5 Steps to make workplaces accessible for persons with disabilities
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Around 4 - 8 percent* of people in India are persons with disabilities, but India is still quite behind in terms of acknowledging and assimilating them in the workforce. A major reason behind this is the lack of awareness about disabilities. Many employers do not know how workplaces can be made more accessible to people with disabilities or how to look at them as human resources. This results in persons with disabilities being stigmatised as burdens and being forced to be dependent on others.
How can we change our workplaces to ensure that persons with disabilities get the opportunities they deserve? To understand this, we approached Mr. Subbiah, Program Manager - Employment from EnAble India, and he shared with us the first five steps that he thinks are needed to make workplaces accessible for people with disabilities:
The first step is disability awareness – It is essential to make employers aware about the different kinds of disabilities, as different disabilities come with different challenges and required intervention, and also to change their mindsets about persons with disabilities.
The second step is job analysis - To ensure that a person with disability is able to work optimally, their skills have to be matched to the job role. So, at EnAble India, we do a careful examination of job tasks to help employers hire persons with disability better. Workplace solutions and accessibility of premise and IT tools are addressed.
The third step is peer awareness – Just employing a person with disability isn’t enough sometimes. It is important for us to sensitise the co-workers and address apprehensions of the other employees in a company to help accommodate and assimilate persons with disabilities, so that the work environment functions smoothly.
Sometimes, persons with disabilities need some initial handholding to help them get familiar with the workplace to ensure that the premises are accessible and comfortable. This is something that EnAble India can help employers do.
Finally, ensuring that follow ups happen with the company and employer to create a culture of inclusive hiring. Communication about challenges to both employers and their employees with disability is one of the best ways to ensure accessible workplaces.
Given the deep biases against people with disabilities and acute lack of information, there is a lot more that goes behind prepping both the employers and the candidates. The first thing to do for all of us is to let go of our preconceived notions and look at persons with disabilities as individuals who contribute as much as (if not more than) any of us, and who can in fact make our workplaces more inclusive and efficient.
What more can the society and the employers do to encourage workforce participation from the Persons with disability? Share your opinions with us on our Facebook or Twitter pages, or write to us at jaagorein@gmail.com
Sources:
*National Centre for Biotechnology Information
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