Inclusively Creates Thriving Workplaces That Are Open and Inclusive To All

Webinar Transcript

Speaker 1 (0:03)

Hi everyone. My name is Sarah Bernard and I’m the CEO and Co-founder of Inclusively. We are an HR tech platform that creates one front door open to all. COVID-19 brought to light the gross inequities that exist in society. It also brought on a major shift in the economics of the workforce. And in 2021, more Americans quit their jobs than ever in recorded history. Employee priorities are shifting dramatically. Recently, the MIT Sloan Management Review reports that a toxic culture is 10 times more important than compensation and predicting turnover. And a leading contributor to toxic culture is failure to promote diversity, equity and inclusion. At the same time, unemployment is nearing pre pandemic lows, and companies are fighting for talent with everything they have. Most people think that the changes in the workforce economics started with the pandemic. But it really began when millennials took over the workforce in 2016. The pandemic and the rise of remote work really accelerated this movement. And we can see now that with the great resignation, employers have not adapted fast enough to the shift in priorities of this generation of the workforce. This generation is far more likely to self report their disability status. Those especially with mental health conditions and learning disabilities have been accommodated throughout their school years and expect the same as they transition into the workforce. Job seekers are now facing employment decisions in companies who have strong cultures that promote diversity, equity and inclusion and are strong on employee recognition. The new workforce is self-directed by the employee, and employers have no choice but to invest in the tools that will measurably change their culture. At Inclusively, we believe that every human deserves the opportunity to fulfill their innate potential. We partner with organizations to rebuild historically exclusionary and inflexible processes, opening doors to hidden talent, and unlocking the tremendous value of tomorrow’s workforce who demand a diverse, inclusive and accommodating workplace today. By being the solution that solves for the systemic exclusion of the disability community, we also brought in pathways for other marginalized communities that are also vastly underrepresented in the workforce. It is a universal design. Think of Inclusively as this place of transparency, where a mother living below the poverty line, for example, can come to Inclusively to better understand which employers have the best childcare benefits, so she can know that her baby is reliably and well taken care of as she excels in her job, or a Veteran who is navigating their career path in civilian life and needs to know that companies offer meant which companies offer mentorship programs as part of their employee perks. This is Inclusively, and we humanize the hiring. We humanize the hiring process by unlocking the keys that will make prospective employees their most productive selves and help companies become an employer of choice to the hidden talent pools of the world. If you can create equity for underrepresented jobseekers, you’re driving value to both employers and their shareholders. Because diverse and inclusive organizations outperform their peers by being 36% less likely to face talent shortages, and are 4.6 times more likely to satisfy and retain customers. We have years of experience working with the disability community, which also happens to be the largest untapped talent pool in the US. And the only minority group that intersects all other demographics. This is the edge case, the disability community is most negatively affected by systemic biases that exist in the technology that every employer has invested in over the past couple of decades. These technologies have exclusionary ATS algorithms and companies have inflexible screening and interview processes. For example, a simple gap in the resume for say time spent in a hospital will filter that candidate’s resume out of the view of a prospective hiring manager, ignoring all other skills and experience that makes that candidate a really good fit for that job.

Speaker 1 (4:42)

