Episode 369: Making the Workplace Accessible Both for Employees and Contractors With Meryl Evans

And with companies not putting effort into hiring people with disabilities, they’re sending a message to employees with invisible disabilities. According to Harvard Business Review, 76% of employees with disabilities do not disclose their disabilities at work. Episode 369: Making the Workplace Accessible Both for Employees and Contractors With Meryl Evans (@merylkevans)   Welcome to the Workology Podcast, a podcast for the disruptive workplace leader. Join host Jessica Miller-Merrell, founder of Workology.com, as she sits down and gets to the bottom of trends, tools, and case studies for the business leader,  HR, and recruiting professional who is tired of the status quo. Now, here’s Jessica with this episode of Workology. Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:00:49.13] This episode of the Workology Podcast is part of our Future of Work series, powered by PEAT, the Partnership on Employment and Accessible Technology. PEAT works to start conversations around how emerging workplace trends are impacting people with disabilities. This podcast is powered by Ace the HR Exam and Upskill HR. These are two of the courses I offer for HR certification prep and re-certification for HR leaders. Before I introduce our guest, I want to hear from you. I invite you to text “PODCAST,” “PODCAST” to 512-548-3005. That’s “PODCAST” to 512-548-3005 to ask questions, leave comments, and make suggestions for future guests. This is my community text number and I want to hear from you. Today, I’m joined by Meryl Evans. She’s a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies, CPACC. She’s a highly sought-after speaker who is known for compelling people to take action by sharing her stories and lived experiences as a person who happened to be born hearing-free, also known as profoundly deaf. Meryl has spoken at TEDx, AccessU, ID24, SXSW, Content Marketing World, AccessibilityPlus, and PCMA Convening Leaders. Meryl, welcome to the Workology Podcast. Meryl Evans: [00:02:26.41] Thank you for having me, Jessica. Jessica Miller-Merrell: [00:02:29.50] Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how it led you to do the work that you’re doing now? Meryl Evans: [00:02:37.15] My career started in the federal government, followed by two telecommunication giant. Then in 2005, I struck out on my own where I work, mainly worked as a writer and digital marketer. Around 2018, I started making videos about quality captioning. That caught the attention of the AccessU team that invited me to speak at their accessibility conference. It was there I found my community. I could be myself. After leaving the conference, I knew I wanted to work on accessibility.  I wasn’t sure how as I knew I didn’t want to be a web developer or designer. I kept that in the back of my mind while I continued working and engaging on LinkedIn. The owner of accessibility company started reading my posts. Eventually, he brought me on to work with the company in marketing. Meanwhile, I started getting invitations to speak as a result of my AccessU appearance. It snowballed to many more speaking opportunities. Eventually, another founder of an accessibility company brought me on as a marketing and accessibility consultant. Long story short, I took some accessibility classes and passed the accessibility certification exam. Now, I’m a speaker and accessibility marketing consultant in that I educate people and companies on accessibility and disability awareness.