Hearing impaired sidelined at workplaces

Persons with hearing disabilities face tough challenges at workplaces as companies across the board are not sensitive towards their needs and requirements. This has been revealed by a report on  ‘Working experiences of Deaf Employees in India’released by Centum Foundation last week.  

The report released at an event ‘Creating Inclusion for Persons with Disabilities (PwDs)’ at the Constitution Club of India, New Delhi highlights the challenges faced by the hearing impaired at their workplaces in India. 

Aarti Chandna, Head, Centum Foundation, said, “Centum GRO Initiative has been empowering the Deaf by offering self-initiation training program to the Deaf. In India many deaf individuals are reluctant to take up a job because of the unfavourable environment or even if they manage to bag a job, do not stick around for a considerable period of time. And, this is primarily because of the lack of inclusiveness and sensitivity in their work environment. This survey is the first step to create awareness about the situation and take cognizance of the fact that only providing employment to PwDs is not enough.”

The report highlighted that a meager percentage of the employed deaf people are working in domains like Accounting and IT, 7 per cent as graphic designers and very few are self-employed. The job market open for deaf people is still stereotypically in retail stores, housekeeping roles, waiters or at the maximum level, a Data Entry Operator. 

As many as 42 per cent of such workers maintained that there was no cultural sensitisation in their workplaces. 

Responses of the survey were collected from over 500 employees of whom, 92.1% were deaf and 7.4% were hard of hearing.