We started by serving those with disabilities because this community is also the most progressive when it comes to identifying accommodations that will enhance individual and collective productivity. We are reversing social norms and giving jobseekers the empowerment to request to come nations that they need to succeed before an interview even takes place when traditionally, disclosure has been pushed to the post offer part of the hiring process. By solving for disability, 10.7 million Americans will be able to work and fill the massive gaps in skills that currently plague our economy’s growth. The Inclusively maturity model is centered around upgrading recruiting processes, updated incentives for recruiters and hiring managers and decentralizing the knowledge around accommodation so that every recruiter and hiring manager at your company is able to run an inclusive interview. Zero to three months is focused on aligning key stakeholders to finalize the launch plan to meet the KPI goals that are set. Months three to six makes up the implementation period where training is conducted and Inclusively begins submitting active job seekers to a client open roles. And then finally, by six months, we have recruiters actively screening and interviewing candidates, while we’re supporting the client tracking and optimizing engagement throughout the organization. In the platform, employers have a one stop partnership granting access to the pipeline of candidates that are sourced and curated specifically for your roles. We embed learnings into everyday interactions on our site by mapping accommodations to job descriptions, and providing on the spot support for any questions that a hiring manager may have. When learning about accommodations. We amplify our brands, their success is our success. And then we have analytics on the backend of the system so our clients can track and monitor their progress at any time. inclusively is unique because it combines colts consulting services with an execution platform to drive results. We give employers the capability of measuring themselves against industry benchmarks and KPIs. We identify and remove bottlenecks and biases for their existing screening and interview processes. We help streamline and improve their existing Accommodations Process from being compliance led and reactive to a competitive advantage. We create transparency for candidates with self disclosure, so they feel empowered to request the accommodations that they need to thrive in the workplace. We educate employers with both tailored platform training sessions. And finally, we provide support and coaching to accelerate the goals that each of our clients set at the beginning of our partnership with them. In short, Inclusively gives you the how-to guide and  access to the largest consolidated pipeline of candidates and the programs that support those candidates with disabilities. Charles Schwab has partnered with Inclusively since 2019 to increase its disability hiring and inclusion practices. Charles Schwab was extremely committed to the process devoting time and resources to ensuring that our three phase approach was followed. The results have been impressive with one in five candidates who were interviewed were extended an offer. And now that they’re at phase three of the inclusively maturity model. They are expanding their program to additional Schwab roles and other functions across their organization, creating new support roles dedicated to accessibility. They’re applying learnings from their Inclusively partnership to existing and new DEI programs. And finally, they were launching their Autism at Work program this year. Sara Tresch is the managing director of digital transformation and user experience at Charles Schwab. And in our own words, she couldn’t hire tech talent fast enough. And she knew that they were missing out on good people. By not approaching disability inclusion more proactively, her team partnered with Inclusively to make a holistic change that has the broadest impact over time. On the candidate side, Andrew is a candidate that came to us from a LinkedIn post, who was then quickly matched to an entry level engineering role with Charles Schwab. In his words he shared that Inclusively’s process is so transparent that I felt comfortable asking for what I needed. I feel supported at Schwab. It’s changed my life. I’m in my mid 30s, and this is the first time I’ve ever had health insurance.

Speaker 1 (9:40)

Here are a few of the organizations that we’re trusted by on the left list. These are some of our active enterprise clients who count on Inclusively as a thought leader in this space, leveraging both our consulting services as well as using our platform for execution purposes to drive results. And to the right list the organizations that we work with on the Candidate sourcing side. We’re proud to support nonprofits, government agencies and charities. They leverage technology to do the great work they already do, but with expanded access directly into our enterprise clients. And we just added an exciting new logo to this list to include a partnership supporting the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, an organization that we’re thrilled to work with as they help athletes navigate employment post Olympic Games. So now I’ll share a demonstration of both our candidate and employer experiences. Starting with the candidate experience. We built this UI with accessibility in mind, and it is embedded at the source code level. Accessibility was not an afterthought like all other job platforms in existence today. In fact, over one and four on our Inclusively team are individuals who identify with having a disability. Many of whom we met after they independently signed up for an account on our platform. On the homepage, candidates are updated consistently with recently added companies that have entered into a partnership with us, as well as recently added jobs. We include resources such as thought leadership pieces, written by disability influencers in this space, touching on important topics such as options on navigating benefits, or the value of self disclosure. Inclusively is a place to amplify both the voices of thought leaders and the job seekers we built this with.

Speaker 1 (11:39)

You can see transparency on each job card of all the accommodation categories that employers have made progress towards, with the highlighted icons on each job card.

