Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Blind Employees But Were Reluctant to Ask
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- Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2007 15:09:22 -0400
E-Sight Careers Network (USA)
Friday, September 28, 2007
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Blind Employees But Were Reluctant
to Ask
By Nan Hawthorne
Summary: These candid questions about employment of people who are blind or
visually impaired often go unasked -- and, therefore, are generally unanswered.
Here are some straight answers.
Question: What's the correct term for blind people?
Answer: Some blind people are fine with being called "blind person." Others who
subscribe to the "people first" philosophy insist on "person who is blind."
Terminology confuses everyone. Someone may say "Don't refer to us as 'the
blind,'" but you will hear about a group called National Federation of the
Blind. It really is a matter of taste. Terms eSight uses include "visually
impaired," "vision impaired," "low vision," and "partially sighted." In
general, the word "handicapped" is falling out of favor (it originally meant
"beggar"), so avoid "visually handicapped."
The terms that usually annoy people who are visually impaired include
"sightless" -- or any word you use that makes it sound like you are trying to
avoid the subject. I personally detest terms like "special,"
"differently-abled" and "visually challenged" because they seem to be this type
of "avoidance" term, but I won't jump down your throat if you use them. Other
blind and otherwise disabled people love these expressions. Take your cue from
how the blind person describes himself.
Question: What does "legally blind" mean?
Answer: Only about 10 percent of all people with a severe visual impairment
have no vision at all. The term "legally blind" describes a specific level of
visual impairment that is considered sufficient to be entitled to certain
protections and services, such as Social Security Disability Insurance, special
rates on public transportation, and legal recourse under the Americans with
Disabilities Act and similar laws. A "legally blind" person also cannot get a
standard driver's license.
In the United States, "legal blindness" is defined as vision with an acuity of
20/200 or a range of vision of 20 degrees or less in the better eye after
correction. I stress "after correction" because people have said to me, "I'm
legally blind without my glasses." That's like saying you're homeless when you
leave your house to go to work. Legally blind refers to your level of vision
after you put your glasses on.
The 20/200 or less can be most easily understood with this example. Someone
with 20/200 vision sees something as well at 20 feet as someone with vision
corrected to normal sees at 200. That is, the legally blind person must be at
least 10 times closer to make out the image.
The 20 degrees or less refers to "tunnel" vision and the degree to which it is
considered too narrow or too small. This means that about nine out of 10 people
who are considered legally blind have some vision, ranging from a small window
of perfect vision to very blurry to only being able to detect light.
See What types of visual impairment are there? below for more information.
Question: What types of visual impairment are there?
Answer: Blindness can be congenital and hereditary. It can be caused by
disease. It can be the result of an accident. It can even be a manifestation of
mental illness.
The most common cause of blindness in the United States is a disease called
glaucoma, in which pressure builds up in the eye and that pressure damages it.
The largest single group of adults of working age lost their sight due to
diabetes. Most visually impaired seniors have age-related macular degeneration
(ARMD), in which the part of the eye with the highest density of light
receptors deteriorates and central vision is destroyed.
The following are all examples of visual impairment:
No vision at all
Perceive only light
Perceive only vague shapes
Perceive shapes and some color
Very blurry and indistinct
Consistently or randomly miss parts of an image
Unable to see detailed images, such as print, without magnification
Any level of vision but only a narrow view, like looking through a tube
You can see a diagram of the eye, simulations of what some common eye
conditions "look like" and read about these conditions in "Understanding Your
Employee's Visual Impairment."
Question: What work can blind people do?
Answer: This depends on the individual. In general, blind people can do any
kind of work that does not involve piloting a vehicle -- but only if the person
has the training, skills, and experience (just like anybody else). That is, a
qualified blind person can do almost anything. There are blind machinists,
blind writers, blind software developers, blind teachers, blind stay-at-home
parents, blind car mechanics, blind scientists, blind executives, blind nurses,
blind athletes, blind performing artists, blind web designers, blind business
owners, blind secretaries, blind stockbrokers, blind journalists ￂ?
well, you get the idea.
Whether a blind person can do a particular task depends on the following:
Whether he is qualified to perform the task or has an opportunity to learn how
-- like any other employee
Whether he wants to -- like any other employee
Whether he needs and has the tools to perform the task -- like any other
employee
Whether he gets the opportunity to perform on the job -- like any other
employee
The only difference between "any other employee" and a blind person is that the
blind person may need special tools to perform the task, tools that eliminate
or lessen the need for eyesight. Fortunately, thanks to a lot of clever people
and modern technology, those tools most likely exist.
Question: How do blind people use computers?
