Q&A with Florence Alix-Gravellier, our expert on disability issues
Florence Alix-Gravellier shares with us her experience and advices to bring more inclusivity in the workplace.
I am 42 years old, I was born with a hip deformity, had multiple surgeries but my hip was never fully repaired. All my life, I have been part of what I call an “in-between body”, the one of the walking impaired, neither entirely able-bodied nor perfectly disabled. This in-between and the absence of a sensational story to tell about my disability created a complex relationship for me with the notion of identity and difference, forcing me to constantly reinvent myself, as surgeries went by and my disability evolved.
But one day, by chance, when I was 15 years old, I discovered wheelchair tennis, and I had the pleasure of making a career out of it, which took me around the world for tournaments and training sessions. I won two bronze medals, in singles and in doubles, at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. I reached world #1 in doubles and #2 in singles, winning six French championship titles along the way.
After I retired from tennis in 2010, I worked for The Adecco Group focusing on employment policies for people with disabilities. Today, I am a Vice-President of the French Tennis Federation and the author of 'Marche - Sur Les Chemins de la Vie”, published in October 2021. I am also a speaker, mainly on resilience, change and inclusion.
A company reflects the society in which it operates. Thus, companies cannot act solo regarding inclusion. We must collectively improve everywhere: companies, cities, sports, and schools in order to tackle the issue at the earliest possible stage. Young children are not spontaneously sensitive to differences: excluding people or, on the contrary, living together are things that we learn. For this reason, integrating disabled children into schools and sports clubs is the best way to make differences commonplace, something that is just part of life. In return, kids advocate the issue with their families.
However, if we only rely on schools, several generations will pass before progress is significant. The media also have a role to play in exposing differences more and better, and companies should welcome people with disabilities more and better.
We have come a long way since the mid-2000s when I first became interested in the employment of disabled people. At that time, in France many companies preferred to pay penalties rather than to hire people with disabilities. Then, a genuine willingness to integrate emerged, but specific difficulties arose. Where to find the skills required? How to talk about the subject? How to finance the adaptation of workstations and workplaces?
Today, fortunately, we have taken another step forward: substantial resources have been committed by many companies that are very proactive on inclusion. Companies that are speaking out and taking concrete actions on this issue. But in France for example, the unemployment rate among disabled people is still twice as high as the national average. How do we explain that? Profound, sustainable change takes time as well as the sum of individual actions in addition to public policies.
Schools, public policies, media and companies are setting the general framework for changing mindsets. It already has helped reduce prejudices, even if it is never enough.
Now we must tackle the issue of cognitive biases, all those forms of unconscious thinking our brains recognize as logical or rational thinking, or the so-called “norm”. They guide our reactions to various situations in an intuitive way. For example, a bias naturally leads a parent to enrol their boy in soccer and their girl in ballet without asking their children what they prefer, want or expect. Regarding recruitment, biases affect all the imperceptible characteristics linked to the decision to hire this person rather than another person for a position: at the reception desk, a pretty, dynamic young woman will often win over an obese senior citizen; movers tend to be men, just like are garbage collectors and security guards...
Biases are usual. We all have them. They allow us to lighten the load on our brains to make quicker, more instinctive decisions on many issues that do not require in-depth and tedious thinking. However, they become problematic when they insidiously prevent a minority from accessing full citizenship and equal treatment. This is what happens to people with disabilities but also to women, ethnic minorities, LGBT, etc.
Every company should be aware of the biases underlining its decision processes, especially in recruitment, from job descriptions to the organisation's culture, including integration and support in employment.
Of course, it is a tremendous job, but it also carries a significant amount of hope: diversity calls for diversity in the broadest sense. The more differences make their way to the table, the less the company is led by a dominant form of thinking: biases add up, complement each other, put each other in perspective. And what used to be a flaw - living far away, having a foreign-sounding name, being diabetic - now becomes a sought-after soft skill - perseverance, aptitude for foreign languages, resilience. Diversity makes people see things differently, more accurately, more openly, more inclusively.
