HYDERABAD: Every day, around 3,500 people enter the offices of Synchrony Financial in Gachibowli for work. At first glance, one can’t see anything different in the crowd. But look closely and one can spot ramps which run parallel to the stairs at the entrance. Then there is immense talk, but no noise because some of the staff are animatedly conversing with each other in sign language. Silently, yet vibrantly.
Not just five or ten, but 80 people in a workforce of 3,500 are differently-abled in the US-based financial solutions company’s Hyderabad office.
Some are hearing impaired, some visually, some speech impaired and some have limited mobility but one thing that they all have in common is their belief in themselves.
“The programme to recruit the differently-abled started with two in 2015 and we now have 80 differently-abled individuals working for us. We aim to make it 150 by the end of 2017”, says Faisal Uddin, Senior Vice President and Business Leader of Synchrony Financial India.
“When the MD of Lemon Tree Hotels, Aradhana Lal came to visit, she was impressed to see that what they accomplished in five years, we did in two years. Lemon Tree Hotels is a company in which almost 13 percent of their employees currently are differently-abled,” he adds.
Where do they find differently abled employees? KM Cherian, Vice President, Customer Services informs, “We contacted corporate companies which hired the differently-abled to find out where they hired them from and approached them.Now, many know about us through word of mouth.”
The interview process for the differently-abled is the same as for others. The selected ones undergo a 28-day training for their roles. About 90 percent of the staff is under the age of 30.
“Initially, we had vendors who came in as interpreters for interviews, but when we realised that they might have ulterior motives, some of our employees underwent training willingly to become interpreters. Now a few of our employees are familiar with the American Sign Language (ASL) and are proficient in it,” Cherian adds.
Elaborating on the use of sign language in the office, he says, “For the speech impaired - much like normal languages - their sign language differs from region to region. A person from Chennai uses symbols wich are different from what someone from Hyderabad uses. Initially, it was difficult to communicate but we have learnt about how to go about it as time progressed. We bring everyone under the same umbrella - everyone learns ASL.”
Tameezudin, a differently-abled analyst, shares, “This is my first job and I get a cab pick up and drop. So half my battle is won.” The differently-abled get paid as much as their regular peers. “We don't discriminate,” Cherian states.
“We do get tax benefits, but they are immaterial. We are more interested in the work we do.”, Faisal Uddin says.
The differently abled are not given special preference but are promoted based on their performance just like the others. Sri Lakshmi is a visually impaired manager who has poor eyesight. She uses a larger font to read, but that doesn’t affect her performance as she handles telephonic conversations.
The office campus has mirrors in the elevators so that people in wheelchairs can see where they are going. Quite a few of our employees learn There are provisions for ramps also in the block. The building is disabld-friendly.”
Recently, the hearing-impaired staff danced along with the others for an office celebration and the others did not know about their disabilty until they were told. This shows a lot about the kind of encouragement and hard work that goes into everything that happens in the company.”
Simran, a trainer, says, “The new recruits receive the maximum encouragement from the existing differently-abled staff.”
As part of its CSR initiatives, the company provides assistance for spoken English training classes, basic computer education through Project Abhyaas and have also established a voice laboratory in Kalleda village in Warangal besides providing infrastructure in government schools.
The company is partnering with NGOs such as Nirmaan and Bhumika Women’s Collective to offer skills-based training to women and have also built a water treatment plant in villages in Guntur and Nalgonda.
The volunteers from the company also regularly conduct professional skill development courses for the visually challenged and also help in creating soft copies and audio books of different text books to support visually challenged students.