Description
Workforce diversity refers to the presence of human characteristics that make people different from one another.
Workforce Diversity: Advantages of Employing people with disability
1 |Page Disability and Diversity
INTRODUCTION
Workforce diversity refers to the presence of human characteristics that make people different from one another. More specifically diversity comprises key demographic differences among members of a given workforce, including gender, race and ethnicity, age and able bodiness. Being home to more than billion people India is blessed with enormous diversity at the urban, semi-urban and rural levels which weaves our social and cultural fabric together. But one of the traits of diversity which often goes unnoticed is the diversity in terms of able bodiness. The Census of India 2001 and the National Sample Survey Organization of India enumerate 21.5 million and 18.5 million persons with disabilities respectively. The disability pie stands anywhere between 1.85% to 2.15% of the total Indian population of 1.13 billion. But the representation of this group in the corporate employment sector is grossly disproportionate with the above mentioned figures. The key challenge in managing the diverse workforce is in a way that both respects individual unique perspective and contributes and promotes a shared sense of organization vision and identity. Our project attempts to identify the positive contributions to an organisation by having diverse workforce by employing people with disability. Also it attempts to highlight the added business advantages which the companies can reap by having such diversity in their workforce.
2 |Page Disability and Diversity
EMPLOYMENT STATUS OF DISABLED IN INDIA Hundred corporate houses, listed in the `Super 100 ranking of the corporate sector' by `Business India', a leading business magazine in India were studied. Twenty three companies in this sample were public sector companies, while 63 were private sector Indian companies and 14 were multinational companies. The total number of employees in these companies was 7, 96, 363 of which 3160 were disabled persons' consisting of 0.4% of the employees, and 50 (71.43%) companies had employed disabled persons. Table 1: Types of disability among the disabled employees Types of disability Visual impairment Loco-motor impairment Speech and hearing impairment Mental retardation Other disabilities Percentage of total disabled employees 9.87% 70.57% 8.26% 0.66% 1.87%
Source: Super 100 ranking of the corporate sector. Business India, Bombay
Table 2: Disabled persons as a percentage of the workforce in different companies Types of company Percentage of disabled persons employed
Public sector companies 0.54% of the total workforce Private sector Indian companies 0.28% of the total workforce Multinational companies 0.05% of the total workforce
Source: Super 100 ranking of the corporate sector. Business India, Bombay
In the sample of companies selected for the study, the rate of employment of disabled persons was only 0.4% of the total work force, only 13% of what the `The People with Disabilities' Act prescribes as desirable. Many public sector companies also do not employ disabled persons, even though it is legally binding on them to fill 3% in all categories of jobs with people with disability. No company in the sample employed disabled persons above the 2% level.
3 |Page Disability and Diversity
People with loco-motor disability were the group most commonly employed, and people with mental retardation are rarely employed, probably due to the stigma attached to mental retardation. Even visual impaired people are not employed much. However, given the right opportunities visually impaired and partially sighted people have potential to compete in the job market. New advances in “assistive information technology”, visual awareness training, large screen monitors, screen magnification systems such as Lunar or Zoomtext, CCTV, Electronic Braille Display, Braille keyboards and Embossers can augment their working and increase their ability to gain and retain employment. Most of the potential employees and employers are not aware of these technical assistance and support options available to them. Out of those who do employee PWD, 81% rated their performance as “the same or higher than people with no disability”. If that is the case, then there is no reason why a visually impaired or partially sighted person cannot form an integral part of an organisation. In spite of the legal binding by the government, there are limiting factors that prevent employment of disabled persons in industries and here lie the challenges for India Inc. There is an urgent need to identify these factors that hinder employment of people with disability, and to take corrective measures, to enlarge the potential of their rehabilitation and social integration.
DATA COLLECTION The topic of employing disabled people in the workforce is a well researched one. There are plenty of organisations which are adedicated to provide counsellinga dn career advise to disabled people. As such there is a plethora of information available online as well as with these dedicated organisations.
