Employing people with disabilities has become a common practice at workplace. More and more employers take equality issues more seriously introducing equal opportunity policies that offer to people with documented disabilities the same opportunities for employment – where realistic – as to people with no disclosed disabilities. In this context, it is not uncommon to encounter in a diverse workplace a wide range of people with a wide range of disabilities including deaf or hearing impaired individuals.
Considering for employment a person who is totally or partially deaf is often encountered at workplace provided that the job description of the position that needs to be filled out can be equally accomplished by someone with full hearing ability or someone with decreased hearing ability. Employers need to make sure that during the interview an individual with an excellent knowledge of sign language is present in order to act as an interpreter. Besides, the presence of a sign language speaker in the interview automatically guarantees equal opportunity for employment and fair interview policy to the person with the hearing disability.
Although there are no legal requirements for a workplace to employ people who are competent in sign language, there are no legal grounds for discriminating against people on the grounds of a disability. Hence, it could be argued that if the company is about to employ hearing impaired individuals, or the rest of the employees are about to come into contact with deaf individuals, it is imperative that a sign language speaker is employed.
In many cases, training opportunities in sign language are offered by companies to other staff members. This facilitates communication with people with hearing disabilities, but it also reflect the company’s ethics, which shows priority to workplace needs and safety. There are numerous national programs for getting trained in sign language, run and organized by representatives of the deaf community who are more than happy to implement such trainings in order to raise awareness of the significance of effective communication at workplace.
Regardless if one is trained in sign language or not, many people use sing language at workplace, instinctively, without realizing it. In loud working environments, people cannot always communicate by voice and cannot always hear everything that is said around them. So, often they apply non-verbal communication.
Similarly, doctors apply non-verbal communication as they wear masks in the operating rooms and they are constantly in noisy and frantic environments. They often use facial expressions and despite of these being crude forms of sign language, still they exist and they may even be further developed over time.
Conclusively, public awareness about sign language facilitates its equal existence and evolvement at workplace. People are getting more and more educated acquiring a whole new spectrum of knowledge, not only about sign language, but about deaf culture in general. This enables employers and employees to harness the existing skills at workplace, creating an equal and pleasant environment for people with hearing disabilities to thrive as active members of the organizational team.
I work as a financial and investment advisor but my passion is writing, music and photography. Writing mostly about finance, business and music, being an amateur photographer and a professional dj, I am inspired from life.
Being a strong advocate of simplicity in life, I love my family, my partner and all the people that have stood by me with or without knowing. And I hope that someday, human nature will cease to be greedy and demanding realizing that the more we have the more we want and the more we satisfy our needs the more needs we create. And this is so needless after all.