7 things I’ve learned as a sighted social media manager of blind team members

My blog is very much orientated around my own experiences and my day-to-day life as a disabled person. But I like to invite a guest to share their perspective from time to time.

Something I frequently discuss is the topic of employment. Those posts tend to take more of a practical approach, sharing advice on supporting your disabled colleagues for example. There’s another angle I wanted to explore though, which will become clear when you read on.

 

For a long time, my day job and disability advocacy work were two separate parts of my life. My friends would joke and say “Is it day-job Holly, or disability advocate/freelancer Holly that’s wrote that article?”

When I started working in the charity sector two years ago, the line between my day job and disability advocacy blurred together (in a good way). Working as a social media professional means that I get to share my lived experience, support the community I’m extremely proud to be part of, and talk about accessibility pretty much every single day. And the best part is that my colleagues encourage me to do those things.

I’ve delivered presentations on accessible social media best practices, spoke at conferences, and I’m always encouraged to shout from the rooftops about accessibility.

 

Working as a blind social media professional has its challenges at times. It’s also incredibly rewarding. I wouldn’t change my job for the world.

It’s not lost on me that I couldn’t do my job without the support of my incredible team. They don’t bat an eyelid when we have to find a workaround for a visual task, or when I ask for support. Most importantly, they see what I can do, not what I can’t do.

One of those incredible team members is my wonderful colleague Becky.

From the day she joined our team, I knew that we shared the same values. We both want to see more blind and partially sighted people working in communications, and we want the social media world to be accessible for everyone.

She’s witnessed the highs and the lows – from our content going viral, creating a video together to rate the accessibility of tweets about Eurovision, to me openly admitting that I didn’t know whether there was a place for blind people like me in our line of work when we were searching for an accessible social media management tool, because it felt like what we wanted wasn’t out there. Spoiler: it does exist!

Tears and tantrums aside, I can confirm that there is a place for blind people in the world of social media. I just wish there were more of us.

The truth is, we can’t fly the flag alone. We need sighted people like Becky to help us along the way.

When I asked her whether she’d like to contribute something to my blog about what it’s like working with a blind person, she instantly said yes.

With that in mind, I’m going to hand over to Becky to share some of the things she’s learnt being a sighted manager.

 

Becky C. Brynolf is the Head of Social Media at the Royal National Institute of Blind People.

I’ve worked in social media for 13 years, from posting about the next quiz night at the pub where I pulled pints, live-tweeting from red carpets for various film companies, to eventually heading up social for two major UK charities. I’ve seen a lot of changes in social media in that time, but one thing that’s been consistent is who I’ve worked with. Or rather, who I haven’t.

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I didn’t work with a blind social media professional until I joined the RNIB. While there are approximately 84,500 registered blind and partially sighted people of working age in the UK (about the same number as people who live in Hartlepool), it’s a group that’s significantly less likely to be in paid employment than the general population or other disabled people. So, the likelihood of other comms professionals having also worked with a blind person is pretty slim.

 

But these stats don’t exist in a vacuum. You, like me, have probably heard big numbers like this before, thought ‘that’s really bad, someone should do something about it’, then had to get back to your very busy day. With a bit more knowledge and understanding, you could be someone who does something about it. Let me share some of the things I’ve learnt as a sighted manager of blind team members.

 

I am the biggest barrier to blind people working in my team

If you’re the hiring manager, budget holder, strategy writer, or have the ear of any of the above, you have the power and influence to populate the team with a diverse group of backgrounds and experiences. Research carried out by the RNIB and Birmingham University found the biggest barriers to employment for people with sight loss were misconceptions of their ability, inaccessible recruitment practices, and insufficient workplace support.

If you’d asked me 13 years ago, could a blind person thrive in my industry, I probably, shamefully, would have assumed no. Understanding the important role of assistive technology, implementing inclusive and accessible recruitment practices, and changing your focus from what a person can’t do, to what they can do, creates the right conditions for a strong team of diverse thinkers.

 

A lot of people think people with sight loss can’t use phones and computers

Last year we posted a video by Dr Amit Patel called ‘How does a blind person hail a bus?’, which was seen by 23 million people. A good portion of the five thousand comments asked a different question: ‘if he’s blind, how can he use a phone?’ This question illustrates those misconceptions of ability I mentioned earlier; the assumption that being blind means zero sight (sight is, in fact, a spectrum), or that phones and computers can only be used if you can see. The reality is, Dr Amit, and many blind and partially sighted people, use phones because they are blind.

