Month: July 2021

The result is that these individuals have felt isolated and sidelined. Some have even quit due to the conditions. 

And with hybrid-working models set to become a permanent fixture across the entire business world, employees with additional accessibility needs fear it may worsen if left unchecked. 

Naturally, frustration levels have reached boiling point. Nathan Gomme, executive director at New Mexico Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, said he has witnessed people become “distraught” at the lack of support they receive. “[They] felt like they [the employer] didn’t care about their access needs and they didn’t care about them,” he said. He added that often staff have felt like “second-class citizens” as a result of their treatment.

The human interaction and camaraderie of the office has been sorely missed by many over the last year. For the hard-of-hearing, the absence of in-person meetings and conversations has been felt perhaps even more keenly as they’ve struggled to lip read, use sign language, access interpreters in time for video meetings. HR departments are proactive at providing accessibility tools for in-office meetings, due to the Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design compliance rules, but have been slow to ensure they’re replicated in remote set ups, according to the same spokespeople. 

“When we have difficulty in a meeting because we only get part of the information because we miss so much, it can impact the company directly if there are serious misunderstandings,” said Joe Duarte, co-CEO of InnoCaption, a mobile app which offers real-time captioning of phone calls. “Many times, we may feel embarrassed to ask for help.”

That also causes a drop in self-esteem and makes people feel isolated which in turn affects their work and productivity, said to Duarte. “Often those with communication challenges due to lack of accessibility tools and options such as captioning [on video calls] or interpreters, may be given projects or assignments that don’t require much interaction with team members. This is always sensed by us and it always has a negative impact on morale and on productivity,” he added. “Providing accessibility and equal access to communications to allow deaf and hard-of-hearing employees to work at the same level as their hearing peers is essential in any organization.”

Back in March 2020, everyone’s home working set-up was a mess. Home wifi connections bent under the strain of back-to-back video meetings, causing painful frozen-screen moments and disjointed conversations. For junior staff (at some major global businesses), it could be a ritual in humiliation as colleagues were suddenly transported into their, often shared, apartments. Tales have since emerged of employees doing presentations with their laptops precariously balanced on top of ironing boards (that naturally, collapsed mid call), or perched on the end of their beds, due to lack of space. Others have struggled to juggle full-time jobs with kids bursting in on video calls with colleagues and clients, causing general mayhem. It was a difficult time. 

Yet since those first few months employers have invested in getting their workforces set up with more sophisticated home workstations, meaning a lot of those earlier glitches have been gradually smoothed over and laughed off with the joyous luxury of hindsight. 

But that’s not the case for deaf and hard-of-hearing community. While some businesses have made efforts to apply some level of accessibility for hard-of-hearing employees in remote-working and hybrid set-ups, most haven’t come close to providing the tech investment needed nor the training of bosses and colleagues in how to cater for people with additional accessibility needs, according to the same community spokespeople. 

Technologies still don’t have the display and control flexibility that deaf and hard-of-hearing people need to see the lips of the people speaking and “pinning” interpreters next to the speakers is not always an option.

Tech platforms like Google do have products designed for hard-of-hearing communities. But disparity between remote conferencing platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex have caused issues, said Eric Kaika, CEO at U.S. nonprofit TDI For Access, which lobbies for the improvement of information and communication tech. “Few of them allow third-party captioners to join and provide transcript services, while others may have an ASR-only [automatic speech recognition] captioning feature, which isn’t always accurate.” And some of them actually block these services due to security reasons, he added.

There is even a curious amount of red tape when it comes to what video and chat apps employees can use at home, which are useful (like Marco Polo and Glide for instance) for those using sign language to make it easier to communicate while working — if they’re not approved by organizations’ IT departments, employees are banned from using them. That’s created additional frustrations, Gomme added. 

“A workplace that is top-to-bottom inclusive and accessible is more productive and appealing to the general community,” said Gomme. “Workplace productivity improves, retention improves and recruitment improves when a workplace is accessible. Remote work is very attractive right now and when done right, a person with a hearing loss is just as effective and productive. When the culture of an office is inclusive that also means that a person calling a company or agency will have a better result as well.”

A total 48 million people in the U.S. alone have some form of hearing loss, according to TDI Access. And while progress has been made since the onset of the first lockdowns, there is a long way to go before needs are fully met in remote and hybrid-working setups, these spokespeople claim.

Better equipment, such as additional monitors to provide more screens for interpreters and move captions for multiple speakers can go a long way to solving the problem, according to Gomme. And IT teams need to look beyond the immediate remote-work employee needs such as VPN (virtual private networks) and documenting software, and learn about the various programs designed for access so they can ensure they’re not blocked for staff that need them. 

