Employers for Change: Leveraging Assistive Technology

Employers for Change is an Open Doors Initiative programme dedicated to helping businesses of all sizes navigate the world of disability, inclusion and confidence. Through engaging conversations with experts, we tackle common misconceptions and dive deep into the latest technology, policy and best practices that can transform your company's culture.

In this episode, Mohamed speaks to Siobhan Long from Enable Ireland to discuss how businesses can leverage Assistive Technology to break down barriers and better include individuals with disabilities in the workplace. 

Siobhan has worked in the field of Assistive Technology since 1991. Siobhan’s current role involves management of Enable Ireland's National Assistive Technology Training Service. Technology is changing rapidly and the services’s  goal is to ensure that those who can benefit from what it has to offer, can gain access to it in a timely manner. 

In 2016, Siobhan began a partnership with the Disability Federation of Ireland, resulting in the publication of Assistive Technology for People with Disabilities and Older People: A Discussion Paper. This partnership is now called FreedomTech, and a key component of this partnership is CHAT: Community Hub for Assistive Technology, a community of practice which involves a wide range of stakeholders and meets at least 3 times/year. 

Siobhán has been working intensively on an advocacy and lobbying programme, to promote the adoption of the recommendations contained in the Discussion Paper. Chief among these are the establishment of a national AT Passport, to address the significant gaps in service provision as AT users transition through life. Enable Ireland and the Disability Federation of Ireland are now leading a partnership project to pilot an AT Passport.

Employers for Change is a programme of the Open Doors Initiative, funded by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. The service empowers employers with all the information and advice needed to hire, employ, manage and retain staff with disabilities.

Contact Employers for Change at info@employersforchange.ie or check our website for more information 

Transcript

Mohamed: Welcome to the Employers for Change podcast. My name is Mohamed Sahid Camara. Employers for Change is a program of the Open Doors Initiative dedicated to helping businesses of all sizes navigate the world of disability inclusion and confidence. Through engaging conversations with experts, dynamic organization, and inspiring individuals, we will tackle common misconceptions, explore reasonable accommodation, and dive deep into the latest technology, policy, and best practices that can transform your company's culture.

Today, I'm joined by Siobhan Long from Enable Ireland. To discuss how businesses can leverage assistive technology to break barriers and what can be done to include individuals with disabilities in the workplace.

Siobhan: My name is Siobhan Long and I work in Enable Ireland, where I manage our National Assistive Technology Training Service and also our virtual service. And in both cases, technology is central to what we do and it's all about really putting technology into the hands of people with disabilities to enable them to live the lives of their own choosing.

Mohamed: Siobhan, can you describe what are some of these assistive technologies and how can they be used for to address these specific challenges in the workplaces?

Siobhan: Well, assistive technology is an umbrella term for a whole range of different assistive products. But also, the term covers the systems and the services that are there to support people's access to those products. Digital assistive technologies are the most commonly used types of technologies in the workplace. And they are the types of technologies we focus on a lot in Enable Ireland. Because they can really make a difference in terms of improving somebody's functional ability to do a job, enhancing their access to the workplace and increasing or enhancing their communication, uh, with their colleagues and with, with, uh, remote workers, for example.

So some examples of commonly used assistive technologies in the workplace would include something as simple as an alternative mouse, for example, or an alternative keyboard, of which there are many. Or, uh, speech recognition software. Speech recognition is something that we've become very familiar with anyway, because it's now built into, um, all of the main operating systems, including Office, that's Microsoft Office and Google's Android system. But speech recognition in its, I suppose, most powerful form enables somebody who may, for example, find a standard keyboard or mouse inaccessible to do their work, simply using their voice. So voicing commands to the computer, completing documents, surfing the web, attending Teams meetings, online calls, all of the things that we take for granted as being part of day to day work, particularly in an office environment, or indeed working from home.

So, the range is considerable. We also support people who use more dedicated solutions, such as eye gaze technologies. So for example, somebody can actually do all of the things I've just described simply through their eye movement. And that's been a game changer for a lot of people with significant levels of disability.

So I think, uh, the question is a great one. And the solutions that are now available to us are extremely broad and varied. And thankfully many of them are now coming built into the operating systems that we have on our standard computers. 

Mohamed: So, um, someone might want to be very sceptical about the cost and you know, when we say technology, all people think, all what people might want to think is the cost that might be attached to it. So what are some of these common barriers that individuals with disabilities themselves face in the aspect of getting some of these technologies? 

Siobhan: It's a very common misconception that assistive technology is costly and unquestionably there are examples of assistive technology that are very costly. A power wheelchair will be a costly item.

However, if we look at the workplace and employment, the types of solutions that are necessary in that context tend to cost in the low hundreds. Very rarely do they cost in the high thousands, very, very rarely. So, um, and we know that from our own experience in Enable Ireland, because we have a workplace assessment service where we go out to places of employment, and we can advise, assess and support employees with disabilities to identify the best AT to meet their needs. We also employ a significant number of people with disabilities in Enable Ireland and we have supported them to make sure that they can access the workplace. So that is a misconception, that the technologies are very expensive. And not only that, we also find that the cost, when you do a cost benefit analysis, the actual cost repays itself, according to the World Health Organization, nine times over.

