Industry/Market – Cover Story
As good as anyone else


The story of how Bangalore-based company Mindtree had its visual identity designed by a team of spastic students is reasonably well known, as it is the fact that Mindtree’s entire office is decorated by designs from those same students. What is not widely known is that Mindtree walked the talk and has hired a number of physically challenged people at jobs that suit their abilities.

Latha, a spastic girl from the same school, has been with the company since its very inception. Kalyan Kumar Banerjee, vice-president, C2 initiatives, MindTree, admits that Latha has earned her stature as an essential part of the MindTree team. “She is our face to the world. She sits in the front office and handles all our calls and visitors. And she does a great job of it too.” The company has another spastic software programmer who has already jumped three jobs, and the company hopes it can find a way to retain him. It is also a company that it is very protective of its employees.

Similarly, Xansa India (the erstwhile IIS Infotech) has also taken on physically-challenged employees. One of them, an assistant consultant in the technical stream, doesn’t have a voice box, but that hasn’t affected his job performance. The other has an artificial limb and works as assistant manager in the company’s finance division.

Says, Saurabh Srivastava, CEO, Xansa India, “We are proud of their performance. At Xansa, we have a policy that no person should be denied an opportunity simply because they happen to suffer from disability of any kind. We, therefore, have people with different kinds of disabilities at various levels. We have no hesitation in saying their performance is at least as good as or better than that of their more fortunate peers.” Xansa is also one of the few companies where all offices across the country are disabled-friendly.

Vamsi Dhar works at PSI Data Systems administration department and walks up one floor on crunches everyday. Two weeks ago, PSI’s HR head says. “Dhar played an in-house cricket match, bowled two overs squatting on a mat and took two wickets.”

Will to succeed is the only constraint
All these stories have something in common. They are stories of grit, unusual determination and an undying will to succeed. More importantly, all these stories are of people most decidedly seeking equal, and not special, treatment. Says Banerjee, “First of all we are not very comfortable with the word disabled. We prefer to call them differently-abled. Plus, we are always aware of the fact that what they are asking for is that they be treated like everyone else, be taken on their merits. We are careful not to treat them differently.” PSI echoes the sentiment. “We asked Dhar if he had difficulty climbing up the stairs and needed help. He said no and we left it at that. We have no intention of making him feel any different from the rest of us because of his special problem.”

Does this mean the IT industry is going through a major transformation? Not really, because another common thread in all these stories is that most of them?with few exceptions?came across their jobs by accident…through chance meetings with understanding recruiters. These are individual initiatives by individual employees and employers. The physically challenged still find a little less than 0.6% representation in the industry.

Policy lacunae a big hurdle
The reason is simple. Though it is most ready for it, the IT industry, like all other business segments in the country, has no policy on the hiring of physically challenged people. Which is a bit of a surprise, due to many factors.

For one, though the IT industry created adaptive technologies targeting particular disabilities, most people within the industry are surprisingly unaware that such technologies exist. Many, for instance, draw the line at hiring blind people. Faneesh Kumar, PSI, says, “The kind of work we do is application software development, which requires coding. So we can never think of blind people.” Yet, Mehta at IBM handles mainframes. He is not an exception. Most people within the industry did not know what a screen-reader was or what a voice synthesizer did. They were also unaware of the fact that special pointing devices existed for people with motor disabilities in their hands.

Then again, large multinationals in the industry come with a history of what is called “equal access” facilities and a knowledge of what “reasonable accommodation” for the physically challenged means. In most of the western world and in parts of South-East Asia, notably Singapore, there are laws that are strictly enforced.

Briefly, there are the two concepts that the international law on disability deals with:

· QUALIFIED INDIVIDUAL WITH A DISABILITY: The basic premise is that at the workplace, one is only talking of people who meet the fundamental professional requirements for the job. There can be no compromise on that. A qualified individual with a disability is thus defined as “an individual with a disability whose experience, education and/or training enable the person, with reasonable accommodation, to perform the essential functions of the job”.

· REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION: The second premise is that while companies are not expected to discriminate against people based on their disabilities, they are also not expected to make unreasonable adjustments (that would include undue costs and extensive or disruptive changes) for them. As such, “reasonable accommodation” is what a company can do in terms of structuring the job or work environment and providing assisting devices to accommodate a disabled employee without undue hardship to itself.

Ranjan Chak, executive director, Oracle Software India and head, development center, Oracle India, says, “We make this accommodation. This may include job retraining, an adjusted work schedule, special equipment or transportation, or job modification to optimize performance.” The company’s 80,000-sq ft facility in Bangalore has also been designed for equal access, from external ramps to restrooms on the ground floor that can support wheelchair access even for visitors.

Majority turns a blind eye
Yet, barring exceptions like Oracle, Philips and a few others, most MNCs and large Indian companies don’t take the trouble of doing anything. Surprisingly so, for quite a few of these same companies have specific policies on the hiring of the disabled and on providing equal access facilities in their buildings in their offices in other parts of the world.

As the India head of one of the biggest IT firms in the world said, “…but Indian law doesn’t require it!” However, should such companies wait for laws to be passed to provide some of the most basic facilities? Says Srivastava, “Such laws can only serve as guidelines. Large companies should be sensitive to the needs of their employees. Rather than wait for laws, they should be proactive in providing such facilities and consider this as a social obligation.”

Mehta, having seen both sides of the picture?a law-bound US and an indifferent India?tends to lean towards a more voluntary system. “Personally, I’m not a big proponent of ruthless enforcement of the law. It is education that is the real solution.” He explains why: “In the US, it is considerably easier to find a job at the entry level. But advancement is a hell of a problem. They wouldn’t mind throwing a few dollars at you, giving a little software and hiring you. But involving you, leveraging your abilities, trusting you?its very difficult for the middle management.” Remarkably, Mehta finds that though India’s infrastructure for the disabled is pathetic, mindsets are more open.

But really, to ask a basic question?why should industry care? Why should it make any accommodation at all? Certainly, the numbers don’t justify it: while there may be a lot of physically challenged people, not all of them are trained for this sector. Besides, Indian law doesn’t demand any accommodation. Nor frankly, does morality.

But this isn’t really about numbers or law or morality. It’s about something simpler: decency, a sense of social responsibility and basic intellectual honesty. If this is the knowledge industry, then that is where it should focus?on the minds that house that knowledge. All else is secondary.

No story on the physically challenged would be complete without a mention of Stephen Hawking, one of the brightest minds of our age. A terribly-affected spastic and an incredibly great mind. Sometimes, however, superlatives and larger-than-life personalities tend to overshadow quieter courage closer at hand. Niranjan Nerlige, Jyotindra Mehta, Vamsi Dhar and many more like them?these are ordinary people doing extraordinary things right here. Does that give them a right to reasonable accommodation at the workplace? That, could be argued about? But have they earned it? No question about that.

Source: DATAQUEST
Issue: Dated 30th April, 2001