If you’ve ever thought you’d need to decline a comms candidate because of sight loss, I hope it’s reassuring to know that with the right assistive technology and reasonable adjustments, there isn’t a comms job I’ve come across yet that can’t be done by a blind or partially sighted person.

 

Listening to a screen reader will help you understand the issue in seconds

You’ve used an Alexa, you get theory of how screen readers allow people to listen to the internet, but listening to a screen reader in action? Illuminating.

Holly took me through a demonstration of how her screen reader interacted with our social media management tool at the time and it was the audio version of wading through treacle. Buttons labelled different things audibly than they were visually, having to scroll through every single button on the page to find the right one, some buttons invisible to a screen reader and reachable by mouse only.

I felt tired just listening for five minutes – how could I expect her to feel motivated when it took her three times as long to carry out a task? Which leads me to my next learning…

 

Money talks

I can argue the moral, ethical and social responsibility of social media companies to make their products accessible, but to be totally realistic, my strongest bargaining chip is my budget.

When I joined RNIB, my team was using a social media management tool to do all their scheduling, community management, and reporting. It was a legacy tool from before screen reader users joined the team, and it required a lot of workarounds.

So, we reached out to the account manager: “what’s the likelihood the tool will be accessible by the time we’re due to sign on for another year? By the way, we’re speaking to two other companies and testing the accessibility of their tools.”

Being frank and candid about our new requirements saved a lot of time – it wasn’t about trying to get a cheaper deal, it was about accessibility.

We eventually moved to Sprout Social, which is about 99% as accessible as we can get, and it has been a game changer. I’ve felt much more comfortable inviting different teams to use it as well, because I know it works for everyone’s needs. Did Sprout Social drop everything and focus on accessibility because we asked them to? They didn’t need to, because they thought of accessibility as the horse, not the cart. Are the other companies considering that an inaccessible product could mean losing business in the future? Let’s wait and see.

 

I notice inaccessibility everywhere now

It starts with noticing how few people include image descriptions on social media, then you listen to how a screen reader tackles loads of emojis, then you watch Dungeons and Dragons with Sue Perkins’ audio description. Then you can’t help but notice how many things are truly inaccessible, how much more needlessly difficult and frustrating day-to-day life is for people with sight loss. And then you realise what a huge, slow, and expensive undertaking it would be to retrofit accessibility into everything.

The world is designed for sighted people, and people often think of accessibility as an optional add on, which puts forward a compelling argument: people aren’t disabled; society disables them.

And if we’re thinking about it in terms of ‘money talks’, starting with accessibility as your foundation is way cheaper and easier for everyone involved.

 

People with lived experience have great insights to share, and boundaries to be respected

The first time I sat down with Holly, we talked about ambitions and ideas for social media at RNIB. We also set expectations and boundaries with each other. I am expected to always put accessibility first. She, and the rest of my team, are expected to pull me up any time I miss the mark.

I am allowed to ask questions about accessibility, e.g., how does a screen reader interact with this website? Is this PDF accessible? And they are allowed to say no.

It can be exhausting being a representative for a particular group in your team, and they have a right to get on with their job just like anyone else.

 

The job isn’t done when you hire one person with sight loss

There are now two blind/partially sighted people working in my team. That number will grow over time. My mission is for more blind and partially sighted people to work in comms, full stop, and I want my team to serve as a good example of how this works in practice.

I would eventually love to leave my role, Head of Social Media, in the hands of a blind or partially sighted person, having put the tools and processes in place to make sure it’s as relatively painless as it was when I joined. Ideally, the only headaches they have in the job will be the ones any Head of Social Media would expect to have, not ones to do with their eye sight.

 

You might never end up working with a blind colleague, but I hope that if you take anything away from reading this, it’s that accessibility is normal and it starts with you.

 

Thank you so much to Becky for sharing her honesty and important insights.

I hope you’ll join myself, Becky and the rest of our social media team at RNIB in helping to make the workforce more accessible for everyone.

Although we’ve focused on working in communications here, Becky’s learnings apply to pretty much every single job out there. You can more than likely take away something from this post and apply it to your own area of work.

The next time you receive an application form from a blind or partially sighted candidate, don’t let your assumptions get in the way and put it to the bottom of the pile as a result. Give them a chance. Come back to this blog post if you need to.

 

Becky C. Brynolf can be found on LinkedIn, and you can follow RNIB on most social media channels.