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The Elephant in the Org

The "Elephant in the Org" podcast is a daring dive into the unspoken challenges and opportunities in organizational development, particularly in the realm of employee experience. Hosted by the team at The Fearless PX, we tackle the "elephants" in the room—those taboo or ignored topics—that are critical for creating psychologically safe and highly effective workplaces.

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The Elephant in the Org

Want Inclusive Workplaces? Listen Up — and Hire Paul

October 08, 2025 • The Fearless PX • Season 3 • Episode 6

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Want Inclusive Workplaces? Listen Up — and #HirePaul

This special episode of The Elephant in the Org isn’t just a conversation — it’s a call to action.

Meet Paul Meyer, a Deaf HR professional and inclusion advocate with extensive experience in talent acquisition, onboarding, and culture building. Paul has spent his career helping organizations make work truly inclusive, from hiring practices to day-to-day communication and leadership behavior.

We recorded this as our first fully accessible episode, featuring live ASL interpretation (Rebecca Davis) and CART captions (Annie Hargett, AH Real Time Captions). The audio version includes a full written transcript, and you can access the ASL + CC video via the YouTube link below.

🎥 Watch the accessible video version on YouTube → https://youtu.be/2fGpnCNUi1o

👉 Paul is actively job-seeking. Listen, learn, and help us #HirePaul.

In this episode:

Why “culture is communication”
How to build accessible onboarding that works
Why AI captions aren’t yet a reasonable accommodation
Practical team habits that build belonging
What HR can learn from lived experience

Connect & Support:
🔗 Connect with Paul on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulmeyerpm/
💼 Share open roles or referrals
📣 Spread the word: #HirePaul #ElephantInclusive

Credits
Hosted by Marion Anderson & Danny Gluch
Guest: Paul Meyer
ASL: Rebecca Davis
CART: Annie Hargett, AH Real Time Captions
Collaboration: Greer Procich, Rethinkability

Link to Show Notes

🐘 Connect with Us:

🚀 Follow The Fearless PX on LinkedIn: The Fearless PX
📩 Got a hot take or a workplace horror story? Email Marion, Cacha, and Danny at elephant@thefearlesspx.com

🎧 Catch every episode of The Elephant in the Org: All Episodes Here

🚀Your Hosts on Linkedin:

🐘Marion Anderson

🐘Danny Gluch

🐘Cacha Dora

💬 Like what you hear?
Subscribe, leave a ★★★★★ review, and help us bring more elephants into the light.

🎙️ About the Show

The Elephant in the Org drops new episodes every two weeks starting April 2024.
Get ready for even more fearless conversations about leadership, psychological safety, and the future of work.

🎵 Music & Production Credits

🎶 Opening and closing theme music by The Toros
🎙️ Produced by The Fearless PX
✂️ Edited by Marion Anderson

⚠️ Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily reflect any affiliated organizations' official policy or position.

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Danny Gluch: Welcome back to The Elephant in the Org, everyone. I'm Danny Glutch, and I'm joined in the cold open with Marion Anderson this time.

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Marion: I'm so lucky I get to hang out! Yay!

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Danny Gluch: We have a really different and interesting episode today. Marion, why don't you… I think it'll be easier to understand what the episode, what the elephant is, if you tell us about how this episode with Paul came about.

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Marion: Yeah, so, anyone who's listened to us for a while will know that we did, over the summer, a limited series called Rethinkability in partnership with the team at Rethinkability, and the idea was to raise awareness

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Marion: Across the board, but particularly with HR professionals, around the challenges of having unseen disabilities in the workplace.

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Marion: And that work, that advocacy work, has just grown arms and legs and led to us cultivating a lot of really cool relationships and new partnerships and friendships, and someone extraordinary that

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Marion: came onto my path was Paul Mayer, and Paul was introduced to me by Greer Procich, over at Rethinkability, and one of our key collaborators.

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Marion: Paul is profoundly deaf. He's been deaf his entire life.

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Marion: And…

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Marion: we set up a call just to chat, really, about, accessibility work and what he was doing, and I had seen him post on LinkedIn about his difficulties trying to find work.

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Marion: Trying to get interviews, trying to get even his resume picked up.

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Marion: And… you know, having been on my own disability journey, I got really incensed by that, because…

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Marion: You know, even as a hearing person, the job market right now is horrendous.

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Marion: So, for someone who has a profound hearing issue, is…

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Marion: I can't even imagine. I couldn't… I couldn't imagine how much more challenging that would be to navigate. And what struck me about spending time with Paul was just…

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Marion: His real passion for helping people do better, learn more, raise awareness, help organisations do more.

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Marion: And it really just led me to think, hey, we should do a podcast with Paul, we should do an episode. I'd love for people to hear him tell his story, and just see what we see when we interact with them. An incredible, yeah, an incredible individual.

