Fit and happy to work

Dial housekeeping or the operator at the Holiday Inn Singapore Orchard City Centre and you might hear a sweet voice belonging to Ms Sharifah Sakinah Abdul Patar, 23.

And while you ask for extra towels or a wake-up call, you will have no clue that the owner of that voice has cerebral palsy.

At the hotel, a number of the staff have physical or mental disabilities - 13 per cent of 270 employees, to be exact.

The welcoming smile at the entrance belongs to bellboy Mohamad Haireei Suhaimi, 28, who is mildly intellectually disabled.

Says Mr Jagdeep Thakral, 46, general manager of the hotel: "We hope that 20 per cent of the staff will comprise people with disabilities by 2016."

The Holiday Inn is one of the few encouraging examples in a job market that still largely ignores the physically and mentally handicapped - but things may soon change.

Since last month's news that the Centre for Enabled Living, an agency under the Ministry of Social and Family Development, will be renamed SG Enable and focus on helping people with disabilities find work, letters on the topic of employment for the disabled have poured into The Straits Times' Forum page.

While most may deem it a hassle to hire people with disabilities, some employers are turning to them as an alternative source of employment to solve their labour crunch woes.

Says Mr Abhimanyau Pal, 47, executive director of the Society for the Physically Disabled: "In the last five to 10 years, a number of companies has shown positive intent towards hiring those with disabilities. The mindset is changing and we are encouraged by the trend."

Bizlink, a non-profit organisation which helps the disabled find employment, says it has a database of 6,000 employers, up from 4,000 five years ago, which hire persons with disabilities. And the number is increasing by 10 per cent annually.

Mr Shantha De Silva, chairman of the Enabling Employers Network, an alliance of 10 employers championing employment opportunities for people with disabilities, notes that employers have become more accepting of persons with disabilities in their workforce. Some have even attended workshops to "learn to be more inclusive and adaptive".

The Ministry of Social and Family Development says approximately 3 per cent of the resident population have some form of disability and adds that at least 3,200 persons with disabilities are employed by around 2,000 employers receiving Special Employment Credit - a monthly payout of up to $240 for each disabled employee.

Employers are also tapping on funds which make it easier for them to hire people with disabilities.

One such fund is the Open Door Fund - administered by Singapore National Employers Federation, which has helped close to 250 employers and created more than 1,000 jobs since 2007.

Companies registered or based in Singapore can apply for subsidies of up to $100,000 if they hire at least one disabled worker and are committed to hiring people with disabilities.

The money can be used on equipment, to redesign jobs, to train co-workers and to build ramps and modify the workplace to make it accessible.

While there are costs involved when hiring disabled workers, there are also long-term benefits.

"We save a lot on training and levies because of the high retention," says Mr Thakral of the Holiday Inn, which saves $100,000 a year in foreign worker levies and staff training costs just by hiring 35 disabled workers.

At Eureka Call Centre Systems, hiring people with disabilities helped stem the company's high attrition rate.

Ms Charis Low, 36, a manager at the call centre, says they had tried hiring foreign workers and also outsourced some of the calling but, finally, "we just thought, we should look for an alternative and also to make a difference".

Now, all of the company's 12 call centre agents are persons with disabilities, such as the visually impaired and partially paralysed, and the attrition rate has dropped.

Co-workers are also another issue when introducing disabled workers to the company, say employers.

At landscaping company Prince's Landscape and Construction, for example, director Alson Tan, 50, says it was his able-bodied staff who had to get used to the idea of having colleagues with disabilities.

"It's not easy dealing with people with autism. Our staff were worried they might get violent. So we sent our able-bodied workers to the schools, so that they could learn how to handle them," says Mr Tan.

The company, which started hiring people with disabilities in 2007, has 10 employees with autism, aged between 18 and 27, among its 300 staff.

The company started the hiring practice because Delta Senior School, a vocational school for students with special needs, wanted its students to learn landscaping and needed a place to practise their skills.

So Mr Tan agreed to allocate some space for them and that led to him hiring some students after they graduated and were ready for work.

He adds that his employees with disabilities are punctual, work to the best of their abilities and have a low attrition rate.

Their job scope includes weeding, planting and basic pruning. They can earn between $650 and $1,200 a month.

Often, says Mr Tan, it takes two of such employees to do the job of an able-bodied worker, hence they may not be paid the same salary.

Dr Francis Chen, 73, vice-president of the Association of Persons with Special Needs, says there are enlightened employers who have corporate social responsibility programmes which "are designed to help the underprivileged and so they will bend backwards to get them jobs".

But, at the same time, there are many other employers who will not be willing to spend the time to train and accommodate those with special needs.

He says: "The hard fact that we must face is that some employers will say they might as well just donate money to charity instead."

From kitchen helper to bellboy

Two years ago, Mr Mohamad Haireei Suhaimi started out in the kitchens of the Holiday Inn Singapore Orchard City Centre hotel cleaning pots and pans and washing dishes.

Today, he stands proudly at the front of the hotel, greeting guests and helping them with their luggage.

"I meet the guests, take their bags, go up to the room," says Mr Mohamad Haireei, succinctly describing his duties as a bellhop.

The 28-year-old, who has a mild intellectual disability, has been a bellhop for a month now and says with a smile: "Yes, I like this."

