Stephen Hawking, the name evokes the image of a scientist in a wheelchair – specially-abled but extraordinarily brilliant. Back home, do you remember seeing some specially-abled people around you and wondering how they survive? And if they have the necessary skills for a job, who will give them a job?
Now, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), a non-government, not-for-profit, industry-led and industry-managed organization, playing a proactive role in India’s development process has gone the extra mile to ensure these specially-abled people are placed well – they have launched a job portal – http://www.ciispecialabilityjobs.in/ -for them.
According to the 2001 census, there are over 21 million people in India suffering from one or the other kind of disability. Rarely would you find some private corporate going the extra mile to accommodate them. Government does for the select few through reservations. Select NGOs also do their bit like this.
So for the vast majority, this job portal has come as a shining sun in the cloudy sky.
We have seen numerous examples of specially abled, yet courageous people who even after being disabled climb the highest peaks or are top executive at a multi-national company. People with disability should have equal access to employment. Employers and recruitment agencies must make their recruitment and employment practices accessible to people with disability. They also have the required education and skills, which can increase India’s economic growth. There are many very successful people with disability already working in the Indian industry as examples.
The job portal’s preloaded filter ensures that only the specially-abled jobs are shown. More and more jobs are being added to the website and people can search for jobs in the HR, legal, automobile, finance, IT, power sectors and more across India. Apart from the major metros, small towns and cities of India are also covered on the website.
Users can register and search for jobs and corporate can post vacancies too. It is an excellent move to help these bright minds and create equal opportunities for them. Also, corporates have a social responsibility towards the general public and they get to fulfill their CSR role by being part of such engagements. Designmate and Vindhya are the top employers right now and the NGOs supporting are SEC India.
Piruz Khambatta, Chairman, CII (WR) feels “ciispecialabilityjobs.in job portal would go a long way in meeting the needs of specially-abled people to find jobs and also companies who would like to give them jobs, that way this would benefit both companies as well as these people. As they have skill sets so unique, that it can add immense value to the organization.” Khambatta is also the Chairman of Rasna which is a sponsor of the portal.
Mr. Sanjay Modi, Managing Director, Monster.com (India/Middle East/ Southeast Asia) says, “Our partnership with CII to create a platform to empower the differently-abled and bringing newer better opportunities at their doorsteps, is one that is based on the strong ethos at Monster Worldwide. At Monster we strongly believe in equal opportunity agenda. We are confident that this step will help these special- abled jobseekers to find better and right jobs.”
Challenges:
There is a lack of an ecosystem which could provide equal job opportunity to the specially-abled people which was mainly due the myths prevailing about efficiency of people with disability in executing task.
Also, right now the site doesn’t seem to have more than a few jobs posted. Once CII asks its association members to get proactive in this, I am sure there would be a windfall of job openings for the specially-abled! We surely need industry associations to initiate such path breaking missions.
