Disability is the buzzword today which has led different corporate offices in India to come forward to show their willingness to work with and provide equal opportunities to differently abled people. In one such event, Springboard Consulting, which works extensively towards bringing people with disabilities into the mainstream, awarded different corporate organisations that work to enhance the participation of disabled people in the workforce, on September 18 in Bangalore. A 'Disability Matters' conference preceded the awards function which briefed the participants from the Asia-Pacific (ASIAPAC) region about working with people who have special needs.

Subhash Rao, senior director, human resources at Cisco, one of the award winners at the event, spoke about the various measures taken by Cisco for providing sustainable working conditions for differently abled people. “There is no reason for differently abled people to look for vocational jobs,” he said.

Rao also said that technology can help people who are differently abled to block out biases against them. Nadine O Vogel, CEO, Springboard Consulting agreed with Rao and said that people judge differently abled people when they meet them and as they have biases against them in their mind. “With technology you can create remote offices using just a laptop and broadband. People do not have to actually meet to work together. This way their abilities speak for themselves and not their physical appearances,” said Vogel.

“When they finally meet, they realise that disability was never a limiting factor in a person's performance. It can change their outlook towards people with disabilities,” she added.

We need to create role models, awareness meets and other such activities to communicate to differently abled people that they are also equal contenders in today's workforce.

Vogel said that there is a certain stigma attached to hiring disabled people, especially in high profile companies, which needs to be removed.

While Cisco did not provide any statistics about the number of disabled people they have hired since the companies inception, Gregory Neal Akers, senior vice-president, intelligence and security, Cisco said that there are “several thousand” people in Cisco's Disability Awareness Network out of its 70,000 workforce across the world.

While Cisco does not have any policy in place for hiring people with disabilities or for creating special jobs for them, Rao said that the office is “equal opportunity” and application from differently abled people are welcome.

Akers added that the recruiting staff is especially trained to interview and hire people with disabilities and that there are trainings conducted for the staff to be sensitive to the needs of such candidates.