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Danny Gluch: we had just an intro call, because I had never met Paul before, and…

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Danny Gluch: It's just so, so obvious what a pleasant person he is, funny person he is, kind person he is.

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Danny Gluch: And what a great communicator he is. Yeah. And, I think the, you know, the smaller elephant in the org is how this is gonna be a video podcast. And I didn't realize that, so I didn't shave, so I'm really scruffy.

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Danny Gluch: But if people, and I really hope they do, watch this video podcast, because…

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Danny Gluch: the ability to see him use his hands and body language and facial expressions while he's talking with a… you know, and he talks about how he has a strong deaf accent.

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Danny Gluch: It's not a deaf advocate who speaks where you can't tell that they were deaf. And he's not shy about that. That is who he is, and he's still just a wonderful communicator. And I'm really excited for people to watch this and see and really have their eyes opened, as mine were, of like.

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Danny Gluch: oh, like, this is… this is fine, this is great, like, Paul's wonderful to work with.

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Danny Gluch: That being said, I know in getting some of the tools to work, you know, the closed captioning and the interpreters and things, Marion, you did all of the work for us on that.

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Danny Gluch: Thank you.

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Danny Gluch: Thank you for saving me. And somehow you made time for that. I don't know where you… you probably just didn't sleep.

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Danny Gluch: In transparency, what was that like?

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Marion: Definitely not easy, not gonna lie, you know, the irony of…

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Marion: accessibility tools on tech platforms actually not being that accessible in the first place. You know, having… I was having to put into perplexity, help me find how to, you know, invite an interpreter on Zoom, and some of the

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Marion: the information that was coming up was conflicting, and I got there eventually, but it took a while, and it just made me think…

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Marion: you know, these are meant to be accessibility features that are not accessible, and in fact, why aren't those controls just there as part of the main panel, and you can just say yay or nay, right? And, I know that we quote this one a million times, over the…

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Marion: test, but it' s incredible, you know, Dr Angela Young.

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Marion: they said to us once, if you build for everyone, if you build with the most marginalized in mind, then you support everyone, right? And it's true. 100% true. It's so true. So, yeah, we got there in the end,

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Marion: We were really fortunate to secure some other help with, an ASL interpreter, the wonderful Rebecca, and also Annie supporting with CART closed captions. So we hope that this…

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Marion: podcast episodes, is an inclusive experience for many, it's accessible.

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Marion: It's our first time ever doing something like this.

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Marion: we probably could do better in certain ways, but that's the beauty of this journey. It's about learning. You can't be perfect at these things the first time around.

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Marion: And it's just about learning, and I think that we've learned a lot, and Paul has taught us a lot along the way as we've produced this episode, so really grateful to him for his patience with us!

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Marion: But we just wanted an opportunity to spotlight this incredible individual. People need to hire Paul, because he's wonderful, and he would bring so much to an HR team. So, yes.

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Danny Gluch: Yeah, and it's one of those things where I've had the…

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Danny Gluch: privilege of speaking to so many people, you know, with our Rethinkability, series, with so many different, abilities and disabilities, and…

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Danny Gluch: speaking to Paul, it's a really interesting perspective and experience that is very different from the other disabilities, because it is around communication.

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Danny Gluch: And… and I think a lot of organizations

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Danny Gluch: Are worried, or are shy, or just have no idea how to

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Danny Gluch: overcome that, or how to approach it, how to attack it. And I think a lot of HR teams, a lot of leaders, a lot of managers can listen to this conversation and learn. And I hope that it's eye-opening. Some organizations who probably think they're very inclusive might

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Danny Gluch: listen to this, watch this, and realize that they could do better. Yeah.

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Danny Gluch: Because… Yeah, it's…

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Danny Gluch: it's different, and it's, you know, and I think one thing Paul, said, I don't think it made it into the podcast, but it was,

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Danny Gluch: in our conversations is that every disability is different, and you can't just go to one disabled person and say, oh, how can we accommodate for this person? Or even just one deaf person and say, how can we accommodate for all Deaf people? That's just not how.

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Marion: Yeah .

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Danny Gluch: But this is Paul's story, and I think it does cover a real elephant, which is

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Danny Gluch: that there's nothing that impacts their capacity or capabilities, their intellect. It's just a communication disability, and it's one that can be worked with, and it's one that organizations

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Danny Gluch: might have a hard time approaching, and I think that's an elephant worth talking about.

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Marion: eW're really excited to bring this to our listeners, so if anyone can help Paul find a job, please message us, DM us.

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Marion: Paul's LinkedIn link is in the show notes, we will tag him, but please connect this wonderful individual with any opportunities that are out there, because he's remarkable, and he deserves to

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Marion:To be able to share those gifts with everyone.

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Danny Gluch: Yeah, absolutely.

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Danny Gluch: Thank you all for listening, we're excited for you to listen to this one.

