A facilitator with visual disability, who was in the intervention for a week at the company, was having trouble pouring a coffee every morning because the coffee maker had a touch screen.
One of the employees had an idea. She asked someone to print tactile signs on the 3D printer, which they then glued onto the coffee maker.
The result was that the facilitator was able to pour his coffee autonomously.
Is this inclusion?
I heard one of the consultants present, who also lives with visual disability, mention: "Wonderful! Now we can pour coffee for ourselves."
It was pure sarcasm, of course.
Let's analyze a bit.
If the objective of THE intervention is for the company to hire people with disabilities, I'm sure that making a coffee machine accessible would do very little, since at the end of the day nobody is hired to drink coffee.
To measure THE OBJECTIVE we would have to look at aspects such as checking that the job profiles are compatible with the disability, checking that the person can do his/her job with the resources provided by the company and that these resources are accessible, evaluating that the social environment in the company is favorable to him/her, That he/she does not face a type of discrimination that affects him/her in his/her work and evaluate the type of leadership he/she is under.
So, an accessible coffee pot may just help us to keep our potential employee with a disability awake to do his / her job.
I stress two more things.
There is an urgency for inclusion among many of us who belong to marginalized groups. We would love for things to change overnight and we disdain small advances or those advances that many organizations use only as marketing but have no real effect.
I understand the consultant's urgency, as I feel it myself.
But let's face it: the human being is a creature that changes slowly, especially when his life is not under threat. And companies' lives are certainly not threatened if they don't hire people with disabilities.
Second point. I hope this sarcasm was not said in front of the customer, as its effect is disqualifying, and all it creates is a sense of inadequacy or to put it in the language of business, a poor performance of inclusion.
The result of this sarcastic comment on many occasions would be a distancing. IF my profitability as a company is not threatened by the lack of inclusion of people with disabilities, but I have engaged in an effort, and by taking one small step you disqualify me... with my hand on my waist I return to my profitable activities and leave you aside.
Inclusion requires building a safe space where people who want to learn feel protected.
This does not mean that mistakes or ineffective practices are encouraged. It does mean that we need to reframe in the most constructive way possible.
A coffee maker with tactile labels will not employ any person with a disability. But what I believe is that a small change has already taken place in the brains of the people who came up with this idea and executed it. An inclusive synapse has already been created. And who knows, maybe it will continue to develop.
At this point I quote one of my coaching teachers: "small steps make big results."
And so, are small steps in inclusion accepted?