As of 2015, only 10 Nifty companies were sensitive to the issue of employing People with Disabilities (PwDs), and were employing 90% of the 8,551 disabled employees working in the 50 companies in the index, according to data compiled by ETIG.

The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 mandates a 3% quota for differently-abled in all government jobs, for positions that are both directly selected, or through promotion. This was done with the aim of ensuring that the disabled people develop a more secure sense of self and social belonging. However, as per a Report carried by the Economic Times in December 2015 Public Sector Companies (PSUs) were falling short of this 3% reservation in their work force (table taken from Economic Times).

On a positive note, the following companies have been taking steps towards making their employee rolls more inclusive by hiring and retaining People with Disabilities:

Lemon Tree Hotels started recruiting people with Down Syndrome and hearing & speech impediments in 2007. They learned that differently abled genuinely indicated a new skill set. In their observation, employees with speech and hearing impediments have the amazing ability to clean more rooms a day compared to the non-disabled. This is attributed to the fact that no gossip or conversation distracts them. 13% of their employees are differently abled.

The Hotel Chain trains differently able employees for 10 days in a programme it calls ‘See, Smile, Greet’. It provides the speech and hearing impaired with sign language interpreters and videos, to show and teach them how to go about their jobs. Employees with Down Syndrome receive one hour of training in a workday, so that they experience no information overload. These Down Syndrome employees also carry whistles, which they use when they feel overwhelmed in any situation. The hearing and speech impaired carry notepads and pens to communicate.

Aradhana Lal, Vice-President, Sustainability Initiatives at The Lemon Tree Hotel Company in this article published in HR Katha in 2016 had mentioned, “The group started in 2003 and the work on inclusion began in 2007. We began with speech and hearing impaired and for two years we completely focussed on that. Beginning with two to three people at one of our Gurgaon properties, we kept increasing the numbers by three to four in different cities as we kept growing and learning about how to engage with people with disabilities.”

The hotel chain ITC employees many PwDs in its hotels around India. Depending on the kind and severity of their disability, individuals are provided with roles that suit them.

Capgemini started recruiting the differently abled in 2012. It has more than 200 employees with hearing, speech and visual impairment, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. The company feels that the disabled work harder than most other people. The roles given to the differently abled range from account processing, technology support and software development to support functions such as recruitment and consulting.

The company provides hearing-impaired trainees with sign language interpreters for the first 15 days, to help them integrate with their teams, while their seniors and peers and sensitised and also given sign-language training to overcome communication barriers. The company also has a voluntary disclosure in the form of Disability Self Identification Form where employees can avail of reasonable adjustment for their work-related needs.

The company also engages with employees in periodic sensitization workshops and disability etiquette training.

Capgemini received the following marquee recognitions for its inclusive practise”

IBM boasts of a special policy around hiring people with disabilities. This policy revolves around what IBM calls the three As – Accommodation, Accessibility, and Attitude. The company engages PwDs in departments such as Project Management, Programming, Consulting, Operations, Quality Assurance and Human Resources. It also boasts of India specific technologies that increase accessibility for PwDs such Hindi Speech recognition solutions.

In 2016, IBM conducted four-hour awareness sessions for senior employees on unconscious bias and the need for more differently-abled employees in the workforce.

Wipro started hiring PwDs in 2008. As of 2016, the company employed 353 PwDs on a regular basis, and 72 PwDs on contractual basis.

The company’s framework is comprehensive and ensure that inclusion becomes an integral part of culture and working. Its hiring policy for PwDs is merit-based across all roles and not just in “identified jobs”. Differently abled employees are given long-term focus.

The IT solutions company provides assistive technology, transport facility and physical infrastructure to its differently-abled employees. It boasts of having PwDs in all level of employees, from managers/supervisors to technical level and entry level employees.

SAP Labs India hired an additional 10 differently-abled in 2016. Recently, it implemented the suggestions that came from a formal accessibility audit of it facilities, such as special evacuation chairs for people in wheelchairs, braille signs across all buildings in the campus.

