Shifting Perceptions: Right Person, Right Job

At Champions, we are often solicited by employers who would like more information about hiring and retaining persons with disabilities in their respective workplaces. When working with various employers we generally like to start by addressing many misconceptions that exist about persons with disabilities. Education and awareness can often go a long way towards removing stigma and discrimination and can be part of promoting greater participation of persons with with disabilities in the workplace.

For the next couple of weeks we are going to do a series of posts on this blog titled Shifting Perceptions. In these posts we will discuss many of the myths and misconceptions which exist and hopefully paint a truer picture of the reality of including persons with disabilities in the workplace.

Today's Myth: Persons who are deaf are perfect for noisy work environments.

Fact: Some loud noises can actually cause further harm to the auditory system. Persons who are deaf should be hired for all jobs that they have the skills and talents to perform. No person with a disability should be prejudged regarding employment opportunities.

At Champions, we see first hand how the right person
with the right skills in the right job is mutually
beneficial for everyone involved. Regardless of disability.  

This is a very specific myth regarding people with hearing impairments, but it represents an all too prevalent way of approaching inclusive hiring. Wheelchair user? Desk job then. Visual impairment? Answering phones. Bipolar? Maybe they should work alone. Down Syndrome? I have a cousin with that and he can't work. This is a dangerous way of thinking and often reflects the human tendency to generalize our thinking and stereotype based on past experiences.

One of my favourite books is Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman - a Nobel prize winning psychologist. It is primarily a book on decision making and how the human mind works in reaching conclusions. One of the concepts Kahneman introduces is What You See Is All There Is (WYSIATI). This theory states that when the mind makes decisions, it deals primarily with phenomena it has already observed. It rarely considers phenomena that it knows to be relevant but about which it has no information, and it appears completely oblivious to the possibility of unknown phenomena of unknown relevance.

Kahneman explains that people often fail to take into account complexity, thus their understanding of the world consists of a small and not necessarily representative set of observations. He explains how the mind generally does not account for the role of chance, or other external factors, and therefore falsely assumes that future events will mirror past ones.

What You See Is All There Is can definitely manifest itself when thinking about persons with disabilities. We have a tendency to quickly form opinions about certain types of disabilities based on past experiences. We often have employers tell us they "hired a person with a disability once and it didn't work out" - as though every disability is the same, and every person living with a disability is also the same.

The range of disabilities is almost endless, and the way that everyone experiences their disability is infinite. Stereotyping persons with disabilities into one large group, or even aggregated groups, does not speak to the range of possibilities and can often lead to stigmatization based on misconceptions. Even more troubling is that thinking this way denies the range of abilities and skills that persons with disabilities possess, which is just as varied as persons without disabilities.

At Champions we understand that not every person is a fit for every job. Who hasn't seen a coworker get let go because of poor attitude or performance? But by understanding the key elements of any position, then you will be able to look at the skills, experience and ability of a candidate and make a hiring decision based on fit.

One of our connections on LinkedIn, Ian Wilson, had this to say about hiring the right person for the right job:

"The right person, in the right job with the right tools does not have a disability with respect to their ability to perform the job."

We couldn't agree more Ian.

Managing Fatigue in the Workplace, Part 1

I think everyone can relate to the idea of being tired at work. We all feel burned out at one point or another, whether it be from stress, overwork, or just a serious case of the Mondays. Fatigue can be both physical and/or mental, depending on the kind of work you are tasked with doing. It is also not uncommon to feel physically wiped out due to being taxed mentally, or vice versa.

However, when you live with a disability, fatigue can be a daily reality and one of the biggest challenges when trying to be productive at work. For myself, one of the biggest eye openers when I returned to work following a brain injury was the level of fatigue I experienced. It was not uncommon for me to go home after work and nap for several hours, and most of my evenings were spent simply recovering from the work day. 

During my rehabilitation, my doctors and therapists were adamant about the fact that I needed to manage my fatigue. They gave me several pointers on how to do so and helped me develop a plan which could aid in my recovery. Hence the inspiration for this series of posts. 

While my experience directly relates to dealing with a brain injury, properly managing fatigue can help anyone with a disability be more successful at work. We always tell prospective job hunters to have a plan in place to tell your employer how you will deal with your disability at work - doing this allows an employer to see your ability, rather than disability. 

