Why bosses should hire the disabled...

I agree with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong that there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach towards the hiring of older workers ("Work beyond 65? Yes, go for it", May 2).

This policy should be extended to cover working-age adults with disabilities. Many of them want to work but do not stay long in their jobs because their employers and colleagues wrongly perceive them to be less capable, educated, intelligent and productive.

There are two reasons why we should consider employing or re-employing them.

First, disabled people are not necessarily impaired. Employers need to distinguish between disability and impairment.

According to the World Health Organisation, disability is a form of limitation that causes difficulty in performing or completing a task that is within the normal range for a human being. Impairment is any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function.

A person can be physically impaired but have no disability when doing his job. For example, a wheelchair-bound accountant may be impaired as a result of paraplegia, but this does not hamper his work.

Someone else may be disabled with no obvious impairment.

For example, a teacher suffering severe chronic fatigue has no obvious physical impairment but may struggle to cope with her teaching load.

Second, people are Singapore's only natural assets and they include the disabled.

Like any other employee, a disabled person possesses his own aptitude, attitude and altitude for work.

Work aptitude refers to how much one can contribute to one's employer in terms of competence and proficiency; work attitude concerns the approach one takes towards work; and work altitude refers to how much one can achieve when entrusted with more responsibility. The combination of the three contributes to a person's employability.

With SG Enable's new role in helping the disabled find work ("Renamed centre to focus on disabled"; April 18), perhaps the centre can evaluate the re-employability of disabled people who have lost or left their previous jobs for various reasons.

Source : Asia One News , Singapore ; 25th June 2013