This article is also available in: 日本語
Internet shopping has greatly shaped our daily lives. It makes shopping so much easier, and with an integrated advanced logistics system to make goods delivery so much faster than ever before. In Seattle, I visited a company which I cannot live without. It is Amazon. I had a short, but very precious interview opportunity with Ms. Cynthia Biles who’s currently a Credit Operations Manager for the FBA business.
Cynthia is originally from Washington state and received her MBA from Syracuse University, where I currently work. Her brother had muscular dystrophy and used an electric wheelchair. Unfortunately her brother passed away. Cynthia shared one of the stories of her brother with me.
“He was in wheelchair until mid 70’s and studied at University of Washington. Every time when he wanted to take an elevator, he made sure that someone was also getting on the elevator because he could not press button due to his disease. One day, he got someone to take an elevator on campus, but while turning around his wheelchair to get off, the person got off and the elevator door closed. It was the 70’s, no students had cellphones or Internet. He could not press the emergency button. Even worse, it was Friday night. He was locked in the elevator for a couple of hours. Due to his medical situation, he might not be able to make it over weekend if no one found him. My family was very upset.”
Cynthia mentioned that the environment for people with disabilities in the U.S. used to be like it is currently in Japan. However, changes in regulation and the creation of new laws has help people to start thinking differently. Changes in the way we think does not happen without effort. People in the U.S. needed to think differently, otherwise they would not be able to meet compliance or follow regulations and laws.
In Japan, the Act on the Elimination of Disability Discrimination comes into effect on April 1, 2016. It is true that people in Japan tend to pay less attention to laws, compared to the U.S. where more people will go to court to protect their rights. However, for this new law, many organizations for people with disabilities have arranged activities, such as a parade, to create more awareness all over Japan. When I had an interview with Professor Kanter at Syracuse University (*1), she said “Laws are only words on paper; they don’t mean anything unless and until they are implemented.” I believe it is very important to disseminate the Act on the Elimination of Disability Discrimination first. By doing so, people are more aware of the law and follow the regulation to protect the right of people with disabilities. That makes a lot of changes in the lives of people with disabilities.
There are two big interesting findings at Amazon.
First, is the procedure of providing reasonable accommodation. In Japan, many companies think that reasonable accommodation is just for some limited people such as employees with disabilities. However, in the U.S., especially big companies provide necessary accommodations for all employees. Amazon has a system called “Trouble Ticket System”. All employees can request accommodations through the system. When you have a difficulty but do not know what kind of solution would work with you specifically, other employees would help you and give some advice from past experiences through the system too. Cynthia said supporting each other is one of the most important corporate cultures at Amazon. Not only for arranging reasonable accommodation, but also for work, managers and colleagues are very helpful to resolve issues together if you tell them the problem you are trying to solve.
Second is rich accessibility in internal training programs. There are lots of kinds of training program for employees at Amazon, and employees can access those in various ways. For example, if you want to take a writing training program, you can learn by watching a vide clip online, read written documents, or listen to audio version and so on. Japanese companies provide lots of internal training programs too, but some of them are not really accessible for employees who are hearing or visually impaired. After several years, that can be a cause of skill and experience gap between employees with and without disabilities. This gap makes it harder for employees with disabilities to get promoted or find a better career in a different company. Having various ways of accessibility, benefits not only for employees with disabilities but also those who are getting older and loosing their abilities of hearing or seeing. In a society, where young population is decreasing, like Japan, improving accessibility to keep and improve talented workers is essential.
When I interviewed companies in Japan to understand their ideas about employment for people with disabilities, I often heard “HR has some level of awareness of people with disabilities, but not other departments.” That situation would make employees with disabilities more difficult to ask their direct boss for an accommodation. The companies I interviewed in the U.S. have a different approach of utilizing employees with disabilities. The companies have a dedicated team in each company to arrange accommodations and their employees can directly contact the team without asking their managers. This way, employees can receive what they need to reach full working performance and work comfortably for a long time after the situation is improved. That would lead to a beneficial outcome to the company, too.
Amazon has been taking many challenges to implement new products and services to change the lives of their customers. At Amazon, I have found that there are various choices and opportunities that all employees can take and expand their possibilities. And of course, employees with disabilities are included. It is true that both reasonable accommodations and internal training programs may be accompanied with higher cost both from a monetary and time perspective. It is also true that reasonable accommodations and internal training programs can increase work productivity by creating a better working environment where more employees can work comfortably and focus on their job. As a result, those employees become strength of the companies which supply reasonable accommodations and internal training programs.
A message to employers who have not been supplying reasonable accommodations and inclusive internal training programs: stop making excuses as to why you cannot include all employees in your organizations and provide them equal opportunities and trainings. Your companies and organization can become much more productive and profitable by offering equal opportunities to all your employees and improving the work environment. You may see disabilities as difficulties, I see many possibilities.
*1 Interview article of Professor Arlene Kanter at Syracuse University