Answer: It's the computer that has opened up so many career opportunities for
blind people. Think about what a computer does. It stores and manipulates
information, such as names and addresses of customers, code for other computer
applications, text and formatting for documents, images and layout for print or
electronic publications, figures for calculations, recorded sounds for editing
and playback, text and headers for e-mail communications, diagrams and
equations for engineering, measurements for design, and much more. All of this
happens in the central processing unit (CPU), which is the computer. That's why
everything else is lumped under the term, "peripherals."
These peripherals include:
Devices for putting information into the CPU and telling it what you want it to
do with the information
Devices for getting the stored or manipulated information back out of the CPU
You put information into the CPU and instruct the CPU by using keyboards,
microphones, mouse, phone lines, scanners, cameras, and other such input
devices. You get it back out with the monitor, speakers, phone lines, printers,
headphones and other such output devices. For a blind person to use a computer,
all he needs to do is find out which devices are purely visual and either
enhance or replace them with others that are not. It's as simple as that.
So here are some examples. You can enhance the image on a monitor with a bigger
monitor, hardware or software that increases the size of images and text on the
screen (screen magnifiers), or use a different device or software that turns
the output into sound (screen reader) or tactile information (a refreshable
braille display). So long as the blind computer user can get out of the
computer the information he needs, it is essentially identical to a computer
with no enhancements or alternative devices.
Computers have essentially created a level playing field for sighted and blind
people (and people with other physical disabilities) -- where the computer does
what it does and people with differing physical abilities just use different
tools and various techniques to direct the work.
According to the American Foundation for the Blind, "A minimal estimate is that
there are 1.5 million visually impaired computer users, including those who are
blind."
To learn more about the enhancements and alternatives blind people use to
direct the operations of a computer, see "eSight's Adaptive Technology FAQ."
Question: How will my blind employee get to work on time?
Answer: Getting to work is the blind person's responsibility. Before he applies
for a position at your company, he needs to find out if he has a way to get
there on a dependable and on-time basis. Some blind workers take public
transit. Some have family members or friends drive them. Some take taxi-cabs.
Some arrange carpools. Some hire drivers. Some walk. And some telecommute from
a home office.
You may find that you can be flexible about schedules, if public transit
schedules aren't cooperating, but the likelihood is that the subject will never
even come up.
See "Going To Work: Transportation Options"
Question: Do blind people take a lot of sick days?
Answer: Blindness does not mean illness. One blind person may be as hearty and
healthy as an ox, while another may have a chronic illness. A 25-year study
conducted by the DuPont Corporation discovered that disabled workers at DuPont
had equal or better attendance than 90 percent of their non-disabled
co-workers. The odds are, therefore, in favor of a blind person being less
likely to take time off than your other workers.
See also "Disability Employment: What Studies Show."
Question: Do I have to hire a blind person?
Answer: If he is the best qualified person for the job, you should hire him.
Why? Well, yes, it's unlawful to discriminate against a blind person in
employment in the U.S. and many other places just because of his disability.
But there's a much better reason. If you don't, you'll have hired the second
best person for the job. Why would you want to do that?
See also "Employing, Serving All Equitably: The Nordstrom Way"
Question: What can I ask a blind person during a job interview?
Answer: This one is easy. You can describe the essential functions of the job
for which he is interviewing, and then you can ask him if he can do the work
and how he would do it for your company. That's all.
See also "Best Practices for Interviewing a Blind or Print Impaired Job
Candidate."
Question: Will we have to pay for lots of expensive equipment for a blind
employee?
Answer: Again, it depends. Does he need special equipment to do the work
outlined in the job description? If he doesn't, then, there are no costs for
accommodations. If he does, the Job Accommodation Network (JAN) reports, "The
average cost of hiring people with disabilities is the same as hiring a person
without a disability, according to three-quarters of the employers surveyed."
JAN also states that, for disabilities in general, the cost of reported
accommodations breaks down like this:
31 percent cost nothing.
50 percent cost less than $50.
69 percent cost less than $500.
88 percent cost less than $1,000.
Even if the cost is higher in a particular case, you might find that you'll
share the cost with a state agency or other resource. If a current employee
loses his vision, your insurance company will help.
The thing to do is to look at the essential functions of the position and
decide -- realistically -- which would present challenges for someone with a
visual disability. Then get help (from a consultant or state agency or the
blind person himself) to figure out what changes or adaptations can overcome
the challenges. These solutions may be as simple as turning a monitor away from
the glare from a window to the addition of a talking readout on a machine shop
caliper. The important thing is to find out if there is a reasonable
accommodation and if your company can afford it. It is extremely likely that,
yes, there is, and, yes, you can.