Without much further ado...

Managing Fatigue in the Workplace, Part 1: Keeping an Activity Journal

(Cue the eyeroll)

Is there anything that gets more eyerolls than telling people to journal? I know because I have done and seen it happen myself dozens of times. I am pretty certain my sigh was audible from blocks away when my doctor first told me to keep an activity journal. Journalling often falls into the area of life where some of us do it, many people wish they could make more time to do it, and still others scoff at it. 

The good news is that an activity journal is a lot different than a personal journal, or travel diary, and takes a lot less work. The even better news is that it can be really helpful in managing fatigue. 

If you find yourself getting very fatigued at work, or in your daily life, an activity journal is a tremendous resource for understanding how your body works and what is wearing you down. It allows you to move from generalities like "work is tiring", or "I am on my feet too much", to finding out how your body specifically responds to different tasks throughout the day. It will also let you see how different tasks can combine to wear you down. Once you understand how you are getting fatigued you can then begin to arrange your day and schedule in ways that will help mitigate this.  

The simplest format for an activity diary is to jot down at four different times during the day of what tasks you did and how you are feeling. A good starting place is once when you get up, then at noon, when you finish work, and again in the evening before you go to bed. Each entry need not be more than a couple of lines or jotted notes on what you have been doing, and your level of fatigue. 

Keeping task of how you feel first thing in the morning and in the evening can also allow you to see how the level of activity in your personal life may be affecting your work life. Spending all night cleaning the house, doing laundry, or socializing - things we take for granted - may be wearing you down as well. 

If you really feel that certain tasks at work are wearing you down then you can also log your activities more frequently. 

For myself, I started off using a small notebook to track my daily activities and then eventually switched to a diary app (there are literally dozens of them) on my smartphone to make things easier. 

After only a week I was able to look at my log with my doctor and begin to strategize ways to minimize stress on my brain and body. 

We will be back later this week with ideas on how to reduce stress and fatigue at work, but the first step is knowing what exactly the problem is. Yes it may sound cheesy, but I encourage you to give an activity journal a try, you may be surprised by what you learn. 

  

Shifting Perceptions: Absenteeism

At Champions, we are often solicited by employers who would like more information about hiring and retaining persons with disabilities in their respective workplaces. When working with various employers we generally like to start by addressing many misconceptions that exist about persons with disabilities. Education and awareness can often go a long way to removing stigma and discrimination and can be part of promoting greater participation of persons with with disabilities in the workplace.

For the next couple of weeks we are going to do a series of posts on this blog titled Shifting Perceptions. In these posts we will discuss many of the myths and misconceptions which exist and hopefully paint a truer picture of the reality of including persons with disabilities in the workplace.

Today's Myth: Absenteeism

If I hire an employee with a disability they will have a higher absentee rate than employees without

disabilities.

Fact: Studies have repeatedly shown that employees with disabilities are not absent any more than employees without disabilities. Many studies have shown a different trend - that individuals with disabilities have better attendance rates - and often stay with an employer longer - than their non-disabled counterparts.

The primary study on this topic was conducted by Du Pont in the early 1970's. In this study, 1,452 employees of Du Pont, including individuals with such disabilities as blindness, heart disease, vision impairment, amputation, epilepsy, paralysis, and hearing impairments were evaluated for performance and work attendance.

The key findings for workers with disabilities (compared to workers without disabilities) were:

• No lost time due to disabling injuries
• Job stability: average or better
• Special privileges: none.
• Attendance: 79% were average or better
• Job performance: 91% were average or better

Du Pont repeated this study two more times over the following 20 years with nearly identical results. 

Similar findings have been reported over and over again in the 30 years since the initial Du Pont study. Pizza Hut has reported that their annual turnover rate among non-disabled employees is about 150%, whereas the annual turnover rate for their employees with disabilities is less than 20%. In 2002, an Australian study of 800 employers found that employees with disabilities have lower levels of absenteeism and use less sick leave than their colleagues without disability.The costs to business of absenteeism and sick leave for employees with disability can be as low as 34 per cent of the cost incurred by their colleagues.