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Danny Gluch: This is the elephant and the org

>> DANNY GLUCH: Welcome back to The Elephant in the Org. I'm Danny Gluch and joined by Marion Anderson. Cacha can't make it today. We have a really special guest and a really special episode today. We are going to be discussing deafness on a Podcast. That's going to be interesting. We're going to have different formats for everyone. And for this topic, we brought in Paul Meyer. Paul, why don't you tell us all hi?

>> PAUL MEYER: Hi, everyone, I'm happy to be here.

>> DANNY GLUCH: It's awesome to have you. Paul, can you share your journey with deafness and how you identify on the journey of the broad spectrum of deafness?

>> PAUL MEYER: I was born profoundly deaf, and I went to oral school for the deaf for 11 years. And then I was mainstreamed. I went to Gallaudet University and then transferred to a hearing college, and I've been working ever since. I identify -- my identity is Deaf. That's it.

>> DANNY GLUCH: How did the transition from the school for the Deaf to hearing college -- how was that transition for you?

>> PAUL MEYER: It was a big change, it was a big difference. Growing up, and going to the deaf school, the first year, for one year, oh, for 11 years, and then my class was really small. And then when I was mainstreamed in High School, it was huge. It was a really big class. And there were no other deaf kids there.

I had to -- it was a different culture, I had to get used to the culture, it was different. And then when I transferred to Gallaudet, it was a strong Deaf culture. Very immersed very immersive. But deep signing, only signing. I had to learn how to sign there and that was the only way to communicate. And then when I transferred back to a hearing college, it was, again, a totally different culture. I had to learn everything, how to do everything different all over again. I learned how to lead in the deaf world and in the hearing world, and I know how to cooperate. I learned how to marry those two worlds together: The deaf world and the hearing world together.

>> MARION ANDERSON: Talk about building resilience, flexibility, agility, some of the most important leadership skills out there. Do you think that those early experiences have contributed towards how you operate in the workplace today?

>> PAUL MEYER: To start, you have to have a lot of empathy for people because they don't understand how deaf people feel left out. They don't understand how it's frustrating for us. And understand how the deaf world is like small, tight, tight-knit. And to be more flexible and more open because I was the only deaf person in the workplace. I was the only deaf person, and there was a lot of frustrations. So you have to learn how to communicate. And so it becomes easier after a while. -- when I went to Gallaudet, it was a different world from where I grew up. I grew up in the oral school, and Gallaudet is different. It's more profoundly Deaf culture. So I had to communicate with a different path than the hearing world.

So I'm an able to pick up the features of the hearing world and the deaf world. But I transferred to a hearing college. And I was learning how to use sign, and I was growing up at different places. Growing up, I went to a deaf school, and I was at the deaf school all day. And after school, I played on the hearing team because I was a good athlete. My balance for the deaf world and hearing world always needs to be balanced for me.

When I got to High school with hearing people, I’d go to school and play sports with hearing teams then on weekends I’d hang out with the deaf friends. So again I had that balance. So I went to college and I did a reverse balance of who I was with a majority of the day. So I had a little balance between both the deaf world and the hearing world. So ever since then, I try to find a balance because most of the time, the hearing people have no idea how to help us and work with us. So I've come here to help people from my experience being in both worlds and how to bridge it.

>> DANNY GLUCH: You talked so much about the culture. I find that interesting you used this word. It was a different culture with the deaf world and hearing school, the mainstream school. And so much of organization and team culture is how we communicate. We talk about it, often times we're an e-mail culture or we're a slack culture or in-person culture. And it's so much more like obvious when you're talking about, you know, oh, you went to a school and you've been deaf and you've been in deaf communities but then you went to a school where it was only signing and that was different for you. Because you had to adjust to this whole new expectation of communication.

I think that's something a lot of teams could learn from. Just because this is the way they're used to communicating doesn't mean everyone communicates that way. And you were able to adapt to that. I imagine that was not the easiest thing to do especially when you were talking about having your feet in both worlds at the same time and flipping back and forth.

>> DANNY GLUCH: So, I'm not entirely sure where I was going with that. But I found it really profound commentary on what culture is, often times we think culture is oh, we do this together, and we have these affinities. But really culture is how we communicate and what we communicate.

>> MARION ANDERSON: Hmm.

>> PAUL MEYER: From my perspective, something that's many different things, that's the most important thing, people want to belong to something. I want to belong, but I want to belong with people. And how it's all about being included and belonging with people. People want to feel belonged anywhere they are at.

>> DANNY GLUCH: Yeah. That feeling of belonging really does make such a difference. Marion? Did you want to say anything?

>> MARION ANDERSON: So, tell us, Paul, what passing as hearing means to you and why it's important that people understand there's a spectrum of deafness and experience?