4 |Page Disability and Diversity
As a part of our project we have collected data from many streams broadly classified as Primary data and Secondary data. 1. PRIMARY DATA: This data has been collected by us spersonally for use in our project. We have talked to managers from various corporate entities and recorded their experiences in terms of working with disabled people. The discussion which we had was open ended and encompassed areas of the behavioural performance of the disabled people, team dynamics , advantages of employing them and challanges faced by them. The companies which ahve been contacted include L&T, TCS, INFOSYS, ICRISAT, BHEL, PARAS CADD and MATRIX LABORATORIES. 2. SECONDARY DATA: We have approached an NGO named Nina foundation, which is dedicated towards promoting the employment of disabled people. They have conducted significant amount of research into this topic. We have used their data in several places as mentioned. Our other sources include: a. Abidi Javed: current status of employment of people with disability in Indian industries. b. Prof. Dr. Salunkhe Uday and Prof. Dr. Rao P. S.: Managing Work Force Diversity, 2007 c. Prof. Ms. Mehta Ketna L.: Designing a Disabled Friendly Inclusive World Class City d. Various issues of ONE WORLD- Voice of paraplegics e. Web resources: •
•
www.ncpedp.org www.ninafoundation.com www.enableindia.org
•
5 |Page Disability and Diversity
EXCERPTS FROM INTERVIEWS ? “ Seeing Rohit Sharma work with such dedication compels me to put in more effort myself ” – Amit Tripathi, Infosys
? “ The quality of work and the consistency in Bala’s results are nothing short of exemplary ” – Ch. Parikshit, TCS
? “Soumya comes to the office at 9:20 in the morning without fail and greets me with a smile as I enter. This just starts my day on a bright note.” – Debashish Dutta, Tata Indicom
6 |Page Disability and Diversity
ADVANTAGES OF EMPLOYING PEOPLE WITH DISABILITY
i.
Employers find people with disability as productive and as dependable as any other employee.
ii.
People with disability are statistically more loyal and committed towards organizational objectives. They also have fewer accidents at workplace.
iii.
An organization having people with disability in its workforce truly reflects society and collectively works towards inclusive growth.
iv.
An organisation gains a competitive advantage by having a diverse workforce which can attract a diverse range of customers, 7% of Indian population is disabled, and most of them are potential customers and/or employees. This is an erstwhile latent market.
v. vi.
A wider recruiting net makes finding the right person for the job more likely. People with disability have good punctuality records and low absentee records to the tune of 85% less than other people. This helps in building a disciplined culture at the organizational level.
vii.
Employing people with disability avoids claims of unlawful disability discrimination and leads to compliance with legislative requirements and meeting international standards.
viii.
In becoming a good corporate citizen and meeting the triple bottom-line. Thus translating to an ethical brand image of the organization.
7 |Page Disability and Diversity
COMMANDMENTS TO BECOME A DISABLED FRIENDLY COMPANY i. Inculcating a positive attitude towards people with disabilities and following non-discriminatory employment practices. ii. Formalising a policy to retain employment without reduction of rank of people who may become disabled. iii. Providing appropriate aids/technology/attendants to support disabled employees in the workplace. iv. Extending certain extra benefits like providing transport to work, rights to special leave, additional medical allowance, etc, to people with disabilities/ partners of disabled persons/or parents of disabled children. v. vi. Not denying promotion to people with disabilities on grounds of disability. Creating a safe working environment to prevent health hazards and accidents.
8 |Page Disability and Diversity
CHALLENGES FACED BY COMPANIES i. Designing better infrastructure and making existing infrastructure facilities used by employees readily accessible to and usable by persons with disabilities. ii. Job restructuring, modifying work schedules and reassignment of people with disability to a vacant position.
iii.
Acquiring or modifying equipment or devices, adjusting or modifying examinations, training materials, or policies, and providing qualified readers or interpreters, and other similar accommodations for individuals with disabilities.
iv.
Bringing a paradigm shift in the attitude of people and the way people with disability are viewed.
v.
Recruiting more people with disability in the organisation
9 |Page Disability and Diversity
CONCLUSION
After carrying our research and analysis we feel that inclusion of people with disability, which is about 2% of our population (around 25 million) in the workforce, adds another dimension to the diversity. People with disability are as productive and dependable as any other employee. Having them in the work force will not only increase the esteem of people with disability but also motivate other team-mates, which can further increase the overall productivity of the organization. Though there has been a lot of enthusiasm at the ground level and there are provisions and various laws in our constitution but still there are implementation short falls when it comes to employing people with disability. There is lack of awareness and attitude problem towards the people with disability. Implementation hurdles are majorly at the level of infrastructural development and attitude shifts towards the people with disability. Government organizations like the Indian Railways have harnessed the potential of this segment by employing people with disability for making announcements at railway stations across the nation. Organizations like Tata’s, Infosys, Wipro, etc. have also actively involved themselves towards including people with disability in their workforce and are greatly benefitting from it. Other organizations must take this as an example and follow suit. Inclusive disability representation in the workforce is the true picture of diversity at workplace today.
