A wonderful article for ringing-in the New Year right: a feature in the SF Gate about Lyft opening doors of opportunity for deaf drivers with accessible tech and an open, adaptive approach to hiring that's helped them get a leg-up in a very competitive hiring environment.
As I've personally learned in recent years through friends, the deaf community is an incredibly tight-knit group of folks. They're also a group that's very easy to either include or exclude, in the hiring & recruiting process. Within the deaf community, news travels fast when companies commit to embracing best-practices in making workplace cultures inclusive to the deaf and hard of hearing. Below is an excerpt from the article that makes a strong case for why accommodations for deaf employees & interviewees is a no-brainer investment:
Read Up, and have a happy New Year!"Deaf people historically have been early adopters of technology, said Greg Livadas, a spokesman for the Rochester Institute of Technology. They were among the first, for instance, to use fax machines, which helped them communicate via phone. More recently FaceTime and Skype let them converse in sign language on mobile phones.
But technologies also presents barriers for disabled people, who have had to fight for accessibility. That adds extra significance to the fact that app-based ride service technology supports deaf communications.
“It’s awesome; it does break down the barriers for deaf drivers,” said John Macko, director of the Center on Employment at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, N.Y. “Traditional taxis would be much more challenging.”