>> PAUL MEYER: That’s a very sensitive topic in the deaf community. There is a wide spectrum of hearing loss, mild to severe deaf to profoundly deaf and how to show people on deafness on the spectrum. A lot of people want to belong. A lot of people want to belong, and sometimes if the person is working in a hearing company – it is easy to be left out. But the huge topic with the deaf community is that some of them cant talk/use ASL only and they feel left out easily. And deaf people aren't treated equal. Some deaf people code switch to make it easier to fit in with the hearing workplace rather than letting them be who they are so they can be accepted if they use ASL or can speak. It's a hot touchy topic. Deaf people should be allowed to communicate our needs and communication access. We want to feel like we belong. That's the first thing; about belonging. It doesn't matter, that's for the deaf people to decide how they want to be for themselves instead of “Trying to fit in”.

>> DANNY GLUCH: I appreciate you calling out it's a sensitive topic in the deaf community. It's a big elephant, it's a big thing, it is a spectrum and so much about belonging. And I really appreciate your transparency and honesty of what it's about and when it comes down to it, it's about helping people, and whatever their communication needs are, feeling like they belong. I appreciate that. What a good perspective. Gosh, dang it, I wish it was easy to help everyone feel they belong. I know sometimes I don't feel like I belong in organizations. It's difficult.

Is there ever pressure to try to make it feel more comfortable for other people, for the hearing people you're working with? Do you ever feel pressure to care about their experience more than your own?

>> PAUL MEYER:. When you try to talk to hearing people about deaf people, Deaf culture, I bring up Helen Keller. People asked her if you had a disability to pick one, blind or being deaf. Helen Keller always said she would pick being blind because being blind you ca still communicate with people and being deaf cuts you off from people. And thats a thing people ont understand about deafness, we are cut off from the world and people. And we get cut off easily. Because the world is sound based. So there's a lot of pressure for me with hearing people sometimes.

Like I said, most of the time, I'm the first deaf person to show up at a company and work. There's a lot of expectations on me. But at the same time -- because I can talk pretty well, so I try to help show others that I'm not the only person that can do this job. How we can work and help you out? But most of the time, if we have an ability to talk, we tend to get more attention (unfairly) than the other. And people tend to feel more comfortable with you, if you can talk. That does not apply to all deaf people. Sometimes deaf people can't talk, they do sign, but they are left out unfairly. We should all make this work regardless. (the mode of communication a deaf person uses).

>> MARION ANDERSON: I think it's a very common experience in the disabled community generally where, speaking for myself, I feel that because my disabilities are unseen, they're invisible effectively, that I have to over communicate and overexplain myself; over explain what I need and why I need it, and how it happened. And that's more about making other feel comfortable as well as making myself feel validated, I guess. And we hear this a lot. We hear this a lot.

And I think it's human nature to want to make other people feel comfortable. But I think it's more profound, I think it's more intense in the disabled community for those reasons. That's really hard, and it's exhausting, its tiring.

>> DANNY GLUCH: I think part of the wanting to make people feel comfortable is so that they're more likely to include you and help you --

>> PAUL MEYER: I have a great example about being deaf and having another disability. I was working with a co-worker. And he had a different kind of disability. He worked in a different office. And so we would communicate with each other through e-mail because we both liked to talk a lot about football. So we were comparing stories about our co-workers. Because we worked in the same company but in different locations. So I asked him how do the teammates treat you? he said they treated him like a normal person. But my office left me alone. They didn't talk to me a lot. Two different disabilities at the same company.

So he e-mailed me about a party and they invited me to a party at his house. So I went over to his house and talked football. At the party. When I showed up, people were afraid to talk to me because I'm deaf. They thought I couldn't communicate with them. He could hear, he was in a wheelchair, people treated him like normal. Because I'm deaf, people treated me differently. So it's so interesting what I saw at the party and I was left out.

>> DANNY GLUCH: You say, "interesting" that sounds really sad, sounds really hurtful.

>> PAUL MEYER: It was. It was.

>> DANNY GLUCH: So, Paul, I imagine your career journey has been a lot different than most hearing people. Can you tell us about what that career journey has been, what made you want to be on an HR team, and what you want to bring to HR teams?

>> PAUL MEYER: I started out my career on a staffing firm. I started out with HR and Recruiting because it was a small company. I had to do a lot of different things. Wear different hats. When you work for a small place, you see more things and have more responsibilities. I did a lot of different things for them, talk to people at job fairs, in office visits, resolve employee issues and more, and it helped that I'm a people person. I like to be around people. And I like to help people too. I was the go to person for my staffing company when our clients didn’t show up for assignments so they’d send me on a last minute trips to companies to resolve issues. That was fun.

Back then it wasn't easy for me because I had to communicate a lot without all the technology that we have nowadays. But I still did it.

And then I worked at the investment banking company in the securities department, I had and worked with the ex military people on my team. We worked with transferring stocks and bonds to other locations and safeguarded the vault. That was not a deaf friendly job and I still did a great job with that because you never see a deaf person do that.