10 | P a g e Disability and Diversity
doc_968088968.doc
Workforce diversity refers to the presence of human characteristics that make people different from one another.
Workforce Diversity: Advantages of Employing people with disability
1 |Page Disability and Diversity
INTRODUCTION
Workforce diversity refers to the presence of human characteristics that make people different from one another. More specifically diversity comprises key demographic differences among members of a given workforce, including gender, race and ethnicity, age and able bodiness. Being home to more than billion people India is blessed with enormous diversity at the urban, semi-urban and rural levels which weaves our social and cultural fabric together. But one of the traits of diversity which often goes unnoticed is the diversity in terms of able bodiness. The Census of India 2001 and the National Sample Survey Organization of India enumerate 21.5 million and 18.5 million persons with disabilities respectively. The disability pie stands anywhere between 1.85% to 2.15% of the total Indian population of 1.13 billion. But the representation of this group in the corporate employment sector is grossly disproportionate with the above mentioned figures. The key challenge in managing the diverse workforce is in a way that both respects individual unique perspective and contributes and promotes a shared sense of organization vision and identity. Our project attempts to identify the positive contributions to an organisation by having diverse workforce by employing people with disability. Also it attempts to highlight the added business advantages which the companies can reap by having such diversity in their workforce.
2 |Page Disability and Diversity
EMPLOYMENT STATUS OF DISABLED IN INDIA Hundred corporate houses, listed in the `Super 100 ranking of the corporate sector' by `Business India', a leading business magazine in India were studied. Twenty three companies in this sample were public sector companies, while 63 were private sector Indian companies and 14 were multinational companies. The total number of employees in these companies was 7, 96, 363 of which 3160 were disabled persons' consisting of 0.4% of the employees, and 50 (71.43%) companies had employed disabled persons. Table 1: Types of disability among the disabled employees Types of disability Visual impairment Loco-motor impairment Speech and hearing impairment Mental retardation Other disabilities Percentage of total disabled employees 9.87% 70.57% 8.26% 0.66% 1.87%
Source: Super 100 ranking of the corporate sector. Business India, Bombay
Table 2: Disabled persons as a percentage of the workforce in different companies Types of company Percentage of disabled persons employed
Public sector companies 0.54% of the total workforce Private sector Indian companies 0.28% of the total workforce Multinational companies 0.05% of the total workforce
Source: Super 100 ranking of the corporate sector. Business India, Bombay
In the sample of companies selected for the study, the rate of employment of disabled persons was only 0.4% of the total work force, only 13% of what the `The People with Disabilities' Act prescribes as desirable. Many public sector companies also do not employ disabled persons, even though it is legally binding on them to fill 3% in all categories of jobs with people with disability. No company in the sample employed disabled persons above the 2% level.
3 |Page Disability and Diversity
People with loco-motor disability were the group most commonly employed, and people with mental retardation are rarely employed, probably due to the stigma attached to mental retardation. Even visual impaired people are not employed much. However, given the right opportunities visually impaired and partially sighted people have potential to compete in the job market. New advances in “assistive information technology”, visual awareness training, large screen monitors, screen magnification systems such as Lunar or Zoomtext, CCTV, Electronic Braille Display, Braille keyboards and Embossers can augment their working and increase their ability to gain and retain employment. Most of the potential employees and employers are not aware of these technical assistance and support options available to them. Out of those who do employee PWD, 81% rated their performance as “the same or higher than people with no disability”. If that is the case, then there is no reason why a visually impaired or partially sighted person cannot form an integral part of an organisation. In spite of the legal binding by the government, there are limiting factors that prevent employment of disabled persons in industries and here lie the challenges for India Inc. There is an urgent need to identify these factors that hinder employment of people with disability, and to take corrective measures, to enlarge the potential of their rehabilitation and social integration.
DATA COLLECTION The topic of employing disabled people in the workforce is a well researched one. There are plenty of organisations which are adedicated to provide counsellinga dn career advise to disabled people. As such there is a plethora of information available online as well as with these dedicated organisations.