The Search for Untapped Talent: Alberta Labour Market Info, June 2013

A couple of interesting reports have been released in the last week regarding the labour market in Alberta. The first report, provided by the Alberta government, highlights several trends from the month of June in the province:

• Employment growth flat. Alberta’s employment dipped slightly (-700) in June, following
  two very strong months of job gains. June’s flat reading was largely due to losses in public
  sector jobs (-2,400), which more than offset the private sector gains (+1,600). Alberta has
  gained 55,100 jobs since June 2012, representing a 2.6% increase.
• Goods sector adds jobs. The agriculture (+2,800) and construction (+2,400) industries
  contributed the most to the 2,300 increase in goods sector employment gains. Employment
  in the services-producing sector fell by 3,100 in June, largely due to job losses in health
  care and social services (-6,600).
• Unemployment rate edges up as more people look for work. The unemployment rate
  moved up to 5.0 per cent in June. The increase was largely a result of 3,500 people joining
  the labour force.
• Weekly earnings continue to climb in March. Average weekly earnings increased to $1,098 in April. This is 3.4% higher than April of last year.

Even though overall employment dipped slightly, Alberta continues to have the highest employment rate in Canada. With an employment rate of 69.0% for jobseekers aged 15+, Alberta remains well above the national employment rate of 60.9%.

With employment growth flat you may be wondering about the impending labour shortage we continually hear about in Alberta. A new report from the University of Alberta’s Institute for Public Economics puts a steep price tag on the labour shortage - $33.5 billion dollars over the next four years.

To combat the shortage the report urges businesses to make greater use of under-tapped labour groups such as mature workers, people with disabilities and aboriginals.

To improve labour force participation of persons with disabilities they suggest that the government should take on the full cost of providing accommodations and making workplaces accessible to workers with disabilities. Consider this, by 2020 there will be over 525,000 people in Alberta living with a disability. This means that in the next 7 years there will be over 50,000 more persons with disabilities working in the province.

The report also raised eyebrows by suggesting to change immigrant policy by focusing more on bringing in skilled candidates from abroad, and eliminating temporary visas for unskilled labour. The idea being that vacancies in low skilled or semi-skilled positions can be filled by mature workers, persons with disabilities and aboriginals.

In response, many members of the tourist and hospitality industries stated that phasing out of the temporary visas for low skilled positions would be devastating. Temporary foreign workers currently account for 11% of all jobs in the accommodation industry.

What do you think? Will eliminating temporary visas for low skill positions help solve some of Alberta's labour problems, or make them worse?

Disability, Culture and Sexuality

Last week on this blog we started a discussion on disability and culture, and how disability forms just one part of our individual identities. However, the discussion remained largely theoretical and mainly focused on the many possible identities that can intersect in a given person's life.

Since that post last week there have been two incredible articles posted on the web that really highlight how disability intersects with other aspects of our lives. The first article, The ABC of OCD, chronicles the journey of Milton - a 46 year old Australian man living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). For Milton, the trigger of mental illness was the realization of his sexual orientation and also coincided with the development of an addiction:

"Milton says realising he was gay was his trigger, "I was fraught with renouncing thoughts about my sexuality, I was scared I would go to hell for being gay and conflicted by the suicidal thoughts I was having because that would send me to hell too.

In his late teens Milton became an alcoholic, while seeking treatment for his addiction, his OCD was also diagnosed."

Milton still battles daily with OCD and believes telling his story helps lift stigma while contributing to his own sense of self-worth. 

Feelings of self-worth are often right at the crux of where culture and disability intersect. Take this story, "Bulls Eye",  by Dave Hingsburger, a Canadian disability author and advocate. The other day, a random person threw a bag of garbage at Dave - simply because that person thought he should watch where he was going. This isn't a rare event for Dave, who as a person using a wheelchair often finds himself on the receiving end of abuse. In his own words, 

"I am used to people throwing things at me. I'm used to people rolling down windows of cars passing by so that they can lean out to throw 'piggy piggy' sounds at me. I'm used to being hit by trash, regularly, 'fatso,' 'lardass,' 'pigface.' I'm used to people throwing stares at me, I'm used to glances turning into lances and cutting me open. The other day it was so bad I had to touch Joe on the arm and say, "I've got to get out of here."