Most of our actions are guided by these famous biases, including our ability to interact with others, our level of empathy, etc. Biases are cultural. They are fed by the society we live in, the education we receive, the environments that surround us , etc. This explains why we are not naturally similar in the face of difference: therefore, it is up to each of us,to actively try to to understand our own relationship with differences: what frightens us, what attracts us, what repels us, what challenges us... Only by becoming aware of our individual reactions can we set out on the path for transformation.
I once knew an empathetic leader who, for reasons that I do not know (and that are not for me to judge), is very vulnerable in the face of powerful life stories (drama, trials, struggles). In many situations, his heightened sensitivity alters his judgment. He is aware of his sensitivity but not of its impact on his decision-making (entitlement, overprotection) nor of the risks it entails (jealousy, discrimination).
Above all, I believe that it is essential that we work on ourselves to better know ourselves and identify these infamous biases and their consequences on an individual scale. This is a simple but challenging task, which requires a form of honesty. It also requires coming back to it several times, discussing it with one's professional entourage, and accepting the way others look at us. We should all think about our personal answer to questions, such as: how do I feel about a person with a disability ? What are my behaviours, my reactions when I am in the presence of a person with a disability? What would I think if my manager, my colleague, or my employee were disabled?
We never take the time to do this - and this is exactly what awareness-raising workshops on disability should be used for - but it is essential to work to update reflex reactions. I often quote this example of how I was frequently treated at Charles de Gaulle airport as a wheelchair user passenger. In October 2019, as I was travelling to Los Angeles with my husband, I was confronted with the strict application of Paris’ Airport’s protocole forbidding people in wheelchairs to use the conveyor belt because they could fall. I had to explain that I didn't need an escortThat, in the worst-case scenario, my husband was with me. That I can use a conveyor belt, better than most elderly persons or people carrying a large piece of big luggage. That I was ready to sign a waiver of responsibility…
But nothing helped that day. Because of my wheelchair and a pointless rule, I was denied the ability to decide for myself. I was talked to as a young child because of a blind precautionary principle, designed by able-bodied people not enlightened about autonomy issues.
A few minutes later, I was waiting with my husband near the airline's boarding kiosk, slightly out of the agents' sight. One of them told his colleague: "There is a chair, where is the chair? You have to board it first." Understanding that they were talking about me and not the chair I was sitting in, I signalled and told them I was ready to board. The agent replies to my husband, "Does your lady need assistance on board?" I reply, "No sir, I do not need assistance on board. I can walk." The agent said, again to my husband, "She doesn't need the onboard chair, then?"
This situation sheds light on how people with disabilities are unintentionally treated as children or adults under protection, sometimes even objects, problems. As a result, they rarely get pictured as successful or brilliant.
A friend who uses a wheelchair often complains that his hair is stroked as a sign of friendship. This makes him angry, which I understand so much. This gesture, patting the head of a grow-up man, would never be done to anybody beyond the age of twelve.
To put it simply, treating a colleague with a disability in an inclusive way means first identifying everything we do differently for them, anything that we would not do for someone else, and questioning the rationale for this difference in treatment. Sometimes offering help is the right thing to do - never impose, though - but sometimes, it is not. Treating someone differently can be necessary, but it can also be out of line, even if it is made with empathy or the genuine desire to help. Being inclusive means taking an honest look at the situation: correcting an imbalance, a disadvantage, without overprotecting or excluding. Moreover, most of the time, people with disabilities are very good at talking about their needs and expectations: ask them and open a dialogue.
Florence Alix-Gravellier
Bronze medalist at Beijing Paralympic Games in 2008, Florence Alix-Gravellier reached world number one in wheelchair tennis in doubles (2005) and world number two in singles (2006). A 6-time French champion, she is a graduate of the Bordeaux Institute of Political Studies and holds an MBA in Sports Management. A manager of strategic projects in large companies, she is now an author, speaker and Vice-President of the French Tennis Federation.