It might even be worth it to you to shell out the money -- if the individual is
the best qualified person for the job. After all companies buy cars and even
homes as well as provide extra benefits, time off and special profit sharing
plans to attract the best people. I don't know of any adaptive equipment that
goes beyond the costs of any of those extra benefits.
Learn more about what constitutes "reasonable accommodation" in I have more
questions.
Question: How do I find and recruit blind people to work in my company?
Answer: It has been a slow and frustrating journey for both employers and job
seekers who want to make the right employment connections. Employers don't have
experience with blind employees, so they are hesitant to hire qualified job
candidates. Job seekers who are blind experience a lot of rejection, so they
give up. As a result, few blind people apply for job openings, and employers
never get a chance to experience working with blind employees. Get the picture?
Like recruiting in any other underutilized part of the job seeker pool, you
need to go out and find and encourage blind people to apply for your positions.
There are a number of ways to do this. Contact job training programs and
university job placement programs that include or specifically serve disabled
people. Attend disability job fairs. Talk to disability consumer groups such as
chapters of the American Council of the Blind and National Federation of the
Blind chapters. List your job openings in disability newspapers or send them to
memberservices@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx to be posted in eSight's Job Alert.
You can get more detail about recruiting people with disabilities in "Make Sure
Your Job Postings Reach Job Candidates With Disabilities" and "Use Job Fairs to
Recruit Visually Impaired Candidates, Enhance Corporate Success."
Question: Are there tax incentives for hiring blind people?
Answer: In the United States, yes. You can read about them in "The Icing on the
Cake: Tax Breaks for Hiring Those With Disabilities."
For other parts of the world, you may wish to contact your company's tax
accountant or an organization that tracks business tax law.
Question: Will hiring a blind person make our health insurance rates go up?
Answer: Not necessarily. Health insurance premiums are based on the health care
costs (or "experience") of an entire group, not just one person. And blind
people don't necessarily have higher medical expenses.
See "Health Insurance Rates: Will They Go Up If I Hire an Employee With a
Disability?"
Question: How do I show a blind worker around our workplace?
Answer: Blind people generally receive some kind of "orientation and mobility"
training before seeking a job. Most often that involves learning to navigate
with a white cane. The cane is used primarily to provide, by touch and sound,
what eyesight tells a sighted person about his environment. The purpose of the
white cane, to a lesser degree, is also to identify the person as visually
impaired for others around him. Once you have taken the new worker around your
facilities, he will want to remember where things are and how to find them.
Remember, he is probably used to doing this.
The standard technique for guiding a blind person is Sighted Guide. You can
find full instructions about this technique at TravelVision's "Sighted Guide
Techniques." The essence of Sighted Guide is offering your arm to the person
and then relaxing. He will follow the movement of your body, and you need do
little more than announce "steps up," "handrail on your right," and that sort
of thing. Say, "May I offer you Sighted Guide?" Just ask him what he wants you
to do.
Never grab or push a blind person. Sighted Guide is designed to preserve a
blind person's control over his body. He can let go of your arm, if he needs
to. If you make a mistake, just apologize and keep going.
I've had people bump into me at a shopping mall, and you'd think by their panic
they'd just impaled me with an umbrella. It is best practice to be aware of
your surroundings and make sure unnecessary obstacles are moved out of the way
-- not only for the blind person's safety and convenience but for the account
executive who reads memos while he walks through the office.
If you are concerned about the blind person running into hazards, remember that
he has training about how to avoid an obstacle once he knows about it and that
you are required to provide safety equipment for all employees. Find the
"Checklist for Workplace Safety" on the American Foundation for the Blind web
site.
Question: Will the blind worker have a guide dog? Do I have to let him bring it
to work?
Answer: Your blind or visually impaired employee may have a guide dog. About
7,000 visually impaired Americans use a guide dog (compared to 109,000 who use
white canes for travel).
Yes, service dogs are permitted in all public places and in work settings. It
is the dog owner's responsibility to care for it, to keep it clean and out of
everyone's way, and to make sure it does not disrupt others' work.
You can find information about guide dogs and related legal issues at Guide
Dogs for the Blind. And check "Guide Dog Etiquette in the Workplace: What to
Expect."
Question: How does a blind person keep track of assignments as I give them to
him or take notes during a meeting or a phone call?
Answer: Depending on his particular visual impairment and which tools he
routinely uses, a blind person may take notes in a variety of ways. Those who
use braille may use a little metal guide (a slate) and a stylus to braille his
notes. He might also use a Braillewriter, which is something like a manual
typewriter. Popular these days are braille notetakers, similar to a PDA or an
electronic notebook with braille input and output.