In 2011, SAP started working with the Autism Society of Indian to choose candidates with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The company took advantage of the candidate’s photographic memory to perform complex tests, which would involve about 50 steps. When they were  tested against regular engineers, it was found that the regular engineers were right on 80 percent of the occasions, while those with autism were right every time.

By 2020, SAP Aims to have 1% of its global workforce made up of autistic employees who can be fit into relevant IT roles.

Since 2010, Accenture has been running the ‘Skills to Succeed’ initiative in India. The programme empowers persons with disabilities, who receive training in the skills needed in some high-demand job sectors, namely – business process outsourcing, hospitality and facilities management, retail, construction and micro-enterprise.

The company has a network called ‘PwD Champions Network’ that includes PwD employees & theor supporters known as ‘Champions’. All its facilities are accessible by PwDs.

Accenture also provides business cards printed in Braille to all its inclusion and diversity sponsors to sensitise and impact people. In the workplace, it encourages reasonable modifications to a job or the work environment to ensure that a qualified individual with a disability has rights and privileges equal to those of employees without disabilities.

The Tata Group employs the differently abled in Titan Industries, Tanishq and Tata Motors.

Titan Industries, Tata group’s watch-making division started employing the disabled in 1980s. The differently abled constitute about 4 percent of Tata’s employees. They are given tasks with low levels of body risk, the least physical movement and minimum verbal communication.

In 2016, Vishal Kumar, a Class-9 school dropout made news when he was appointed as project manager at Tata Motors. Vishal is visually challenged.

Mirakle Couriers was started by Dhruv Lakra, an alumnus of HR College, Mumbai and the prestigious Oxford University in 2010. He began to hire hearing-impaired because they are extremely good at map-reading and remembering roads and buildings because they are so visually inclined. The company associates with NGOs to recruit its employees (currently 70), and delivers more than 65,000 shipments a month.

The company trains its PwDs by asking them to shadow experienced employees to see the kind of work they do. If comfortable, the company allows them to work independent of supervision.

Hiring the Speech Impaired differently abled is a part of Café Coffee Day’s hiring policy. These speech-impaired differently abled have been hired by the Company to brewing coffees behind the counter. They are given the tag of the ‘Silent Brewmasters’. They have heightened sense of smell and vision and hence ensure the most visually appealing presentation of coffees.

Café Coffee Day has a Vocational Training College at Chikmaglur, Bangalore to impart quality education to differently abled. On successful completion of their courses in hotel management these individuals are offered employment in CCD outlets across the country. In the year 2013, the company received the prestigious ‘Shell Helen Keller Award’ in the Role Model Companies category for their contributions in improving the lives of Persons with Disabilities by encouraging change in recruitment attitude.

The Coffee Shop chain overall employs around 100 (15% of store employee base) and is planning at increasing the number of PwDs and hiring them gradually across all stores.

One novelty about the chain is that its outlet in Green Park, Delhi is completely run by PwDs.

KFC conducts hearing and speech impaired training projects and employees 170 specially-abled employees across 20 stores in India. The company started the KFC Academy to develop skills which increase employability not only in KFC but across all retail food chains. The fully sponsored 11-week (60 hours) training program teaches young, hearing-impaired differently abled English, Critical Skills, realistic job preview, food safety, industry familiarisation, life skills and grooming.

Jubilant FoodWorks runs the “Inclusive Employment Program” for PwDs. Till date, they have recruited more than 200 people having hearing and speech impairment across the country in their restaurants. In order to further institutionalize this program , they boast of being the first company in India to institutionalize the Inclusive Development of PwDs and have developed online training modules to sensitizing their employees.

In 2016, the company introduced a programme that will see differently-abled employees in managerial roles in 1 or 2 years. As of 2016, the company also panned to have one differently-abled worker in tier-1 city outlets that have 25 or more employees.

The list does not end with these companies; Microsoft, J.P Morgan, Symantec, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon, MakeMyTrip, Britannia, Big Bazaar, Mphasis and ICICI Bank all boast of having differently abled employees. However, there is no public data available to gauge the depth and breadth of the policies being converted into actual processes.

If you know of any organization that is doing active and fabulous work in employing People with Disabilities, do reach out to us through comments on this post or send us a mail on contact@ungender.in