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YES Workability Journey
Published:
This podcast-style Journey explores how the Workability team at YES (Youth Employment Services) works with employers to build more inclusive, healthy workplaces. Workability is a program offering free, customized training and hiring support to businesses so that they can implement mental health best practices in the workplace.
Hosts Jacquie Pugh and Karen Harlos from IDEA’s Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Activity Area, led the conversation with YES Workability team members:
- Stacey Brookes, Senior Project Manager
- Teresa Wesz, Regional Manager, and
- Gabriella Evans, Regional Manager
Discussing how the team engages employers to participate in creating inclusive and accessible workplaces for persons with mental health disabilities—relationship‑building, meeting employers where they are, and clearly communicating the value and accessibility of their free services were emphasized. They describe common challenges such as competing organizational priorities, the invisibility of mental health disabilities, fear of “saying the wrong thing,” limited internal tracking, and persistent stigma. The team also highlights how these challenges vary by organizational size, capacity, and leadership culture.
Listen to the full Journey or read the transcript to learn more about how to build authentic partnerships with employers.
Key Takeaways
- Employers are motivated by understanding the return on investment of being inclusive of mental health disabilities in the workplace. The prevalence of mental health disabilities, the likelihood of current employees already having mental health disabilities, and the positive impact of inclusive workplaces on employee retention can be used to demonstrate the return on investment of building workplace capacity for inclusion and accessibility.
- As employment service providers, building trust with employers is an essential part of moving them from interest in learning about mental health disabilities in the workplace to active engagement in training and support.
- Listening to what employers need is an important part of creating authentic relationships. Tailoring services to meet the needs of different workplaces allows for training and resources to be more relevant to employers, leading to more sustained engagements.
- The invisibility of mental health disabilities creates barriers to their recognition, accommodation, and prioritization. All employers can benefit from education and support in advancing inclusion and accessibility in the workplace, regardless of where they are at in their journey.