There are voice devices too, such as notetakers which record information as you
type but provide speech on playback. I have used a tape recorder for keeping
notes or recording whole meetings.
Some blind people will just use pen and paper. I take notes during interviews
for eSight Careers Network article by entering them straight into my PC.
Find out more about accessible tools at AbleData.com as well as numerous
articles in the eSight Careers Network index.
Question: How will a blind employee read memos and other printed material?
Answer: Again, this depends on his level of vision. Some will use a handheld
magnifier. Others will use more complex magnification devices, such as
closed-circuit television (CCTV). Some may ask to have memos enlarged on a
photocopier or printed in larger print. You can ask another employee to read
them to him. Or you can send memos via e-mail and let the worker's adapted
computer deliver your messages.
Also see the resources listed in the question above: How does a blind person
keep track of assignments as I give them to him or take notes during a meeting
or a phone call?.
Question: How do I effectively supervise a blind employee?
Answer: In principle, exactly the same way you supervise others. For more
detail, though, see "How to Supervise Visually Impaired Employees."
Question: What kind of turnover rate can I expect from a blind worker?
Answer: The DuPont study cited in the answer above to the question: "Do blind
people take a lot of sick days?" shows disabled workers have equal or higher
longevity and loyalty than do 90 percent of other workers.
In fact, hiring qualified blind or visually impaired people can actually help
decrease your overall turnover. See "High Turnover Antidote: Hire Employees
With Disabilities."
Question: Will I need to give a blind worker an assistant?
Answer: No, he should be able to do the work himself. And he should be part of
the team and give as well as get help -- like any other team player.
Question: What if other workers don't want to deal with a blind person?
Answer: Diversity awareness and disability awareness to build and enhance
harmonious cooperation and teamwork are the responsibility of the employer. The
employer also must model and enforce proper behavior.
If you ignore inappropriate behavior towards the blind employee, you can -- and
probably should -- be sued for permitting a hostile environment to exist. It is
in your best interest (for many reasons which relate back to the bottom line)
to foster harmony, not division.
For a number of useful articles on this topic, see:
How To Foster a Work Environment That Values Employees With Disabilities
Disability Awareness: Essential to Any Diversity Program
Choosing The Right Disability Awareness Trainer for Your Organization
Question: How do I avoid offending a blind person when I offer him help?
Answer: Some blind people are impossible to offend. Others are offended by
anything and everything. Most are in between. That's being human. If you are
courteous and respectful, you've done your job. If the individual is offended,
that's his responsibility.
Here is my favorite story on the subject. Pam Retzloff and I used to work
together in the community relations department of a social services agency. She
occasionally had to travel on business. Pam has very low vision and used a
white cane at the time of the story.
She recounts how, when one day she was walking around downtown San Francisco,
she stopped at a crosswalk to wait until she could cross the busy street. As
she stood quietly listening for the clues she had been taught to use to decide
when it was safe to cross, she heard a soft voice at her side. In a lovely
British accent, a man offered, "If you should happen to be in need of
assistance, don't be afraid to ask." The respect and recognition that she might
not need any help impressed her. And there's your answer. Tell the blind person
that you are available if he needs any help.
By the way, the blind person has every bit as much responsibility to treat you
and others courteously and respectfully. Lower standards for behavior are not
necessary. If a blind person is rude or presumptive, call him on it.
Question: Can I lay off or fire a blind employee?
Answer: If he is incompetent or commits any offense that calls for firing under
your employment policies, you can most certainly fire him. If you have to lay
off staff, you need not keep a blind person on just because he's blind. The
point is that, unless you are firing a worker because he is blind or otherwise
disabled, there is no prohibition.
If you are really asking, "How do I fire a blind person without feeling like a
monster?", then all I add is that it's never easy to fire someone. A blind
person deserves no less and no more fairness. Until we, as a society, stop
treating blind people like fragile children, we will not truly have equal
employment opportunities.
Question: What myths/facts should I know about visual impairment?
Answer: You can find myths about blind people on the Very Special Arts web
site. Also see the essay "Blindness: Myths and the Image" on the National
Federation of the Blind web site.
Question: I have more questions. Where can I find more answers?
Answer: You can learn more about blindness from:
The blind person you hired
Content on eSight. Use the search function on eSight.
Send us your comments (or questions) by using the "Share your opinions with
eSight Careers Network:" you'll find below. "We'll have eSight members reply to
your queries about this topic.
eSight Careers Network, The cross-disability, online community addressing
disability employment issues is a service of The Associated Blind, Inc.
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