Later I worked for another company as the Information Management Coordinator and then for another company, I was the Supply Chain Coordinator. Which means there were tons of communication with a lot of different people, training people on how to use the database and moving parts. Those again, are not deaf friendly roles. I had to talk and resolve issues with sales, management, truckers, factories and more as part of my job. I think I did well in spite of all the communication aspect of the role. I finally landed back into the HR/TA role at my last company and I enjoyed that as well. HR is is the kind of thing Im good at.

With all the communication that went on from communicating with all those people for those roles. I Think people saw that I was very good at helping people, educating people and that is what I am good at in spite of being deaf

And at the same time at those companies, I created an Employee Resource Group, ERG, that shows my ability to communicate a lot with different people in the companies, and through that, I managed people, recruited people, and helped build people throughout my career. I've communicated with a lot of different people, and I'm strong at communicating. That's who I am.

>> DANNY GLUCH: Yeah. I mean it's such a varied -- I love that the themes that kept coming up, they've never seen a deaf person do that before. So it's cool you're able to break the stereotypes. In my work experience, I've never seen deaf people do much of anything because I've never had a deaf co-worker. I've had a few different interactions with deaf people and it's just like this, it's always gone surprisingly well, and I love that you're breaking stereotypes. But that doesn't mean it's easy for you to find roles.

Currently, you've been looking, and have experience, broad experience, and are very smart, insightful, you have a great personality, and unique perspective. Why is it difficult for you to find roles? Why aren't teams jumping at including you in their HR team?

>> PAUL MEYER: Throughout my career, over 20 years, every job I was at, the HR and recruiting teams came to me for help related to the disability in the work place. Because I was the person in the company that was “open” with my disability so I was always more than happy to help out because , I enjoy teaching people how to accommodate with us, work with us. So it's normal for me to want to stay in HR space.

So most of the time, when I was in a meeting with the HR people, the recruiter, the management, on how to include disability in the work place, I was the only disabled person in the room. So right now, I'm looking for roles but I think because, of , perception, when people find out that I'm deaf, they think that I can't communicate. And I can’t get anywhere.

So people assume, how can we communicate with Paul? How can we have Paul for our HR team or something (if he is deaf?) But now with the technology we have, it shouldn’t matter. If the person is deaf or disabled, we can still work in the HR space because we can bring a lot of perspectives that people don't have in HR. We are the group out there that is underrepresented . So there should be more people like us represented in the space. But there's not. So how can companies include themselves and help people like us ?

And I can tell people are afraid to say the wrong thing to me or say the wrong thing to other people with disabilities. People need to be educated and know that its ok to make mistakes.

>> MARION ANDERSON: It's really interesting, because, again, as an HR practitioner myself, and then becoming disabled later in life and later in my career, I found that I realized just how poorly equipped HR teams are at supporting most employees with accommodations whether it be physical, auditory, whatever, and I think it's only through my own experiences has helped me become, I think, better in my job, to support accommodations and accessibility.

And it's quite remarkable when you think about it, this stuff isn't trained. HR professionals are not trained in this stuff. And this is where someone like you brings real value because of your lived experience. You can train this stuff from a process perspective systematically but you can't train the experience and empathy and the problem-solving and all the things that come as part of living this experience. And that's where you would be a remarkable addition to any people team because of that.

And again, that takes real insight and resilience and flexibility and agility and all the things that you talked about already. This is a great way to really take that and put it into practice.

>> PAUL MEYER: Like for me, when I do interviews, they ask me to do a phone call. I can't do that. I request a video phone call. But a lot of the recruiters turn me down when they find out I'm deaf and want to do a video phone call.

And when I have an interview, they don't understand how a deaf person can fit into the HR team because they think it's all communication-based . But in my career, I've done everything, communicating, writing, e-mailing, talking to people. It doesn't matter. I get things done. They don't understand fully. So for me, it's just a different way to communicate.

>> DANNY GLUCH: They haven't even given you a chance if they're not going to be willing to do a video call.

>> MARION ANDERSON: I was going to build on that because obviously people make assumptions as we've talked about; employers, recruiters, hiring managers. They make assumptions. And I guess, you know, the assumptions that you've been subjected to, how have they shaped your experiences within the place of work? Like when you started a new job and gone through onboarding and you've been building relationships? Or trying to just feel a sense of trust and psychological safety?

>> PAUL MEYER: From my experience, onboarding needs to be looked at completely in the companies because they need to have an onboarding accessible program. It's a must be part of the company. If people don't have it, (accessibility and inclusion) if you don't have the right practice on your staff, from day one, it won't go smoothly for everyone.