4 |Page Disability and Diversity
As a part of our project we have collected data from many streams broadly classified as Primary data and Secondary data. 1. PRIMARY DATA: This data has been collected by us spersonally for use in our project. We have talked to managers from various corporate entities and recorded their experiences in terms of working with disabled people. The discussion which we had was open ended and encompassed areas of the behavioural performance of the disabled people, team dynamics , advantages of employing them and challanges faced by them. The companies which ahve been contacted include L&T, TCS, INFOSYS, ICRISAT, BHEL, PARAS CADD and MATRIX LABORATORIES. 2. SECONDARY DATA: We have approached an NGO named Nina foundation, which is dedicated towards promoting the employment of disabled people. They have conducted significant amount of research into this topic. We have used their data in several places as mentioned. Our other sources include: a. Abidi Javed: current status of employment of people with disability in Indian industries. b. Prof. Dr. Salunkhe Uday and Prof. Dr. Rao P. S.: Managing Work Force Diversity, 2007 c. Prof. Ms. Mehta Ketna L.: Designing a Disabled Friendly Inclusive World Class City d. Various issues of ONE WORLD- Voice of paraplegics e. Web resources: •
•
www.ncpedp.org www.ninafoundation.com www.enableindia.org
•
5 |Page Disability and Diversity
EXCERPTS FROM INTERVIEWS ? “ Seeing Rohit Sharma work with such dedication compels me to put in more effort myself ” – Amit Tripathi, Infosys
? “ The quality of work and the consistency in Bala’s results are nothing short of exemplary ” – Ch. Parikshit, TCS
? “Soumya comes to the office at 9:20 in the morning without fail and greets me with a smile as I enter. This just starts my day on a bright note.” – Debashish Dutta, Tata Indicom
6 |Page Disability and Diversity
ADVANTAGES OF EMPLOYING PEOPLE WITH DISABILITY
i.
Employers find people with disability as productive and as dependable as any other employee.
ii.
People with disability are statistically more loyal and committed towards organizational objectives. They also have fewer accidents at workplace.
iii.
An organization having people with disability in its workforce truly reflects society and collectively works towards inclusive growth.
iv.
An organisation gains a competitive advantage by having a diverse workforce which can attract a diverse range of customers, 7% of Indian population is disabled, and most of them are potential customers and/or employees. This is an erstwhile latent market.
v. vi.
A wider recruiting net makes finding the right person for the job more likely. People with disability have good punctuality records and low absentee records to the tune of 85% less than other people. This helps in building a disciplined culture at the organizational level.
vii.
Employing people with disability avoids claims of unlawful disability discrimination and leads to compliance with legislative requirements and meeting international standards.
viii.
In becoming a good corporate citizen and meeting the triple bottom-line. Thus translating to an ethical brand image of the organization.
7 |Page Disability and Diversity
COMMANDMENTS TO BECOME A DISABLED FRIENDLY COMPANY i. Inculcating a positive attitude towards people with disabilities and following non-discriminatory employment practices. ii. Formalising a policy to retain employment without reduction of rank of people who may become disabled. iii. Providing appropriate aids/technology/attendants to support disabled employees in the workplace. iv. Extending certain extra benefits like providing transport to work, rights to special leave, additional medical allowance, etc, to people with disabilities/ partners of disabled persons/or parents of disabled children. v. vi. Not denying promotion to people with disabilities on grounds of disability. Creating a safe working environment to prevent health hazards and accidents.
8 |Page Disability and Diversity
CHALLENGES FACED BY COMPANIES i. Designing better infrastructure and making existing infrastructure facilities used by employees readily accessible to and usable by persons with disabilities. ii. Job restructuring, modifying work schedules and reassignment of people with disability to a vacant position.
iii.
Acquiring or modifying equipment or devices, adjusting or modifying examinations, training materials, or policies, and providing qualified readers or interpreters, and other similar accommodations for individuals with disabilities.
iv.
Bringing a paradigm shift in the attitude of people and the way people with disability are viewed.
v.
Recruiting more people with disability in the organisation
9 |Page Disability and Diversity
CONCLUSION
After carrying our research and analysis we feel that inclusion of people with disability, which is about 2% of our population (around 25 million) in the workforce, adds another dimension to the diversity. People with disability are as productive and dependable as any other employee. Having them in the work force will not only increase the esteem of people with disability but also motivate other team-mates, which can further increase the overall productivity of the organization. Though there has been a lot of enthusiasm at the ground level and there are provisions and various laws in our constitution but still there are implementation short falls when it comes to employing people with disability. There is lack of awareness and attitude problem towards the people with disability. Implementation hurdles are majorly at the level of infrastructural development and attitude shifts towards the people with disability. Government organizations like the Indian Railways have harnessed the potential of this segment by employing people with disability for making announcements at railway stations across the nation. Organizations like Tata’s, Infosys, Wipro, etc. have also actively involved themselves towards including people with disability in their workforce and are greatly benefitting from it. Other organizations must take this as an example and follow suit. Inclusive disability representation in the workforce is the true picture of diversity at workplace today.
10 | P a g e Disability and Diversity
doc_968088968.doc