He continues,

"Never once, not once, in the last 7 years, since I became a fat wheelchair user, have I gone a single day in public space without many someones engaging in social violence. Bullying isn't strong enough a word, it's social violence, plain and simple. Not one day."

Again, we often think of culture as something foreign, or as a non-Canadian identity. But our own culture, and how we assess self-worth and perceive the worth of others, shapes our perception and treatment of persons with disabilities. 

I highly recommend subscribing to Dave's Blog, Rolling Around in My Head, as he provides daily insight into how disability, culture, and sexuality intersect. Both the good and the bad.  

When Culture Meets Disability

When we discuss diversity and inclusion, especially in regards to employment, there is a tendency to divide people into separate categories: Women, aboriginals, visible minorities, LGBT, and persons with disabilities. Attempts at hiring diverse talent often includes targeting individuals who appears to represent one of these distinctions.

However, human beings rarely fall into such clearly delineated categories. We are complex beings and have multiple identities.  It is not extremely rare to see an aboriginal woman living with a disability, or a gay man who is also a new migrant to Canada. Understanding how to truly be inclusive, and overcoming barriers and misconceptions, then requires an understanding of how our different identities interact. Our personal lives, relationships, and workplaces can all be impacted by different conceptions of culture, religion, sexual orientation and disability.

Specifically, let's talk about culture and disability. It is common to think of culture as something foreign - so when we discuss culture in the workplace we often frame it around non-Canadian identities. But it is important to remember that we all have our own sense of culture and identity, and that these identities are formed all the way down from nationality to community to family. Different communities, cultures, and even religious faiths can respond to disability in different ways.

In an increasingly multicultural city like Calgary, it is becoming more and more common for us at Champions to see people respond to their disability differently - based on their various backgrounds and ethnicity. For example, in Canadian culture we have a tendency to explain disability in medical terms (Although this dominant way of thinking is often challenged by persons would rather see disability defined in terms of how society creates barriers to the disabled). However, other cultures and religions may explain disability in different terms, such as through blame, punishment, or a form of karma.

In many cultures it is not unusual for a disability to be blamed on the activities of a mother or parent. It may be blamed on something they did during pregnancy, but also extend to sins or transgressions they may have committed in this life or in previous ones. In this sense a disability can often be treated as a source of shame, resulting in it being quietly ignored within a family or social circle. Responding to disability in this manner can lead to neglect of the person, or isolating and separating them from society.

Treating disability in this manner happens in all cultures. People living with HIV/AIDS in Western cultures were often treated with total neglect and isolated during the early stages of the outbreak as people feared their disease but also associated them with a highly stigmatized lifestyle.

When we talk about disability awareness and strategies for inclusion, whether it be in society or in the workplace, it thus becomes imperative to understand the different ways each of us respond to disability. People living with their disability may view their condition as a gift, a curse, or just an unfortunate accident. Similarly, people may explain another person's disability in those terms as well - which can create conflict when viewpoints differ.

Any discussion of inclusion must include an exploration of culture, faith and personal background. We often say that everyone experiences their disability in a unique way - there is not set path or golden ticket to building an integrated society. But if we pay attention to the details along the way we may just get a little bit closer.

This Girl is on Fire! Candice's Story

Last month, at our Annual Celebration, we had several of our clients give testimonials about their experience of looking for work while living with a disability.

Candice lost her arm to cancer when she was young and has been living with a disability her whole life, but only when she attempted to enter the Calgary workforce did she realize she might just need a little extra help.

This is her story.

Diversity Champion: The Westin Calgary

Embracing Diversity in all of its Facets

Didier Luneau, GM at The Westin Calgary,
 spends a day in a wheelchair
to better understand what it is like to
live with a disability. 

As an organization committed to helping employers build more inclusive workplaces we have a tendency to focus on persons with disabilities – this is our mandate after all. However, embracing diversity means embracing many different groups of people alongside persons with disabilities, including women, visible minorities and immigrants, aboriginals and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) peoples.  

Being an employer committed to diversity means embracing all of these groups, and our Diversity Champion for the month of July, The Westin Calgary, does just that.

Didier Luneau, General Manager at The Westin Calgary, believes the core of diversity is showing respect to individuals. “We have a lot of passion at The Westin Calgary for diversity and inclusion,” he says, “we know the more diversity we have in the hotel, the better we can accommodate our guests and our associates.”