Speaker 1 (11:54)

In the profile section, we collect a good majority of this information in the onboarding process so that the information on the previous homepage is curated to the profile inputs, we collect all the general information about a candidate and the candidate can upload a resume. If they don’t have one, we have a resume generator embedded that will create one for the job seeker. Here are the success enablers most commonly known as accommodations, where we’ve taken all the accommodations under the ADA and broken them down into these categories. Candidates are able to request accommodations here that they need on the job. And then for further customization under interview preferences, we’ve taken the top requested interview accommodations and made it easier for candidates to select the ones that will help ensure their first interaction with an employer is as successful as possible. And I do want to share an example on this that really shows the power of transparency. We had a candidate that was hard of hearing and he preferred the closed captioning of Google neat over Microsoft Teams. This was something that he inputted in the free felt field text form. After including closed captioning as an interview accommodation. That employer was so prepared right off the bat. This didn’t cost the employer a cent, and it created an environment that gave him his best shot at an interview, he ended up getting an offer for that role at JP Morgan. Here’s our community portal. It’s a place where all users can interact and support each other. This is where people are really starting to share their stories. Lisa, for example, you can see that she’s looking for full time employment. She’s based in the Cherry Hill area, New Jersey. She has work experience in production and has a self disclosed disability. She shares that she is a strong visual learner. She’s dependable, reliable, and she wants to work. We have plans to enhance the community portal as it exists today, with training for users and how to create and capture these stories. And when we say stories, it’s really about capturing the intangible context of who that candidate is. Are you resilient? Do you have a good work ethic? We all know that these are some of the things that can make a really good employer and employee relationship and yet it never gets shared with the employer. Once we have stories in place, candidates will be able to share stories with our corporate partners. And in the reverse. Our corporate partners will be able to share their stories on who they are, what their brands stand for, why they should be seen as a Workplace of Choice. So I’ll conclude the demo portion of today’s presentation with a review of the employer portal.

Speaker 1 (14:54)

Our clients can have up to an unlimited number of licenses and each user will have access to review all the jobs that are associated with their account. To make it as easy as possible, we have an XML feed where we can automatically pull your jobs into our platform and tag the relevant hiring managers to them. We also can integrate with your ATS, so every candidate that connects to your jobs can be submitted directly into your applicant tracking system. However, as I alluded to earlier, applicant tracking systems have a systemic bias that are built into all employers existing recruiting workflows, and are essentially weeding out what we call hidden talent. On Inclusively, we recommend and match candidates to your jobs and have an AI layer built into the platform that ignores those algorithmic algorithmic biases that have traditionally knock these candidates out of TAS pipelines. If an employer is interested in a candidate, they can review their profile directly in the platform, or they can download their resume. Every resume pack that is shared with an employer, whether it is in platform or directed into your ATS will include all the success enablers on it, as well as interview preferences. And then finally, we have an analytics layer on the backend of the system so our clients can track and monitor their progress.

Speaker 1 (16:42)

So what does long term success look like for our clients, companies that take a progressive approach to disability inclusion drives shareholder value by future proofing their ability to attract and retain the best talent. By starting with disability, companies can achieve 28% higher revenue, 30% higher profit margins and two times net income and the hidden talent that our clients can tap into which outperforms traditional talent in key areas such as attitude and work ethic, productivity, attendance and innovation. We are excited to already be expanding the Inclusively solution to other marginalized communities. And know that the companies that partner with us today are setting the foundation to be truly inclusive and have the earliest competitive advantage in the workplace of the future. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to to share inclusively with you today. We are thrilled to be featured as one of the startups that represent the cutting edge of innovation in this sphere of HR technology solutions. And I will now open it up to a Q & A.

Speaker 2 (17:48)

Outstanding. Thank you very much. That was great and under time. Very impressive. So we’ll start off with Lisa Cervenka. Lisa, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (18:00)

Hi. So I’m familiar with Inclusively. I was formerly at Kanary’s. And so we are in a cohort with you know, I do have the advantage of knowing a little bit about your business. So I just want to say I’m super impressed. I love the name. I love the very specific niche that you’re in right now. I’m just curious, who do you view as your competitors?