And we've certainly seen that. We've done some cost benefit case studies in Enable Ireland, and we have seen enormous return on investment. 

Mohamed: Looking at the technology field itself and the impact it's creating in the world at large, besides disability. How can collaboration between the developers and disability organization and the users themselves work together to, to make sure we have improved assistive technology that caters for people with disabilities, specifically in the workplace?

Because if we look at the landscape of Ireland, people with disability face a lot of challenges when it comes to employment. So how can we use technology to really help In phasing out some of these challenges, faced by people with disabilities to acquire jobs in Ireland?

Siobhan: I think it's, it's a significant challenge. It's one that is being tackled in a piecemeal manner in Ireland currently. And where I see this happening is more actually in academia, where we're seeing students of product design, students of computer science, students of engineering coming to, uh, service providers like Enable Ireland and asking for us to collaborate with them in order to identify a daily living challenge, which can include the workplace and identifying a particular solution to meet particular needs.

And that's very positive. And the reason I think that's positive is not because of its immediate impact, but because it is informing the development of a whole, of the next generation, of, you know, product designer, engineer, computer scientist, who then sees accommodating different needs in the workplace as a significant priority that should be addressed. We are fortunate in Enable Ireland to partner with the Disability Federation of Ireland, and our partnership we call Freedom Tech. And within Freedom Tech, we have a community of practice, which has been running now for about eight years. Uh, the community of practice is known as CHAT, that's Community Hub for Assistive Technology, is its acronym.

And that community of practice meets about four times a year. Since the pandemic, it's mostly met online. But participants on that community of practice include makers, developers, academics, engineers, computer scientists, AT users, crucially, and service providers, and funders. And those players come together in that environment and often go away with new partnerships where they choose to work together to address a particular challenge or a particular need.

All of that being said. I don't think that the major strides that are being made around assistive technology and access to employment have come from those necessarily yet. I think where we're seeing the big shift is in two things. One, the concept of universal design. So you design. technology, you design a building to be universally accessible. I think that's the first thing. 

And I think the second thing is the manner in which big tech has really embraced inclusion under diversity and inclusion policies. So that whether you're a person with a disability or you're a young parent who perhaps requires accommodations to leave for appointments with your children, that all of the diverse needs of employees are seen in the round and not seen in isolation from one another.

Because we all know that we are much more than one thing. I'm not just a person with a disability. I might be a parent. I might be a sibling. I might be a sports person. And all of those aspects of my life may actually demand some level of accommodation in the workplace.

So I think there's a lot more collaboration happening now and it's only through collaboration that we can see significant shifts in the level of participation by people with disabilities in employment. 

Mohamed: I totally agree with you in this because, uh, it's only when not just the developers, even with the employers themselves and all that are involved come together and make sure employees get the necessary assistance they need, then they will be able to be more productive in the workplace.

So I think collaboration is key in this aspect. If we are to achieve all of these in, in making sure that Ireland has a good system where people with disabilities can gain meaningful employment, not just employment, but meaningful employment. And enable themselves to contribute meaningfully to the society at large.

And, um, what are your final thoughts to our audience, especially employers who are listening to this podcast right now?  

Siobhan: What's key for employers is to not be afraid, not be, I understand, I've met plenty of employers who tell me that their initial feeling around employment and disability was one of apprehension. And that was born out of a lack of understanding or insight into what kinds of accommodations might be required or might not indeed be required. Make no assumptions, I would say, about anybody, because the truth is, we are all different and we all have differing needs. 

The second thing I would say is don't underestimate what you already have within your workplace. Office 365, Google, Apple, they've all got so many built in accessibility features now, or ease of access features, which really make a massive difference for many people, not just the employee who declares their disability at the time of recruitment, but we know that there are plenty of people in the workplace who don't feel comfortable and haven't felt comfortable declaring their particular challenges, but that they're dealing with them and addressing them in their own quiet way on a day to day basis. So I think opening up the conversation in the workplace is really important. Making it a safe space for somebody, for anybody, whether they're a new employee or somebody who's been with the firm to be able to safely declare what their particular challenges are, in the knowledge that the employer will do their level best to accommodate them.

I think that's really key. And the other thing I would say is, the benefits of diversity in the workplace have been shown through repeated research. Employing people with disabilities enhances diversity, enriches the workplace, brings more life experience, lived experience to bear on the business. And again, research indicates that increases turnover, increases profitability, and is a bit of a no brainer really.

So I would encourage any employer who's grappling with this to, to just embrace the idea of being more inclusive and speak with organizations like your own Mohamed or indeed with Enable Ireland, because we can support employers to be as inclusive as they possibly can. 

Mohamed: The Employers for Change podcast is a program of the Open Doors Initiative, funded by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

To stay informed, you can subscribe to the Open Doors podcast and follow Employers for Change on all social channels. My name is Mohamed Sahid Camara and until next time, bye-bye.