The Westin Calgary partners with Champions and other community organizations in Calgary for several reasons. To find diverse talent that can help meet their recruiting needs, to improve awareness about diverse peoples in the workplace, and to give back to the community in Calgary.

Posting jobs on the Champions employment board and working closely with our Employment and Retention Specialists to find the right people for the right job is just one way The Westin Calgary tries to find diverse talent.

“Calgary really is a melting pot,” says Susan Reeves, Director of Human Resources at the hotel, “our guests and associates come from all over the world and bring many different values, culture and possibilities to the workplace. All of our new associates go through diversity training when they begin – including disability awareness training.”

Recently, Didier spent an entire day in a wheelchair as part of the Chair-Leaders Enabling Access event in Calgary.

“It was a real eye opener for me,” Didier says. “People were friendly to me but I could tell that they were looking at me more for my disability than as another person. It was interesting to be in that position as I did not feel as recognized as usual. I felt more empathy rather than respect for what I am bringing to the table.”

His time in the wheelchair also meant Didier was able to personally experience and identify many of the barriers which exist in the hotel, both for a guest and an employee. He hopes that they will be able to make the necessary changes in the future.

As mentioned earlier, building an inclusive workplace for persons with disabilities is only one part of how The Westin Calgary embraces diversity. Over 34 different languages are spoken among employees at the hotel, representing numerous cultures from around the world. The hotel hosts different cultural days throughout the year to honour all the different heritages their employees come from.

At The Westin Calgary, embracing different cultures is seen as a smart business decision as it makes the hotel a more welcoming place for their guests and associates.  Hotel associates receive training in cultural etiquette and go as far as to encourage their cooks from different areas of the world to create meals based on their own culture. It’s all a part of making people feel at home by giving them a sense and a memory of where they are coming from.

The Westin Calgary is also keen to include women in roles they aren't traditionally represented in. For example, women are often underrepresented in areas like the kitchen and engineering/maintenance in the hospitality industry. The hotel strives to find and present opportunities to women who are interested in fulfilling these roles. The Westin also continually reaches out to the LGBT community. In fact, Starwood Hotels (The Westin's parent company) was the first hospitality company to become a partner with the Pride at Work initiative – a Canadian organization dedicated to improving the climate of inclusiveness for LGBT employees in the workplace.

Most of all, The Westin wants to contribute to building a better Calgary.

“The community is giving us a lot, and we want to give back as much as we can,” Didier explains.

Which is why The Westin Calgary partners with many organizations like Champions, Inn from the Cold, the Drop In Centre, Rupertsland Institute, Immigrant Services Calgary, La Table Des Chefs (The Chef Table), Calgary Children’s Foundation and many others to find creative ways to give back to the community.  

For four years in a row The Westin Calgary has experienced the highest employee satisfaction and engagement for all of the hotels in Starwood Canada. With their commitment to diversity and inclusion, it is easy to see why. 

Rating the Accessibility Features on Android Phones

*The following is a guest post by Mark Flores of Handi Enterprises. Mark has 17 years of experience in providing adaptive technology and communication devices and is confident that Handi Enterprise can provide solutions to meet your adaptive technology and communication needs. He recently reviewed the accessibility features on the iPhone in this article. 

Android phones are gaining in popularity. In part because of the popularity of the Samsung S series of smart phones. This is the 1st series of phones to use an Android platform that is similar to the iPhone operating system. Also, if you know what you are doing the open source format of Android operating systems allow you to customize the phone to meet your needs.

The Samsung S3 has a lot of almost gimmicky features such as hand wave call answer and the say cheese function to take a picture that are generating a lot of interest and as such we are seeing a lot of people with physical disabilities wanting to make the switch. In this blog post I will talk about my experience with using some of its accessibility features, and hopefully help you to answer the question of is it worth it to make the switch.

