This is the third part of a blog series. You can find all my posts here.
Disabilities: Why is there so little focus on welcoming people with disabilities in the workplace? Granted, this is not about attracting a specific set of attributes (I don’t think that being in a wheelchair or being blind makes you more or less intelligent or collaborative), this is about one of the most basic duties that defines us as human beings: Care for the weaker one.
“Caring” today should not only mean paying some kind of welfare pittance on a monthly basis. “Caring” is empowering someone who is facing a greater challenge to feel useful and integrated in our society. Only once in my career have I worked closely with someone who had a disability. It was at Google in 2007 and he was a Summer Intern. He was 100% visually impaired and wanted some marketing experience. In parallel, he was also working on developing a program to enable blind people to use Excel in an easier way so they could process data faster. I hope he had a good internship. I did my best. What is guaranteed, is that he opened my eyes on the world we live in, and specifically the divide between the corporate environment and the “real” world, and how, to disabled people, the entrance lobby of corporations can feel like the wall of China.
Another great example I had with good integration of disabilities was at the GAP store on Oxford Street in London. Now, we’re talking about possibly the most expensive piece of real estate in the world for the GAP. Yet on the first floor in the women sport gear department I was welcomed by a mute and deaf shop assistant who proceeded to help me (very efficiently and with a smile) find what I was looking for. After congratulating the shop manager, on my way out, I felt elated, thinking “Well done the Gap!”.
The list of human traits and their opposites that a company may benefit from is endless. My point today is that I am concerned we’re over simplifying diversity so much we’re turning it into a politically-correct given, that is so obvious it yields the stand-still we’re suffering from. Diversity as we waste ink writing about today is not diversity, it’s compliance, and it leads nowhere but to avoid companies being pointed at, and shareholders being worried. Furthermore, all this talk about diversity completely forgets about the very group we should be focusing on in priority, and this is people suffering from disabilities.
Don’t look for women, hire brave people who will know how to take the appropriate risks but will also act stable in time of crisis.
Don’t focus on minorities, hire team players who dream of joining your company, specifically, and plan to stay put for a decade or become the next CEO.
Don’t focus on a specific sexual preference when you are recruiting, focus on the ability to question the status quo, to inspire and to take the company culture to the next level.
Then you’ll have it, real diversity.
* And before anyone thinks I am racist, I invite them to check my friends list on Facebook and know that I have worked abroad all my life, I have been a minority my entire career and have been turned down for jobs because I was “too young” or “too French”!
Article may also be found on LinkedIn