To celebrate Hireup’s move into our new office space - which has over 40 accessibility features repeated throughout the building - Hireup UX Designer Mel Tran chats to Hireup CEO Jordan O’Reilly to find out...
Mel Tran (MT): What was it like going through the process of making our new Hireup office as accessible as possible?
Jordan O’Reilly (JO): I’m definitely going to flip this on you Mel.
MT: I knew you were going to do that.
JO: My question to you is, how does Hireup compare from a built environment, from an attitude perspective? What are we doing well and what are we not?
MT: I think it’s definitely a good start. When we knew we were going to be moving into a new office we were committed to making it as accessible as we could. I think having an accessible environment in the office is just the beginning. We acknowledge there are still gaps and know we still have a lot to do before we can say we’re fully accessible.
JO: I think this is an interesting question. Is there such a thing as fully accessible? Do you think, in practical terms, anywhere could be fully accessible?
MT: I don’t think there’s ever such a thing as fully accessible. The same as there’s no such thing as perfect design. There is always room for improvement. Accessibility doesn’t mean one-size-fits-all. Because it’s almost impossible to design a solution that fits every single person. It’s a matter of making it as accessible as we can, while being flexible enough to change and adapt to different needs.
JO: If we all root our philosophy of accessibility in attitude and commitment to learning, I think that’s a good place to build from. As you mentioned in your recent blog, people get fixated on ticking boxes. You can spend five years changing an environment to tick all these boxes and at the end, in an imaginary scenario, I think you’d stand back and feel really unsatisfied. So let’s get rid of this idea that it’s an end that we’re going to get to, it’s actually just a pure journey.
MT: Yes, exactly. It’s not something you can start and finish and say, “Job done”. At the moment, it feels more like, once people have ticked the boxes, they’re compliant, mission complete! They think “We’re done, now let’s proceed with what we’re here to do”, which was nothing to do with accessibility.
“I don’t think there’s ever such a thing as fully accessible … let’s get rid of this idea that it’s an end that we’re going to get to, it’s actually just a pure journey.”
JO: Our Hireup journey has definitely been one of making incremental progress. Our first office wasn’t even accessible for someone using a wheelchair. The second office, we had to build our own accessible bathroom. Moving into this space, before we even moved in we demanded accessible bathrooms.
That can be a hard thing to face sometimes when you want everything to be perfect, right away. Now Hireup’s got more of a stable base we can make more changes. We can start to think about more things, it’s as simple as that. We just need to think “We’ve got a sliding door. Great. But how accessible is this really?” We need to take the next step. We actually need fob style access to make it accessible. It’s a journey, and the first stage is saying, “We’re never going to finish this”, but it’s a constant improvement.
MT: No one has the answer to everything. Just because we’re trying to build an accessible environment and have accessibility at the core, doesn’t mean we’re the experts, doesn’t mean we have to lead, it just means we learn as we go and work with people in our community to do that.
JO: Totally. I love your point that there’s no perfect design. We could design perfectly for our people today, we could design it absolutely perfectly, get 90 percent of the way to making everything accessible, then you could have someone else come in with completely different requirements where you’re at zero percent and so your journey starts again.
I’m obviously proud of our acknowledgment and commitment to accessibility. But despite being more accessible than most, we still have a really long way to go. Despite all of the good stuff, we’ve all got to understand it’s not about a waist high microwave or a sliding door. It’s actually much bigger - to make real progress - it’s a whole paradigm shift.
“The best part is the culture. I’ve started to notice accessibility discussed a lot more within each of the different teams at Hireup. That’s when you know it’s starting to sink into everyone’s work process and mentality.”
MT: One of the lessons you’ve flagged before about going through this process, was that you needed to properly resource it, from both a people and financial perspective. Can you share a little about that?
JO: If you try to boil it down to an approach, number one, is the commitment. Commitment to the complexity. When it comes to designing for accessibility things get complicated, and there’s a tendency to retreat from that because people don’t really like complicated. Number two is leadership. Key people taking leadership roles and saying, “This is an important thing that everyone needs to pay attention to”. Setting an example for others to follow is a really important part of the process. Then co-designing and co-participating in the experience of learning and the reinforcement of being on the journey.
MT: In terms of accessibility, what opportunities do you think having an accessible workplace will bring for Hireup and the community?
JO: I think our opportunity is to become the most accessible brand in the world. Unfortunately, it’s not a crowded space. There aren’t a lot of brands engaging in these sorts of conversations. It’s obvious what the benefits are: we get an amazingly diverse set of people in here. You can get the most interesting people, the most interesting minds, the most capable minds, the people that might not be getting a shot or who are getting excluded elsewhere. There’s immense value in that.
MT: I think that would also then open up opportunities in the marketplace for others to see this is what Hireup is doing: this is how to really embrace accessibility, and by embracing accessibility, these are the opportunities we have gotten for our community, with our community. That will then broaden the market. People will start to think, “What am I doing that’s going to embrace this as well? What am I doing that can create that change?” I think that will create more opportunities as a ripple effect.
JO: Once you commit to that, commit to finding the resources, commit to the leadership, commit the time and all the rest of it. It then starts to pay dividends in the people you attract and the people you can serve.
This is a relatively personal theory change for me: we are better off when we include everyone. When you believe that as a principle, you’re compelled to be consistent, you’re compelled to work out how you achieve it. And ultimately, for us, the thing we can control is the workplace environment, especially here, and now we can broaden our team even further. I think by being better off people will see an advantage in that. They will then hopefully adopt the same.
What’s your favourite part of the office?
MT: The best part is the culture. The environment is definitely much more accessible in the sense I don’t have to make my own bathroom. When I came in it was already built and considered. It’s one step forward from what we had before. In terms of culture, I’ve started to notice accessibility discussed a lot more within each of the different teams at Hireup. That’s when you know it’s starting to sink into everyone’s work process and mentality. That’s what I love about it.
JO: What are some practical examples that we can improve on from your personal experience?
MT: Having to access the doors after hours with the fob. There’s stuff you don’t expect or think about until you actually experience it. You learn it, learn the impact of it and plan how to move forward from there and implement something better.
JO: One of the things I admire about you Mel is how you see it as an opportunity. You’re an immensely positive person.
MT: What helps is coming from a design background. I understand the design point of view. When you do, you understand it’s an ongoing process and always a cycle you have to go through. It’s just a matter of being committed, patient and willing to fail and restart.
JO: I imagine so much of the stuff you’ve experienced is deeply frustrating. I don’t mean to put words in anyone’s mouth, but I imagine it would be easy to just say, “This is bloody annoying”. Being a designer at heart probably helps you with that perspective.
If we can use this perspective as a starting point and become the most accessible (not only built environment but attitudinal) brand, from a resource and a cultural perspective...If we can build, lead and commit to all of that I’d be very, very happy to think we could have that influence. I think we can lead around that. That would be very satisfying.
MT: That would be the ultimate goal.