Like for me, when I started my last job, I didn't have an interpreter for four weeks. I was lost for four weeks. And then they came, i was so far behind, and wrote me up for being “slow” related to my 30-day plan. That was wrong. But it took me another month to catch up and I was fine after that. Please be patient with us. Its all about understanding what that person needs.

And the leadership needs to ask you, "What do you need (to be successful)? “ Employees tend to watch the leadership, if they're afraid to talk to you, to be around you, it's like if those people are afraid to talk to me, nobody else will. It's all about perception. It's all about the leader. If leadership (management) won’t talk to you, nobody will talk to you.

Also from my experience, if the manager is not comfortable with you being on the team or they do not accept you on the team, then it won’t work out. And companies need to be prepared way ahead of the time to prepare for a disabled employee coming in, if you are not sure how, ask another disabled person. It is important from day one to start out on good foot. Culture and perception is very important, from day one.

>> DANNY GLUCH: I think it's one of those things, culture echoes. It has to be repeatable. If they show one time, it's not enough. It's a regular thing. Paul part of the time, Paul iis included too. Paul is part of the meeting. When it's repeated, people will start echoing that same behavior. If people start avoiding Paul, "No, I'm not going to include Paul and not interact with Paul," that's going to get repeated, too.

And that's really like, got to be a frustrating experience because it has nothing to do with your capabilities, your capacity, your intellect. It's what we're talking about earlier. They're not doing the work of helping you feel included, like you belong. Are there things your colleagues can do to help break those assumptions and to start acting in ways that other people can see and catch on to you and, you know, repeat,

>> PAUL MEYER: Two things I’ve learned that has helped me. One-when the team finds out a deaf person is coming on. If the deaf person signs, go ahead and learn some ASL signs for the deaf person. That shouldn’t be too hard. If the deaf person does not sign. Ask that person how they can do an ice-breaker for a team meeting, or be sure to include captions, and they can explain a little bit what it's like to be deaf from their perspective and talk to the team if they are comfortable.

And my little trick that I've learned through my career is assign a deaf person to the most friendliest person on the team.

>> PAUL MEYER: Assign a deaf person to the most friendly person on the team or most social person because everybody on the team tends to talk to the most friendly person. And if people see that, they'll try communicating to a deaf person. They'll do the same thing. Because people assume that it is a good thing; it's all about perception. Those are the little tricks that work best.

>> DANNY GLUCH: There's the perception by association. If Paul is always next to the friendly person, they're going to associate you with friendly and social too and have less fear and less discomfort. They'll open up more. You mentioned in the meetings having closed captions on. I know a lot of organizations want to accommodate. I know everyone at my organization is excited to listen to this episode or hear what we're talking about because we want to do better. Even if good orgs don't want to do better, they legally have to. In the age of AI, we think AI is getting really good at this, live captioning we're using here on this Zoom call. But we're not able to use it because it butchers a lot of stuff. It makes it really bad and hard to follow. Tell us about your experience of using AI in Zoom and Teams. What's your experience? Is it getting better or worse?

>> PAUL MEYER: Well, when we had COVID five years ago, closed captions sucked so bad on Teams. And we had meetings all the time. So the AI captions was not that wonderful. So I was always lost and always had to ask after the meeting. It hurt my career because if I don't have the information I need, I can't do my job. But now the AI captions has improved a lot and we have transcripts. That's helpful for people now. If I have a meeting, and want to know how to do it better, I can read the meeting transcript and remind myself later. We didn't have that five years ago. So technology has improved a lot. But people need to remember AI is not reasonable accommodations yet. Because it's not 100% effective, it's not. The only caption that is reasonable accommodations is CART, because it's a live person typing in. That's the difference between AI and CART. A lot of the times, the companies want to use AI and not have CART because of the cost.

>> MARION ANDERSON: I think perception is often the reality of those. The belief that accommodations are very expensive. And that's a barrier. But most accommodations are actually free or very cheap and just common sense. And so I think that outdated belief system has to change. Technology will help that, it's not just maybe as fast as we want it to be or need it to be. I think, in the long run, it will help.

>> MARION ANDERSON: So just building on that then, Paul, obviously the name of our Podcast, The Elephant in the Org, is because we're calling out things that people don't talk about. They're taboo, uncomfortable and not psychologically safe. What are the biggest elephants you've seen in organizations when it comes to supporting deaf employees?

>> PAUL MEYER: From my experience, the biggest elephant in the room is understanding how a deaf person needs and uses an interpreter -- sometimes the interpreter is not on the level that I need. For example, like in a meeting, I'm listening to the interpreter or the interpreter is not signing the right thing. I have no idea but I'm getting the wrong information. then the message gets lost when I return to work. People requesting an interpreter don’t realize its not foolproof plan. It's how to communicate in the meeting with that deaf person. Make sure the deaf person understands what was said. There have been times when I watched an interpreter and had no idea that I had the wrong information. But the management doesn't realize that . And so the company needs to understand the level of the deaf person must match the interpreter. Like if I am in an upper management meeting, I need a top-qualified interpreter, not a fresh college graduate interpreter if that makes sense. So people don't understand how that hurts deaf people’s careers with the wrong information being given unknowingly.

