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People,
Profits, Planet: the triple bottom line So we believe it is good business to invest in the community. And we can help you do that through staff training, community projects and leads into great staff to employ who will help to build the company as well as the community. Did you know ....
You have probably seen the figures of 18-20% of the population having a defined disability. To some extent this is difficult to believe as our common experience is to not encounter such a high proportion of people with a clear impairment. There are many reasons for this: many of the people with impairments are aged and so the impairment is 'expected' and goes almost unnoticed. For others however, the reasons are more subtle. Many people with a defined disability have been kept apart from society, either by family or segregated service agencies. In other cases, the person with a disability will go out of their way to conceal the impairment as they know that the more obvious it is, the more likely that they will encounter prejudice and rejection. For a business to disregard or not take notice of up to 20% of their potential customer base is not good business. When you add the people who are directly associated with that person such as immediate and extended family, neighbours and friends, we are probably talking a majority of the population with some contact with disability. The people with a disability who are consumers and potential customers, often with a high disposable income, added to those around them, produce a large customer base waiting to be tapped. Often these people are willing to change traders depending on how they are treated. How can your business tap into this potential customer base? Include Pty Ltd can help by advising on the physical and social accessibility of your premises, training your staff in responding appropriately to people with a disability, and helping your business plan to access this crucial customer base that could make a big difference to your company. The
Community
Even if you feel comfortable with these values to some extent (they have been very powerful in increasing our personal wealth), we have to agree that these values will weaken the 'glue' that binds us together as a community. What are the sorts of values that will strengthen the 'glue' that binds us together? How about:
How can we build these values? A key way is to include people who others reject and stereotype. If you employ a person with a significant impairment such as an intellectual disability you are providing an example to your staff and the community that all people belong. If you employ an Aboriginal adolescent you are providing leadership in an area where many shy away. If you support a migrant or refugee family you are providing a stark contrast to the values of rejection, stereotype and ultimately physical and psychological harm. At Include Pty Ltd we can help you move onto this path through direct consultancy, links to people who can help; staff training; advice on community access and accessibility; and specific projects to invest in. Contact us for further details. "Employ a person with a disability"? "What
do you think we are, some form of charity"? A decade or so ago, we
didn't really believe that women could 'do the job' as effectively as
men. With much less reluctance now to employ women in roles and jobs that
were previously male-dominated, business has benefited as a pool of talent
previously not utilised has been brought into productivity. A similar
situation applies with people with a disability. Several major research
studies have shown people with disabilities to not only be
good employees, but superior employees. For example, they
have lower rates of sick leave; higher commitment to the company; more
positive attitudes to work, and equal or greater productivity. Similar
outcomes are likely with other groups commonly rejected by society such
as Aborigines or refugees. Of course we need to provide a good match of
the person to the job and Include Pty Ltd can help you achieve this or
put you in contact with others who can provide support in training and
sometimes financial benefits. In many areas of business it is difficult to build strong morale and commitment to the company. In reality many jobs tend to be quite routine and competitive pressures mean that it is difficult to put a lot of time and resources into training and team building. By employing a person rejected by society such as a person with a disability we open up our staff to something that is bigger than themselves. They learn to share their life with a person who has had less advantages than them and help that person belong in the world of work and the broader society. We are bringing out positive attributes in our staff and having them join with us in doing something good for an individual and the society. Similarly, if our company supports issues such as literacy development through scholarships or direct involvement we are giving our employees a vision of our company that is bigger than products and profits. It can be a source of pride to work for such a company and help to build commitment. Our experience has been that if co-workers take a role of supporting and assisting a new employee with a disability to become a productive member of the team they develop a great sense of pride and pleasure in watching the fruits of their support -- which are normally large gains in development of skills and personality. It opens them up to a groups that they would not normally experience and they commonly learn that human commonalities are more important than the impairment or skin colour. As they sometimes have to wait and be patient and consider another person's needs on a regular basis it can soften people and bring out positive aspects that benefit the whole workplace. Of course this needs to be set up properly as staff may not be open initially to such an idea. Include Pty Ltd can help with this. Noticed that a lot of new employees struggle with reading? National figures indicate that approximately 20% of children fail to read to a minimum standard by School Year 5. Reading research indicates that if the child does not read effectively by School Year 3, then the chances of the child learning to read without outside assistance is low. We also know that failure to read is highly related to unemployment, lower opportunities and contact with the criminal justice system. If you can't read, can't get a job and can't get ahead, crime may seem the only viable alternative. Can it be reversed? Yes, in almost all cases. In research we have conducted over many years with families and schools, learning rates averaging over 200% are common. That is, children who were learning to read at a fraction of the speed of others have been able to learn twice as fast as their peers under appropriate teaching. They make more than 2 years of progress in every year of our teaching. However, this doesn't happen through miracles -- just hard work and using research proven materials.
Your business can make a huge difference to a child's life by sponsoring a scholarship for a child to learn to read. For just $3,000 per annum you could help to turn a child's life around. This would fund:
Want to do something or find out more? Contact us. Some families do it tough. It might be because there is only one parent involved. Or a child might have a diagnosed disability. Or one or more of the children is struggling at school. Commonly, particularly with children with a disability, the family can run into a raft of difficulties related to education and other areas, and feel lost and alone against the bureaucracy. With the pressure on community services, the only support available may be in a crisis or through services that add a stigma to the child and family. Your business can help by sponsoring a family. It may be to provide expert advocacy in negotiations with government bureaucracies. It might be to provide assistance with early intervention where international research indicates that intensive work in the first six years of life can have profound life-long impacts. The reality is that almost no intensive assistance is available to families through government agencies, even though they will have to pick up the result of this failure in the future. The single exception is children with autism who do receive intensive assistance from the WA government in the early years. What about children who are failing to thrive developmentally? Children who may be difficult behaviourally and in danger of labels such as ADHD and a lifetime of medication? By sponsoring a family you will be able to ensure that a family can receive real help that is under their control and direction, not subject to the whim of a bureaucracy. A range of alternatives is available to assist:
Want to do something or find out more? Contact us. Community building comes from assisting, supporting, commitment, helping, relationships. In other words, including people who we might otherwise not have engaged with. In fact if we think about it, inclusion is the opposite of war as war is about exclusion, division, separation, denigration and avoidance. The problem is that while everyone wants peace, there is little support for community building through inclusion. If we wait for government to act, we may wait a long time, or get inappropriate 'solutions' such as segregated services that perpetuate division. It is up to individuals and business to take up the challenge. We have the expertise and families have the need. What is missing is a partner to make it happen and that is where business can really help. Want to do something or find out more? Contact us. The overall message? Inclusion is good for business! |