Speaker 1 (18:23)

So initially, when we started inclusively, I would have viewed our competitors as like other job platforms that exist in this space. But there’s, you know, getting hired, there’s other organizations that focus on disability hiring, but they’re really just job platforms where they’re scraping the jobs and posting them on their site. There’s no curation. And quite frankly, there aren’t many other platforms that exist right now like that.  I’d say, you know, LinkedIn is a competitor. But I’d also say again, they have biases that are built into their algorithms. So I truly think that they are more of a partnership opportunity than I view as a competitor. 

Speaker 4 (19:12)

Thanks, Matt. And Sarah, I’m actually familiar with Inclusively as well. I had a chance to meet Charlotte, so good to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. You know, echoing Lisa,  congrats on everything. And Bill really feels like it’s serving an important gap, especially the talent acquisition space. Curious about that. And so would you consider your core offering the talent acquisition piece or more of the sort of platform, you know, the l&D side of it, and then on the talent side, how are you building that pool of talent?

Speaker 1 (19:44)

Yeah. So I’ll start with addressing like, where we are, everything we do. It’s like two parts where it’s like consulting services/platform, but a lot of those services are embedded in the platform. So what we want to do is automate a lot of this over time, so it’s scalable across all hiring managers. So say a hiring manager is going to interview one of our candidates, they may pick that up in their applicant tracking system if it makes it through. But then there’s links back to Inclusively’s profile. If there’s accommodations on them, we’re educating that specific hiring manager on what those accommodations are. So we’re moving away from those annual tick the box type of training, and trying to do them in bite sized, like time of like that time, relevant, timely manner. So it’s just stickier in people’s minds. And then as far as the candidate sourcing side, we already have tens of thousands of candidates that are active on our platform today. But we do have access to over a million through our partnership network with nonprofits, government agencies, and charities. So there are a lot of organizations that already help job seekers with disabilities. But we really see ourselves as like a tool for them. And we don’t interfere in their funding. And we are funded fully on the client side. So they can use our technology to bring their candidates to Inclusively as a platform to find jobs, have access to our employers, and then also access to the community to learn more about accommodations as well. So we’re sourcing candidates really, you know, for when we first got off the ground, we sourced candidates from a variety of areas, you know, Google Ads through overflow autism at work on job seekers that applied to like Microsoft and other organizations that we’ve partnered with. But we really see that our greatest impact will be working more in depth with all the nonprofits, government agencies, VOC rehab organizations and charities that already exist and leveraging that existing infrastructure.

Speaker 2 (21:49)

Great, um, Jason, do you?

Speaker 5 (21:54)

Yeah. Thanks, Ronnie. Um, two quick questions for you. Sure. First of all, thank you for the important work that you’re doing. Question number one, what is the most important customer success metric? Is it jobs created? Is it discussion threads? Is it active usage? And then question two is how are you breaking through right now? The companies are now putting in place heads of diversity inclusion, but they don’t have any budget, or don’t have a budget yet. How do you break through that kind of short term challenge with the pipeline?

Speaker 1 (22:28)

Yes. So, um, number one? Wait, I just had to say that again, number one customer success metric. What’s like the number one customer success metric?

Speaker 1 (22:37)

Yes. So, um, I’d say, you know, we started with placements. But I think that’s what we realize is that there’s so many bottlenecks that exist in these companies already. And so right now, our number one success metric is engagement on our platform. We can submit candidates directly through an applicant tracking system, but we want them to come back to us for all the learnings, everything you need to know to set up success for that candidate. 

Speaker 5 (23:01)

What is engagement? Is that monthly usage? Is that daily usage? Is that we want to them to come back three times a week?

Speaker 1 (23:07)

yeah, a couple times a week, you know, as often as they go anytime that they’re going to interview a candidate that requires a specific accommodation that’s come from our network, coming to us to find out the resource and make sure that they’re prepared for that, and then using our, you know, analytics to better, you know, the work that they’re doing in this space already. And then the sorry, and then the second question was on breaking through the budget question. Yeah. So initially, we were selling a lot to disability or not to sell the diversity inclusion leads or head of talent acquisition. But this is truly a CEOs imperative. It addresses the war on talent that exists, there’s a massive shortage of skills in this country. You know, there’s no doubt about that. And to make up for that shortage in skills, you have to be able to tap into hidden talent. So we feel that to overcome budget restrictions. It’s worse selling high, we’re going to the CEO, this is a talent strategy. It gives you competitive advantage. It creates loyalty with your customers, and it creates loyalty with your existing employees and makes them more productive, the more accommodations you provide them, and you’re better able to retain them. Thank you, George.