And after meetings, it's always a good idea to go over any information with the deaf person, like answering questions they may have about databases or whatnot. It's best to always over-communicate with a deaf employee compared to a hearing employee because we can’t hear people talk about work….and miss out. So always over-communicate if needed.

You can develop your own unique system with a deaf employee to double-check after meetings.

>> DANNY GLUCH: Yeah. So I'm so sorry, that sounds like a really awful experience. You're trying -- and we all just try to act and do our best job with the information we're provided, and for it to literally get lost in translation or in interpretation at this point is really tough.

I think that brings me to another question, you prefer talking about this is coming from upper management. Often times that can be a death sentence to your time and organization when you make mistakes like that or acting on information that was wrong. What role do you think leadership -- real leadership, from upper management and the directors and what not, what role do they have in normalizing accommodations in setting a standard in over communicating that you were talking about? And setting the attitude of these accommodations being normal and not as like burden or favors or extra things that they have to do because they're working with a deaf person?

>> PAUL MEYER: So I don't think that we are a burden to people. We're here to do our job. At the same time, remember repetition is our best friend but if we make a mistake for the first time, work with us and show us. And it's all about the practice, the work flow, and understanding how it affects the big picture. People don't realize in the work place that they're talking over the cube walls or in the hallways. I can't hear all of that so I miss out. , I try to educate people that hearing people hear maybe 80% of what's going on in the work place. How much hearing people have information in the work place, (showing image) and deaf people get this much (very little information by showing image) where is the all this other information that we are missing out on? So we have to work hard. So be patient when you work with us. We want to do well in spite of limited information in the workplace.

>> MARION ANDERSON: That's so important. Absolutely. I guess just thinking back to accommodations we've talked about a lot through this. How do you think organizations can shift away from that reactionary, "Ugh, accommodate when I'm asked," or to rather have a much more inclusive design, again, if we build our processes and functions and environment to include everyone. Then we're enabling everyone, right? As opposed to specific groups. How do you think companies can adopt that mindset?

>> PAUL MEYER: Well, companies to be proactive for a deaf person. They should make a list….list A,B,C,D because it takes weeks to get everything down. So be proactive. prepare a list for a person with different disability. A list for wheelchair user, for a blind person, for this disability. It is better to be proactive so you can be more prepared.

>> DANNY GLUCH: Yeah.

>> PAUL MEYER: But be active, be prepared. And don't wait until the last minute. That is never a good idea.

>> DANNY GLUCH: Yeah. It sounds like the being of proactive, of prioritized. You were talking about how important it is for people to talk to you, interact with you. I know you're a social person. And not everyone is like you, or me, and love when people come and say hi. How important is that to you when people are proactive and go out of their way to say hi to you and see how you're doing? On a social level, does that help you feel included and is that a part of accommodations of people doing it that way?

>> PAUL MEYER: I'm very happy when people come and talk to me anyway. That's proactive. But when people are afraid to talk to me, I feel like there's something wrong with me. So that's not a good feeling. So it's good to have people come talk to me.

And I'm going to use an example from a place I used to work at. Like I said, I'm a very social person. So I say hi to people. But nobody talked to me. I went to the managers, I asked them, "People don't talk to me. Can you explain why?" And the manager was like, "Nobody wants to talk to you because you're deaf." So being deaf, nobody wanted to talk to me. I can't control my deafness. So not a good feeling. It felt like it was my fault being deaf.

>> DANNY GLUCH: Yeah. So what message, you know, as we start to wrap up the Podcast, we always like to leave messages. What message would you like to share with deaf people starting their careers or looking to transition to more of a traditional office job? And also managers of potential deaf employees? What message could you share that would help get them off to the right foot and working well together for the long term?

>> PAUL MEYER: My message for all deaf people starting out or trying to get a new job; it will be tough at first. It is not going to be easy. Most of the time people have never worked with a deaf person before. Be patient with yourself, be patient with the company, be patient with the managers. So be nice to people.

And be proactive yourself, be talking to people, and asking for help. Because most of the time people are not going to help you because they don't know any better. So you have to be active. If people say no when you ask for help, find another way to ask for help. Don’t give up.

Another goal is learn to laugh at yourself. People want to see, look.oh he is laughing and doesn’t take this seriously (when everyone is stressed or nervous being around someone different) It's much better for yourself and helps you get along with people.

>> DANNY GLUCH: Honestly, I think that's advice everyone needs, learn to laugh at yourself? One of my favorite philosophy papers says, essentially, being willing to play the fool. Being willing to put yourself out there and laugh yourself. It's the best life advice I've gotten. Thank you for sharing. Sorry to interrupt. That really hit me.

>> MARION ANDERSON: Well, I mean, just in the short time that I've known you, I guess maybe a couple of months, not only have I made a new friend, but I learn a lot from you. And it has been such an incredible experience to learn from another peer different perspective. And, you know, that's such a gift for any organization. And so, what's your dream job? Where are we trying to get you to? Who are we going to shout out to here to come and hire our friend Paul because he's kinda awesome.

>> PAUL MEYER: I know, when started my career, I've done so many different little things. So because I like to help people. I like to make things better, improve the process and culture -- and the dream job is essentially a little bit both of HR/TA and I can’t decide which one but here it is!

It’d look like this, I could work and educate recruiters because that is where most of the interviewing and pre-interviews issues happens. I can help with that. Because most recruiters and hiring managers don't know or understand how to accommodate us. Then down an employee’s career which now is in HR space. So I can help a company approach issues like post interviews, onboarding , retention, helping a person stay with the company is how I like to educate people and how to help a disabled person stay in the company. And work with HRBP’s with issues in the workplace because most of the time, employees and managers do not do a very good job processing and understanding issues. I can help with that.

For example, at one company, I was talking to somebody and was talking too loud because I can't hear myself apparently. I got written up for talking too loud. And the managers and HRBP let that happen. That should never have happened. I can help educate and resolve this for companies.

At the same time, we need more disabled people working in HR space to keep this kind of stuff from happening all the time. We can help work with this and reduce this. I have worked with People culture teams for over 15 years so I understand how companies can be better culturally. I can do anything.

>> MARION ANDERSON: Mmm-hmm. What I'm going to say is that for any companies out there that is looking for someone who is incredibly resilient, agile, well experienced across the entire HR role responsibilities for talent acquisition to on boarding and ERGs, accessibility, inclusion --

>> DANNY GLUCH: L and D learning and development --

>> MARION ANDERSON: Yes, that is an incredible well rounder and finding someone who has that in a package is a gift. We have your LinkedIn details and in our show notes and anyone who is looking for the next best thing in Human Resources, Paul is your man. He'd be an incredible hire.

>> DANNY GLUCH: Yes, give him a video call.

>> DANNY GLUCH:. Paul, you were saying one of the great ways teams can help you, they can be proactive and help you feel included and that you guys all belong together is for team learning signs. I only know scuba diving language which is, "I'm not dying," "We need to resurface," "We need to go down to the bottom." I'm not an interpreter. But can you help us and teach us signs to help the deaf community feel included?

[Practice signing]

>> PAUL MEYER: Thank you. Nice to meet you.

>> DANNY GLUCH: Nice to meet --

>> MARION ANDERSON: I need to see that again.

>> PAUL MEYER: Nice to meet you.

>> DANNY GLUCH: I like that. It's like they're face-to-face. So amazing.

>> PAUL MEYER: Thank you. Thank you.

>> DANNY GLUCH: See, this is one thing, I need to adjust my camera. I was very shoulders up and my microphone's in the way. So it's like a scoop to your? Or Marion, you got it automatically adjusts with the Apple. I have to talk with them.

>> MARION ANDERSON: I have to keep moving back. I'm going to fall down stairs in a minute. [Chuckles]

>> DANNY GLUCH: What is this? How are you?

>> INTERPRETER: It means hire me.

>> MARION ANDERSON: Oh! Hire me!

>> DANNY GLUCH: Hire me. I have a hard time doing that. I can't scoop my wrist.

>> MARION ANDERSON: It's hard. Do it with the other hand?

>> DANNY GLUCH: Is it okay to do things left-handed?

>> PAUL MEYER: It doesn't matter.

>> DANNY GLUCH: That was nice to "talk" to you?

>> PAUL MEYER: Nice to talk to you.

>> DANNY GLUCH: That was a long one. Nice to talk to you.

>> MARION ANDERSON: Aww.

>> DANNY GLUCH: I like that, I can do this one, easy.

>> MARION ANDERSON: Me too.

>> DANNY GLUCH: What just happened to my screen?! [Chuckles]

[Laughter]

>> DANNY GLUCH: I set off fireworks. We also should have a talk with Zoom with the fact that ASL can sometimes set off fireworks in a Zoom call. [Chuckles] that was unexpected. Thank you for showing us Paul. I love that when you're talking you're signing or I don't know if there are actual signs, they're adjacent enough to where it really helps to communicate. I hope people do take the time to watch this on video so they can get the context of what that's like and how great of a communicator you really are. It's really incredible.

>> PAUL MEYER: I hope to have it later on with the two of you.

>> DANNY GLUCH: Yeah. When you tell us about your cool new job and how you are adjusting to it. Thank you Paul. This has been wonderful. Thank you to all watching. We'll see you in the next the Elephant in the Org.

[Recording stopped]