DESTRUCTION BAY │ BUSINESS X

Inclusion and Respect for Community as Pragmatic Good Business

KEY CONCEPTS: sustainability, ad-hoc, flexible, community relationships, pragmatic and thoughtful management. 

The owner/operator of a hotel, food, and gas station business that was established in the late 60’s in rural Yukon identified that in order to sustain the business over the long term, employers have no choice but to accommodate employees needs given an identified disability or otherwise.

Good business in the rural Yukon is based on the principles of inclusion and respect as a pragmatic response to reducing staff turnover and securing quality employees.

What qualifies as a disability is not clear to employers. When we first started talking about disability and employment issues, this employers, like most others, initially suggested that they didn’t have any employees with disabilities on staff. Once the we discussed the broader definition of disability, it was revealed that a number of staff did indeed have a disability, but that the these disabilities were accommodated through a natural process of responding to employees needs as they arise –  adapting the work and scheduling during individual shifts and over the longer term.

This employer identified concerns that employers might have in hiring people with disabilities. Initial concerns about the idea of hiring people with disabilities centred on health and safety issues – working in kitchens and around dangerous machinery. The second significant issue centred on skills and ability to work unsupervised with customers making financial transactions effectively and efficiently. Customer service is a key feature of this particular business, placing significant demands on employers to ensure repeat business is maintained through quality service.

This employer talked about the interconnectedness of the business with community life – and how business and community are deeply interconnected in rural Yukon. Much of what goes on in terms of effective business practice is fluid and informal – occurring through daily conversations with members of the community/clients/employees. Responding to individual employee needs is handled in much the same way – in an ad hoc, do as needs doing manner of conducting business. This could be described as ad hoc approach to responding to needs, but without any negative connotation in the process of meeting needs as they arise and not being overly rigid in line management practices.

When discussing the potential benefits of introducing a Yukon Disability Employment Strategy that encapsulated and shared best practice as guidance for business across the whole of Yukon, this employer expressed some worry that some employers might take advantage a model that incentivised employing people with disabilities – suggesting that this might lead to employment that is less about socially responsible and pragmatic business, but more about doing what appears to be the right thing given a guarantee of remuneration for their efforts to be inclusive and responsive to employee needs.

When the discussion turned to developing a centralized support network that might include resources to provide otherwise unavailable accommodations (be it a modification to a workspace or retraining), this employer suggested that help with start-up costs for accommodating an individual would be very helpful.