“Having a protocol for discussions [during meetings], shared screens, pinning and interpretation procedures mean the burden is not on the employee,” said Duarte. 

Kaika hopes more companies can make accessibility part of the company’s core values, and for experts to be brought in at the design phase (of hybrid setups) which will give organizations an edge when it comes to attracting and retaining all talent with a mix of accessibility needs.

“If they [employers] don’t prioritize accessibility at the very beginning, then they’ll always play catch-up and having to retrofit or sunset their applications,” he added.

“I can say unequivocally that Ted Cruz’s spending on Facebook is significantly more than it was last year,” said Kurt Luidhardt, vp and founder of The Prosper Group, which handles digital advertising for Cruz and specializes in providing digital advertising services for Republicans. “Facebook is where the eyeballs are,” he said.

Luidhardt and the Cruz campaign would not share details on Facebook spending, though the campaign’s own Federal Election Commission reports indicate continued dedication to using digital media and advertising even during what is typically a political off-season. Ted Cruz for Senate spent just over $681,000 this year with Prosper Group.

In April, Cruz declared his decision to no longer accept “woke money” from any corporate PAC, calling out firms including Coca-Cola and Boeing for left-wing virtue signaling. In an ironic twist, his self-imposed blockade on collecting donations from “woke corporations” is one reason his digital ad team is spending more on Facebook. The idea is to generate donations from “regular Americans, 25 bucks at a time,” said Luidhardt. “He’s an aggressive campaigner. He’s always looking to expand his base,” he added.

‘Metrics-driven’ Cruz reviews Facebook results

Facebook ad spending by the Cruz for Senate campaign began an upswing in March once the platform lifted its temporary ban on election-related ads from political advertisers, then Cruz ads kicked into higher gear in May, according to data from Pathmatics, which tracks ads served across the web and in closed environments like Facebook’s site and mobile app to a panel of hundreds of thousands of people. 

Cruz spent an estimated $147,000 in May on the platform, up from $91,000 in April and $68,000 in March, per Pathmatics data. Spending by Cruz eased back in June to $91,000 on Facebook. The company estimates Cruz has spent $449,000 in total on Facebook this year. 

Pathmatics has only seen ads from Cruz show up on Facebook this year. “We are not seeing any spending for Ted Cruz anywhere else,” said Sarah Fleishman, director of digital marketing at the company. Both data from Facebook and Pathmatics show the majority of Cruz ads are being targeted to people mainly in Texas, Florida and California, though they’re also appearing in other states including swing states such as Ohio.

“Facebook is still a great source for fundraising and building lists, so we have a lot of success there,” said Luidhardt, who said Cruz himself pays attention to the performance of his Facebook advertising. “He’s very metrics-driven,” he said of Cruz.

‘The ethical quandary that we’re all in’

There’s no love for Facebook or its “big tech” brethren among many conservative office holders or their constituents, particularly since former President Donald Trump’s account was removed from Facebook. But that doesn’t seem to be driving supporters of politicians like Cruz off the platform. So, ad dollars from conservatives continue to flow there. “It’s sort of the ethical quandary that we’re all in,” said Luidhardt. He added that Facebook has “such a massive control over the overall social media universe, so there’s no one else to go to.”

The Parler account Cruz linked to when he announced he was joining the platform in June 2020 no longer exists. 

Spending on digital fundraising ads often directly correlates with the amount of money they are helping raise, so more spending tends to reflect more donations. The ad seen the most from Cruz on Facebook this year, according to Pathmatics, suggests his anti-woke corporation stance could be working to help generate donations and sign-up information from supporters. “I’m done with these woke corporations. I’m never taking money from them again,” states the video post, first seen in May and still running. “But if I’m going to win, if I’m going to beat them, then I need patriots like you to step up and make a donation today.”

Another ad message getting a lot of play asks people to click to sign a petition at TedCruz.org “to stop Joe Biden from packing the Supreme Court with radical leftist justices.” 

Although Cruz seems all-in on Facebook ads, some digital consultants who work with conservatives expect to wean themselves from Facebook in part because they believe the company is silencing conservatives on its platform.

“We are starting to spend less and less,” on Facebook, said Wesley Donehue, CEO of Push Digital, which has worked with clients including Sen. Lindsey Graham and the Republican Attorneys General Association. “For the last decade Facebook has been the primary tool that we’ve used for political campaigns, and this cycle [during the 2022 midterms], it will not even be in the top three of our toolbox,” said Donehue.