Handicapped Thinking

So, you are fortunate enough to see increased business and you need another employee. Let us say this position does not require continuous walking, heavy lifting, and honestly, it requires someone more in the administrative field. You post the job in several favorite places and you wait for responses.

Because the skill level is unique, you receive few resumes. The position requires a graduate degree in instructional design. Your first candidate seems like a good skill match from reading her resume. A phone call from your HR representative identifies the candidate as a female. The meeting is set for the next day, Tuesday.

Tuesday morning your potential candidate arrives and the receptionist escorts her to the interview room. As she walks in the door, you notice this female African-American applicant staggers as if disoriented or drunk. If we follow Malcolm Gladwell’s advice in “blink”, we formed an opinion that may be the end of interview. The stagger, caused for whatever reason, throw red flags up in the air. It is now solely the responses and responsibility of the applicant to hire. Your mind is now fogged with immediate information imbalancing your mental vision and expectations.

As you continue the interview, you notice the mismatch of her “stagger” and her responses. She is intelligent, lucid, and well qualified, except for that mysterious stagger, which oh by the way is now nonvisible as she sits at the table. As the interview continues she divulges she has MS (Multiple sclerosis) causing her stagger and imbalance. While this information clears initial questions, does it raise more red flags? Medical risks, office environment risks, insurance risks, or cost for office realignment to host her hiring. What are your thoughts?

If you pass the idea on red flags and look beyond your office, you discover she can work from home and still provide services you need. It takes thinking beyond your conventional means at times to assure America’s handicapped gain employment.

I recall lore while I attended Navy technical training in Great Lakes, Illinois. Highway tollbooth-operator turnover ran high and state employment could barely stay even with hiring and exiting. What caused this high turnover rate?

Exit interviews nearly all read the same. Exiting employees claimed boredom and confinement inside tollbooths caused stress and little relief sitting throughout their shift. Hiring personnel failed to predict these issues when hiring. New hires were not aware of the pending confinement to a chair inside a 3x4 foot “shack.” So now the dilemma, what improvements should we make workers to improve conditions.

Enlarging the shacks failed the practicality test. They tried breaks that are more frequent for operators yet that only solved a small portion of turnover

Without dragging out the process, a volunteer with a handicap organization offered hiring her personnel as a test. This action resulted in a win-win for all. More handicapped employment, less turnover for state jobs, and better attendance and on-the-job performance.

Lore or not, it is not only believable but both possible and plausible. Without blame or shame, we need to rethink many of our positions, our opinions, and our needs on diversity and inclusion. Neither diversity nor inclusion revolves around just race, religion, or culture.