Embracing Identity, Disability, and Sexuality in the Workplace

Emily Brady, HR Business Partner at Morningstar, spoke to myGwork about her personal journey of embracing her hearing impairment and sexuality. Emily opens up about the challenges she faced growing up and struggling to accept her disability, as well as the fear of being rejected due to her hearing aids. However, after joining Morningstar, Emily became an advocate for disability inclusion in the workplace.

My name is Emily Brady, I’m a HR Business Partner at Morningstar based in London. I’m also hearing impaired and bisexual. I moved to London from Dublin, Ireland in February last year after securing the role at Morningstar. In the last year I’ve become open about my disability and sexuality, and this, coupled with acclimatising to a new city, has been quite a journey.  

In terms of my disability, I’m a twin and was born eight weeks premature and I’ve always had hearing difficulties. When growing up as a child I went through two rounds of grommets, but it was clear that the issue extended beyond this. As I went through school, I learned to mask my hearing difficulties, sitting at the front of the class, reading the topics ahead and looking at other people’s notes to decipher what I needed to do. I had a hearing test when I was a teenager and told that I was moderately to severely deaf and would require hearing aids. This devasted me. Trying to fit in in school, struggling with my sexuality and then the fear of being laughed at or ostracized by my peers was a lot to handle. As a typical teenager, I rebelled against the doctor’s and parent’s advice and declined to proceed with the hearing aid fitting, stating I’d be fine and manage. I got through my final year of exams, by some miracle, one of the subjects was music and the listening exam was pure guess work, relying on my memorization of the scores of each work and guessing based on the exam paper what section of the work I was being tested on. I passed, thankfully! 

When I entered university, in my first year it really became apparent that I was struggling. Being in large lecture halls and straining to hear the professors was exhausting. I eventually relented and got tested again and this time, accepted that I needed hearing aids for both ears, I was in my early 20s at this stage. I was still struggling with my sexuality and refused to acknowledge, or even accept it. Getting comfortable with my hearing aids and disclosing to people about my hearing impairment was and at times today, still is really difficult. When I got the hearing aids, my confidence was shattered, I felt ugly and was petrified of entering into a serious relationship for fear of rejection. Also coming to terms that my hearing impairment qualified as a disability was difficult, I had received a grant from the Government to partly cover the cost of my hearing aids. At the time, the word disability to me had such a negative connotation I found it difficult to accept.  

In the workplace, I never disclosed about my hearing impairment because I didn’t want to be treated differently or miss out on opportunities. To mask any accommodation I needed, I would book a meeting room and work from there to take phone calls or zoom meetings as I would generally struggle to hear with background noise. Due to my previous coping mechanisms, I didn’t require any official reasonable adjustments or accommodations in the workplace. In the places I worked, disability was never a topic of discussion or indeed a priority for the organization and because I wasn’t comfortable disclosing, I never brought it up. Over the course of the next few years and with a lot of therapy, I became a little more comfortable with my hearing impairment and would disclose to close friends and colleagues, but I still struggled with confidence, anxiety and was still struggling with accepting my sexuality.  

It wasn’t until I joined Morningstar where I felt comfortable to disclose. It was completely life changing for me. The signals that I picked up on that made me feel comfortable to disclose were that the organization made DEI a priority and there was a disability employee resource group. I joined this ERG and established the EMEA chapter. This ERG’s focus is to advocate for our employees with hidden and visible disabilities, and long-term conditions. This ERG has held numerous education webinars and panel discussions highlighting mental health, disabilities, and neurodiversity in the workplace. We’ve found that particularly the panel discussions have been very impactful as it has established the conversation and created that visibility and representation of this community. The group has liaised with internal stakeholders across legal and HR to establish training materials for employees and managers. In my role, specifically in the UK, I had Morningstar join the Disability Confident Employer Scheme, which is a government initiative designed to encourage employers to recruit and retain disabled people and those with health conditions. I established a global partnership with the Business Disability Forum, who partner with organizations on their journey to becoming disability inclusive. I also had Morningstar partner with Lexxic who support us with our neurodivergent employees globally.  

Feeling this comfortable and finally accepting my hearing impairment and indeed, disability, I felt I was finally able to reflect and come to terms with my sexuality. Again, through therapy and wonderful support from the LGBTQ+ ERG in Morningstar I came out and have been on this life changing journey.  

When I think about what workplaces can do to support people with disabilities, I think there’s a myriad of things. Disability typically isn’t on the priority list when it comes to DEI. The reason for this is down to possibly lack of disclosure from employees and organizations not having the policies, infrastructure or training or education in place to truly create a disability inclusive environment. Workplaces need to have a reasonable adjustment or accommodation policy in place that enable employees to get the appropriate support they need to elevate them.  

Within the organisation, having an employee resource group dedicated to advocating and supporting this community with executive sponsorship is pivotal in creating a feeling of psychological safety and belonging. Encouraging employees to disclose so they can get the accommodations they need and provide the right training and support to managers is crucial. Leveraging external partnerships such as with the likes of the Business Disability Forum to help organizations start their disability inclusive journey and pledging to schemes to drive disability inclusion holds the organization accountable to improve and change. Making small but impactful changes can make the world of difference to someone with a disability, for example, sending the agenda of a meeting a day in advance, selecting the Accessibility tool on documents and presentations or making it mandatory to have closed captions on for virtual meetings aids for a number of different disabilities, signals inclusion and takes the pressure off the individual having to either cope and manage in silence or having to speak up to announce their difficulty because of their disability. Lastly, recognizing the strengths of the differences this community has to offer and celebrating these differences not only improves recruitment and staff retention, but also offers strong commercial positioning.  

Advice for allies would be, if someone has disclosed their disability ask what support they need. Being mindful and sensitive to the accommodation they need and calling out if mistreatment is witnessed. I always say disability and long-term conditions are the one thing that will affect each and every one of us in our lifetime, as such, it needs to be taken seriously.