Employees with special needs are central to City workforce
02 December 2020
The City is making steady progress with regard to the employment of people living with special needs. Currently, approximately 666 people living with special needs are employed at the City and make an invaluable contribution to serving our residents. In this release we focus on the City’s Call Centre.
The City’s Call Centre, with a staff complement of 200, employs 25 employees with special needs.
‘Tomorrow, 3 December 2020, is International Day of Persons with Disabilities, which is also celebrated as National Disability Rights Awareness Day. This day is set aside to raise awareness of people who are living with disabilities. As an inclusive City, we recognise the needs, perspectives and interests of people living with special needs,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Corporate Services, Councillor Sharon Cottle.
‘Employees with special needs add exceptional value within the broader City administration. It is important that we continue to put in place the necessary changes such as easy access to City offices and buildings for wheelchair users. The Customer Relations Disability Forum meets monthly to raise issues pertinent to staff with disabilities,’ said Councillor Cottle.
The recruitment strategy of employing persons with special needs challenges the archaic myth that these employees cannot cope in the mainstream work environment.
Two employees who work at the Call Centre offered to share their stories.
Zaitoonah Jattiem is deaf in the right ear and has had single-sided deafness since birth. ‘Despite this, I give 100% effort when engaging with customers and trying to resolve issues. I enjoy working in this environment and am grateful for the opportunity. I don’t consider myself as a second class citizen; I am able to do as much as my able-bodied colleagues. My only issue is that I’m deaf in my right ear,’ she said.
Lambert Badenhorst who has 5% vision in both eyes said: ‘I started working in Customer Relations Management in 2018 and am very grateful for the opportunity. I struggled in the beginning and now that I have moved to Motor Vehicle Registration, Drivers’ License Training Centre and AP queues, I find navigating the systems with my yellow keyboard, has become easier. I enjoy assisting customers and resolving their issues. Travelling to work has become easier, using the MyCiTi bus from Table View to the Civic Centre every day. I get along with my colleagues and enjoy being here.’
Some of the adjustments made to assist employees with special needs include the arrangement of work schedules to suit individual circumstances; the provision of larger screens and yellow keyboards for visually impaired staff; specific safety arrangements for emergency evacuations; seating arrangements which reduce glare from bright lights and windows and which accommodate easy access for wheelchair users; and, special arrangements for training.
The Department is currently in the process of procuring a second ‘JAWS’ application for a staff member who progressively became blind over the years. ‘JAWS’ allows users to ‘read’ the screen with a text-to-speech output or through a refreshable braille display. Users whose vision loss restricts or prevents them from seeing screen content or navigating with a mouse, can move throughout a page using keyboard commands.
‘A lot has been done to give staff with special needs opportunities in the organisation. The management of the Customer Relations department is to be commended for what has already been achieved. We will continue to put measures in place across the organisation to ensure that the work environment for staff with disabilities is enabling and, at the same time, conducive to a high level of efficiency,’ said Councillor Cottle.
End
Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