Ease-Of-Use

I found that the accessibility features on the Samsung Galaxy S3 were not that easy to find and even harder to turn on. Granted, this could be because of the operating system I was using. I was on the latest version of Jellybean. On the Jellybean OS, to find the accessibility features that I needed to use, I had to navigate a labyrinth of menus that felt like I was using a version of DOS. In my opinion, this would be very difficult for someone who does not have high finger dexterity. Also, some of the features that I used were not marked as accessibility features and were found in different menu trees. This was very confusing to me. Finally I had to do a lot of research on my own just to ascertain what some of these accessibility features did and how to use them - things like answering calls by voice were not clearly spelled out, it almost felt like they were hidden. When I had to find out what a particular function did, the Samsung YouTube became my closest friend. Again someone with a physical disability may not be up to doing a large amount of research; they may just want the features to be simple to understand and easy to use.

For these reasons I am giving the Samsung Galaxy S3 accessibility features a rating of 2 out of 5 for ease-of-use.

Responsiveness

To me this is the category where the Android accessibility features on the Samsung Galaxy S3 really fall down. As a person with a physical disability the more I can control my cell phone by voice the better. This is why I was really excited to spend 30 days with the Android operating system. The voice control features like using my voice to answer a call, to take a picture or to unlock my phone are a set of accessibility features that the iOS system does not currently have and at least in my mind, could have meant a migration for me from iOS to Android. It could have if those features were able to work more consistently.

During my 30 days embedded with the Samsung Galaxy S3 I found the voice control features to be amazing… when they decided to work. As a matter of fact, I could not get them to work with any sort of consistency. I found myself screaming at the phone to try and answer it by voice 75% of the time. Unfortunately, this was my experience across all of the voice control accessibility features of the Android OS. I just could not get any of them to consistently respond to me. This tells me that the voice control engine that they are using which is Google Voice/S Voice is nowhere near that of Siri, which was created by Nuance. If you are a person with a physical disability looking to use the voice control accessibility options of the Samsung Galaxy series of phones it was my experience that you have to dictate the commands you would like it to execute with a super consistent voice and volume. As well I could not get any of its features to work at all in any sort of noisy environment. So be prepared for that.

Even though the voice control features would have helped me out a lot I just could not get them to respond to me consistently. Therefore the responsiveness of the phones accessibility features receive a rating of 1 out of 5.

Does the product perform as advertised?

I would say that the voice control accessibility features of the Samsung Galaxy S3 aside, the other features that I use, such as read text or text zoom performed quite similarly to what you would expect to see from the iPhone. Although these features did require me to jump through a few extra hoops to get them to work. Many of the voice control features that I used to make the Samsung more accessible to me felt as though they were flashy casino slot machines meant to attract early adopters and were not stable enough to really be referred to as assistive technology for people with disabilities. I am only awarding the Samsung Galaxy S3 a score of 3 out of 5 for its accessibility features performing as advertised.

How much physical dexterity is required to use the product i.e. can anyone with any disability utilize it?

I was disappointed at how much physical dexterity I needed to have in order to use the Samsung Galaxy S3, even with its accessibility features. I am a person with a physical disability with limited dexterity and as such I find it difficult to use technology that requires a lot of setup before I can use it correctly, this was the exact mountain that I had to climb with the Samsung Galaxy S3, which is something that the average user with a physical disability may not be able to do.

Because some of the accessibility features like answering a phone call by my voice, among others, barely worked I found myself having to subsidize my use of the phone with the use of my fingers, which I should have not had to do if the accessibility features of the Samsung advertised with this phone worked correctly. The fact that the Samsung Galaxy S3 required a high level of dexterity to use it even with its accessibility features activated, I am only giving it a rating of 1 out of 5.

Overall Rating

Overall I have to say that I was underwhelmed with the accessibility features of the Samsung Galaxy S3. These features did not at all make it easier for me to use such a robust phone. They just were not stable enough and therefore were unable to perform as advertised the majority of the time. I cannot in good conscience recommend that someone with a physical disability look at purchasing it. The only way that I could recommend that someone with similar accessibility needs to my own look at using the Samsung Galaxy S3 is with the assistance of an alternative access device. Our next blog series will give an in-depth review of 2 of these types of devices. So stay tuned. I realize that Samsung has recently released the 4th generation in this phone series and with all new releases you would expect the features that I have detailed above to be better, and who knows maybe they are but I would not hold my breath. The Samsung Galaxy S3 and its accessibility features receive a disappointing overall rating of 7 out of 20.

Remember assistive technology is amazing when it works. We can help you get there.

Mark Flores