How inclusive is the Indian work environment for Persons with Disabilities

How inclusive is the Indian work environment for Persons with Disabilities

JESCILIA KARAYAMPARAMBIL examines how inclusive the Indian work environment is when it comes to Persons with Disabilities

Jescilia KarayamparambilUpdated: Saturday, October 19, 2019, 11:12 AM IST
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“It was the mid ’90s. In our locality, my eldest sister, Varsha, was the first women to buy a scooter. People envied her for landing a lucrative job. Few years into her job, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS),” narrates Sweta Bhoweer, adding that MS is a disabling disease that attacks the central nervous system that disrupts the flow of information within the brain, and between the brain and body.

Over the years, Varsha moved jobs going from a human resources professional, to a college professor, to a private tutor. But she continued to be employed until the time the illness worsened.

At the time of writing this article, Varsha was in the hospital fighting the ailment. She was first detected with MS 20 years ago, over the years the intensity of her illness has ramped up but that has not hurt her spirit, adds Bhoweer.

Not everyone can fight the system without some level of outside support. However, society is unable to offer them the right options. Bharati Lele, a sign language interpreter, shares, “The biggest hurdle in India is education for differently-abled persons.

In case of individuals with speaking and hearing disabilities, they cannot compete mainly because the country lags in basic education. Like an able person, if a person with disability is offered quality education, the person can flourish.”

In the report on ‘Disability Employment’ by TRRAIN, it is estimated that there are about 6-10 crore Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) in India and of them around 1.23 crore in India are uneducated.

“Even amongst people who are literate, a dominant majority have only cleared their matriculation,” the report stated. Unavailability of the right kind of schools, accessibility and availability of special instructors and families’ unwillingness to invest in their child with disability, are factors holding PwDs back.

Like any other individual, aspirations of PwDs to have a career and better standard of living take a hit due to poor support extended to them. But some industries that are ready to support PwD population have created a mechanism where they train and then employ them.

The growing population of India means growing number of PwD population. India has about 59 per cent of the PwD population that falls between the working age group of 20 to 59 years.

The share of PwD population could soar further mainly due to two reasons – post the introduction of new bill, ‘The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill 2016’ that recognises 21 different disabilities; and the increase in Indian population since 2001. Thus, putting pressure on organisations to look at innovations that will be inclusive in nature.

Recalling a project with State Bank of India (about six years back), Dipesh Sutariya, Founder and Chief Enabler at EnAble India, says, “We worked with the bank to help them recognise 64 roles where a visually and speech impaired person could be employed.

This opened up a total of 22,000 jobs in SBI for PwDs. But with advent of digitisation, some of these jobs in urban area may have become redundant.”

Many companies engage with institutions like EnAble India to help them recognise areas in their respective companies where PwDs talent can be hired.

Hiring spree

Employing PwDs in public sector organisations has been a natural process due to the reservation/quota, but the scope for PwDs is again limited. However, in recent times, private sector has ramped up hiring (of differently-abled) along with skilling.

Many experts working in the space agree that the demand for trained, differently-abled talents has surpassed supply of trained disability talents. “We are unable to find trained talent from disabled community. Lately, there has been upsurge in hiring of PwDs.

There are some clients that are open about having on board PwDs. But then there are traditional clients who have many queries and we have to sensitise them on this topic,” informs Pradeep Chavda, human resources director, Sodexo India.

Chavda adds, attrition among disabled employees is only two-three per cent while non-disabled can be much higher. Food services and facilities management company, Sodexo India, employs around 20,000 employees. Of them, only 103 employees have declared themselves disabled, but Chavda claims that this figure can be as high as 350-400 as some do not declare their disabilities.

“Disability is not limited to what others can see visually like locomotor disabilities, blindness, deafness and others, but also includes diabetes, depression, sickle cell disease among others.

There is data that suggests 80 per cent of disabilities are acquired in the working age, thus, it is critical for organisations to make their working patterns inclusive in nature,” avers Kapila Jaykumar, Senior Program Manager, Community Business India.

Challenges and opportunities

The advent of technology not only empowered PwDs in conducting their daily life smoothly, but also took the lead in providing them employment. Other sectors that have started hiring PwDs are retail and hospitality.

Shares Sutariya, “Recently, we have seen increase in hiring in textile sector for disabled. Such jobs are not limited to cities but are available in rural India.

So many do not have to come to cities looking for job but can find jobs closer to their homes.” The preference to work close to home is common again disabled. It is estimated that 69 per cent of the disabled population reside in rural areas.

Another challenge for PwDs is that they may find a job but moving up the career ladder means another battle. Sutariya observes the upward movement is a constraint for PwDs. “The challenge in terms of career growth exists in case of PwDs.

Employers will think twice before giving the next level of promotion to PwDs. But I think it is getting better.” In India, it is difficult for a deaf person to be elevated to managerial level as that means conversation/ discussions take place over phone.

“Outside of India, the hearing impaired are good in language but our education system for deaf is so backward that the language and writing skills are not up to the mark. So, we cannot say that everything can take place via email as there are language barriers.”

Like others who are working for the cause, Jaykumar also feels there is a strong need to further sensitise corporates on this. “There is a need to bring about change in the board level.

If the board discusses inclusion, then expect the idea to percolate into other departments in the company.” Along with human resource policies, there needs to be infrastructure support to get disabled into the mainstream.

At national level, India is running ‘Accessible India Campaign’ (AIC), which is an interesting plan but “the challenge lies in its implementation,” mentions Sutariya, adding, “Accessible India Campaign should be revived.” This campaign is about making buildings disabled-friendly and having human resource policies supporting them.

Many private and multi-national companies are making their offices friendly for disabled. “Many private players have audited their premises to make it disabled-friendly due to government’s mandate. However, others are still trying to figure out ways to get this rolling,” explains Jaykumar.

In this context, public sector is lagging. Jaykumar adds, today companies are talking about innovation, but innovation is incomplete if there is no inclusion.

Case study on e-commerce companies

If you look at e-commerce sites —Amazon and Flipkart— they are expected to have equal number of tech and non-tech roles, hire people with disabilities in various departments.

More than 350 associates who are deaf with speech disabilities are part of the Amazon network across the country. In case of Flipkart, its logistics’ arm, Ekart introduced eDAB (ekartians with disabilities). As of June this year, Flipkart has nearly 300 eDABs across 63 locations pan India.

Amitesh Jha, Senior Vice President, Ekart and Marketplace at Flipkart, comments, “Our eDAB initiative is one of our efforts to provide employment to people with disabilities for their sustainable economic growth and contribute positively to the society.”

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