, where would you recommend that they start?
Oftentimes companies have the false belief that accessibility is cumbersome or expensive to implement, but it’s really not. If you simply look at the ways people are creatively accommodating themselves already, take those examples and turn them into best practices throughout your organization, you will greatly improve accessibility.
Accessibility often comes from very simple solutions that are just a bit outside the norm, and it takes ingenuity to think outside the box and find those alternative ways of doing things. That said, the work is worth it because those alternatives can be magical and greatly improve the day-to-day lives of your employees. When making accessibility part of your DEI strategy, start by finding the simple, easy solutions that make you think, “Why didn’t we do this sooner?” and build from there. Accessibility is not hard!