Mr Jagdeep Thakral, the hotel's general manager, says he personally tracks the progress of the company's 35 employees who have disabilities and talks to them about their job preferences.

"We also want them to have career progression," he says.

The hotel is a Centre for Training and Integration - appointed by the National Council of Social Services - and runs six-month training programmes, during which people with disabilities can receive on-the-job training in housekeeping and cleaning in the kitchen.

The Open Door Fund, administered by the Singapore National Employers Federation, funds 60 per cent of the apprenticeship allowance given to persons with disabilities as they undergo training. It is capped at $600 a month for up to six months.

Mr Mohamad Haireei, whose mother is a housewife, 50, and father is a salesman, 51, did not hold any jobs before his current position. He has a younger brother, 23, who works in the security industry.

He underwent Holiday Inn's training two years ago, trained for six months, worked in housekeeping for six months, then helped in the hotel's kitchens for a year. Just a month ago, he was given the chance to become a bellboy.

The bachelor now earns about $800 each month and has made friends at his current workplace.

"I'm happy here," he says.

Call centre that cares

Since graduating from Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School with an N-level certificate in 1997, Ms Carolyn Toh, who is visually impaired, has never had a full-time job.

She had job training in telemarketing at the Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped from 1998 to 2007 and earned her keep from ad-hoc projects offered by the association. She earned less than $1,000 a month then, she says.

In 2011, she joined the six-month training programme at Eureka Call Centre Systems and later secured a position as a call agent there.

The company was appointed by the National Council of Social Services as a Centre for Training and Integration in 2010. These centres provide on-the-job training for persons with disabilities.

"I'm blessed," says Ms Toh, 38, who lives with her parents. Her mother is a factory supervisor and her father is a hawker. Both of them are in their mid-60s. "This is my first full-time job."

During her training, she was taught how to use the auto dial system, which uses computers to dial phone numbers without workers having to punch them in, making it easier for those with visual impairment to make cold calls to prospective clients. She was also taught how to handle irate customers in a professional way.

She praises the company's efforts to include those with disabilities.

"From day one of the orientation, they taught us how to handle different people with different disabilities and how we should respect and take care of one another," she says, speaking to SundayLife! at her office in Magazine Road.

She lives in Ang Mo Kio and takes the MRT to work every morning and takes the bus home because it is less crowded.

Her colleagues include people with cerebral palsy, the visually impaired and those with partial paralysis.

Ms Toh progressed from being a call agent to a senior call agent and is now a customer feedback executive, which means difficult customers are channelled to her.

Although she has worked on telemarketing projects with various companies before, Eureka was the only one that taught her how to handle angry customers professionally, she says.

Her working hours are from 9.30am to 5.30pm, from Monday to Fridays.

Manager Charis Low, 36, says the 12 call centre staff can earn between $800 and $2,800 a month, depending on the number of appointments they make for the financial advisers from insurance group Aviva. If the financial adviser closes a deal, the call agent will also get more commission.

Ms Toh, who has an elder brother, 39, a trainee at a sheltered workshop, and a younger brother, 28, a senior technician, says she earned about $1,500 last month.

The company also organises activities such as quarterly outings for staff to nearby locations such as Johor Baru.

"There is a caring group of managers and staff here," says Ms Toh, who is single.

"It's hard to get a job with this kind of caring environment."

Bent on getting a job

In 2009, Mr Thomas Teo, 24, graduated from ITE Balestier with a National ITE Certificate in computer networking, but after trying out two jobs, he is still unemployed.

"It has never been easy for me," says the bachelor, who has muscular dystrophy and needs a wheelchair to get around.

His first job was with a call centre, but because he has dyslexia, he found it difficult to spell out addresses and names and that put him under a lot of pressure.

The other job was with DNR Wheels, which sells disability and rehabilitative equipment such as wheelchairs, but the same problems came up.

"I cannot take down orders and customers got angry with me, so I had to quit," says Mr Teo, who lives with his half-brother, a 32-year-old IT executive, in a rented flat in Tiong Bahru. He is estranged from his father and his mother is deceased.

He says he scans the newspapers daily looking for deskbound administrative work, but often, when he calls employers, they say they prefer someone who is mobile.

Mr Teo says he also has to look for employers who understand his difficulties.

For example, when it rains, he may get to work late.

This is because the Housing Board block that he lives in, in Tiong Bahru, does not have a sheltered walkway leading to the MRT station.

So he has to wait for the rain to stop in order to keep his electric wheelchair dry.

"Work may start at 10am, but I may reach at 10.30am or 11am, and it's not so nice," he says.

He also attends two hours of rehabilitation at the Handicaps Welfare Association in Whampoa every Friday afternoon, and has to take time off work.

"But I can take Friday off and work weekends," says Mr Teo eagerly.

He has been for two interviews recently but parts of the office in those two companies are not wheelchair accessible, which made it difficult for the employers to consider him for the position.

For now, he is living off the $150-a-month handout for the needy which he gets from the Community Development Council, and another $150 he gets from a charity called The Breadline Group.

This money has to go to monthly rental, transport costs, food and living expenses.

He also has to take medication for an irregular heartbeat and says that his doctor has declared that he cannot work.

But despite the odds, Mr Teo is determined to find employment.

"I still want to work," he says.

simlinoi@sph.com.sg

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