Speaker 6 (24:31)

Thanks, Matt. Sarah, good to meet you. And great job on the presentation. I have two quick questions. The first is what percentage of your revenue is consulting versus the marketplace revenue and, and how do you see that changing over time? And second, while I agree and I think everybody here and in the audience probably agrees about the inherent bias in all platforms that exist in the HR tech landscape, reality is that’s your ecosystem. And I’m wondering about your integration. And do you have any good examples where those accessibility options or any of the profile information that can be helpful, even post hire has made it through into that ecosystem in a more meaningful way than just the standard, you know, marketplace to ATS sort of trigger?

Speaker 1 (25:25)

Yeah, so I’ll answer the second question first. So we have a lot of candidates that find full time employment with our employers, but then need additional accommodations, once they’re on the job. And like working with those employers, they’re able to come back to us and ask us not even, like, teach us about this accommodation, but like what other assistive services, you know, that you can help us get set up with that you can refer our way. Because a lot of the organizations that we come across with there’s, you know, the IRAs, there’s the my eyes, there’s, you know, Purple Communications, there’s a lot of these organizations that already exist that are helping to fill the need of assistive technologies that incoming prospective employees need, but also current employees. 

Speaker 6 (26:15)

And then the first question I’m sorry, these two part questions that really was the easiest one, the quickest one, what, what’s the percentage of revenue consulting this platform? And how do you see that changing if at all over time?

Speaker 1 (26:24)

Yeah, so I’d say between, like 80/20 is platform versus consulting. And I really feel that it will continue to stay in that way. Because, again, we want to productize the consulting services and embed them within the platform. So we’re not building out this entire consultancy, where we come in and, you know, we’re not an Accenture, you know, consultancy organization. We take the solutions that we’re providing to employers, and then we embed them into our platform, and then driving again, engagement back into our platform for everything that they need as a one stop shop. Yeah, more than the nature of the customer’s needs versus your model. Exactly.

Speaker 2 (27:07)

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions from the audience? Feel free to put them into the Q & A. I think we have three minutes left. So I’m actually going to ask a question. Just so just in terms of your models. So if I’m the hiring manager, or an end user in the organization in advance, then I know that they are coming from the source, and they’re applying outside of an applicant tracking system. Is that correct?

Speaker 1 (27:40)

Yeah, so every candidate will connect on our platform. And if they’ve connected on our platform, then we’ll integrate with their ATS. So all the connections get sent over directly into the applicant tracking system for those clients that we have that integration setup with. And they all have that resume pack that I showed in the demo where it has. So it’ll be a cover letter that’s Inclusively branded, it pulls those profile details. So it will pull general information that was on their profile. But most importantly, it’ll pull their success enablers to the accommodations that they’ve requested on the job. And then we’ll also pull the interview preferences that they’ve requested for that first interaction.

Speaker 2 (28:23)

How can you talk to me a little bit about OFCCP compliance, then? Because that sounds like a disparate process for different applicants within the same job corps?

Speaker 1 (28:33)

So these are all clients. We’re not asking for clients to disclose what type of disability they have. They’re just requesting what types of accommodations that they need. And so the candidates can self disclose if they want to. But that’s not part of the platform. It’s not  necessary to come to Inclusively and disclose what type of disability you have. They just need to disclose what accommodations you need. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (29:01)

Okay. With that, I’m going to turn it back to Rhonda to take us home. All right. Thank you all.

Speaker 7 (29:12)

Great. Thank you so very much to Sarah and the folks that Inclusively and to all of our judges for the great questions. We thank you and to everyone for joining us today. Thank you so very much. This concludes the webcast. Good luck to everyone. And onto the next one. Take care. Thanks, everyone.