Ketan is a subject matter expert on diversity and inclusion. In this interview with BW People, he employee sensitization towards people with disabilities, the approach to creating infrastructure, the shift in mindset required and much more.
Q. People with diverse segments feel apprehensive about accepting who they are and fear not being accepted amongst their peers at work. So what part the employee education and training initiatives play in facilitating the inclusion of workers from PwD groups?
When you were ending your question you mentioned something called groups. Mainly when we say the word groups, we humans tend to unknowingly label people. We call this as unconscious bias.
I will make it very simple for our wider audience and not go into complicated terms. We as humans tend to not understand how to deal with a bracket of people or marginal people. Humans have a reservation towards them, and it is natural. To forgo the reservation, we have to be comfortable in asking questions. Narrative matters the most in D&I. The beauty of diversity is that you might not know how to deal with them, and similarly, they might not know how to deal with you. Asking the right questions matters.
Q. When you have a minority, how does the sensitization of the majority is to be done? The people who are coming from PwD groups, everyone will not be good or fare well and we must deal with the situations with sensitivity. Otherwise, it becomes very difficult when a person goes into a depressive mood. What is your take on that and how does a person enable himself?
When we see a conventional set of people in society, the most accepted workforce. If we club all the marginal parts of society (be it LGQBT, veterans, disability or continental diversity), they might make the majority part marginal.
The word which is required going forward is how to correctly deal with it. If we are trying something new, many times we may not be correct, there might be biases or errors. It's okay, we also do that in the case of able people.
But restraining yourself and not being a part of these workshops or just learning and not understanding correctly might not be right.
So many of organizations have to understand that conventional ways to sensitise business might not work for everyone. You have to understand who are you making a part of it, are you trying for an equal employment opportunity or to understand the dynamics rather than just putting like a Lego block on a block that doesn't match.
These days, there are several organizations globally admitting that they are not prepared to absorb people with disability, and the reasons are genuine. The organizations are not ready in terms of accessibility and the infrastructures aren't in place. According to you, what sort of accessibility and the bare minimum infrastructure they should maintain and how they should scale it up?
Let me start with an example and how the society accepts or accommodates an infrastructure, then it goes out in your town or city as an entity plan. I believe you're from around the Delhi-NCR areas. There were huge lands which were used for malls when they came into existence in India. If you see if the mall's infrastructure, they started capturing the young couple audience by facilitating paths for children's prams, late-night dinner restaurants and baby changing rooms for breastfeeding mothers. This started becoming a culture for any upcoming mall.
When there is consumption, there's demand. The ROI matters. The demand for a talent pool of PwD people is there. Many multinationals are talking about it. I'm happy to learn, but still, now we need to equate correctly. It has a few loopholes in it and it happens, there's nothing wrong with it.
We as humans have adopted something based on consumption. When you start developing the whole ecosystem from inside, the building to town planning, the disabled people will be coming and putting their revenue and adding to the part of the GDP. So there's no bare minimum. It is an ongoing process, even if you fail. You cannot boil the ocean over it. You cannot accommodate everybody to that exercise. It cannot be customized to a larger pool but for the basic 21 types of disability which we recognize in India, there should be a few mandates.
Watch the full interview on the link below: