Many employers work hard to ensure that their businesses are inclusive to all employees.
We see it every day, an increasing openness to consider every application, and a move towards acknowledging and trying to cater for differences inside the workplace.
Most employers want to be inclusive, but many fail to realise that the barriers to entry for Deaf candidates start long before the interview stage and continue long after they’ve settled into your workplace.
The good news is that there are some easy accommodations you can put in place to make life easier for Deaf applicants throughout the whole recruitment process, right from the moment they find your job advert. Most of them are very simple and inexpensive to implement.
This blog shares a few small changes to consider that could make your business more accessible to qualified, skilled candidates with hearing loss.
Simple tweaks with big impact for Deaf candidates in search of employment
Supporting Deaf candidates through your recruitment process doesn’t always require major adjustments to your usual ways of working. Often, it’s the smaller, more thoughtful changes that make the biggest difference, the ones that signal respect, reduce unnecessary barriers and create a smoother path into work. The following tweaks can transform your recruitment experience, helping talented candidates show their strengths without having to navigate avoidable communication barriers.
Keep your job adverts simple and to the point
Job adverts can often be unclear and unnecessarily verbose or full of jargon, requiring applicants to respond in writing. For some potential applicants whose first language is British Sign Language (BSL), this can pose a barrier.
BSL has its own syntax and grammar which varies vastly from that of spoken or written English. This makes jargon-heavy or unnecessarily complicated language difficult to understand without a translation.
To go the extra mile in creating an inclusive process, you could consider offering additional formats for conveying information, such as video with accurate subtitles or BSL interpretation.
Keeping language in job adverts simple and transparent and setting out your expectations clearly benefits everyone. All candidates can easily self-identify if they’re right for the job and you’ll get applications from the most qualified individuals, whatever their needs.
It can also help if you explicitly state that you welcome applications from all candidates and that reasonable adjustments and support are available throughout the recruitment process as well as in employment. This will help to alleviate any anxiety that a Deaf applicant might feel as they approach the application.
Remove communication barriers at the interview stage
Interviews typically rely heavily on verbal communication. Using captioning or live BSL interpretation can make a huge difference for a Deaf applicant. BSL interpreters can attend the interview live or via video conferencing.
Slow the questions down to allow time for interpretation, and allow the candidate some processing time before answering.
If you’re interviewing over the phone, consider how this might disadvantage a candidate who relies on lipreading for communication.
Putting reasonable adjustments in place
Many employers see the mandate to put in reasonable adjustments to accommodate the needs of individual employees as a drain on their time and resources.
However, making these small tweaks to your usual processes can actually give you the opportunity to hire the best and the brightest into your organisation, where they’ll feel included rather than overlooked.
Fear of ‘getting it wrong’ often leads to inaction, but even the smallest measures often have a big impact. Speaking to Deaf individuals about their needs can also give you insight into the most effective adjustments to implement for them.
It could mean something as simple as holding an interview in a well-lit area which makes lipreading easier, or providing software to generate live captions.
If you’re not confident offering these reasonable adjustments, you may benefit from Deaf awareness training within your organisation, to help you to identify the most effective accommodations for your Deaf candidates and employees.
The cost and complexity of support
Many employers fear the added cost that providing this support will add to their business. It’s a common misconception that employers must cover all costs themselves.
In reality, many of the adjustments discussed in this blog come at low or no cost to the employer, and those that do can often be covered by Access to Work funding.
Access to Work is a Government-funded grant programme that aims to cover the costs associated with making workplaces accessible to employees with all forms of disability by significantly lowering the barrier to these provisions.
How can Sign Solutions help?
Many barriers to Deaf people in finding and staying in employment are unintentional. Most of us wouldn’t even realise they existed. But they are avoidable, and it’s the employer’s responsibility, under the UK’s Equality Act 2010, to cater for the needs of all applicants in their recruitment processes.
Sign Solutions is proud to have helped organisations nationwide to be able to put such provisions and reasonable adjustments into practice, to help more Deaf people thrive in the workplace.
We offer support in identifying and removing communication barriers, as well as access to highly qualified BSL interpreters, advice and support in applying for Access to Work funding, and the provision of Deaf Awareness Training.
Our comprehensive suite of services offers everything you need to create a positive, productive workplace that’s fully accessible to Deaf and hard of hearing employees. Get in touch now to learn how we can help you make your recruitment processes accessible to all.
