For business success, include the disabled, urge US philanthropists
From the workplace to the Jewish community center, inclusion has become an important value among young people, according to Jay and Shira Ruderman
Technology to help the disabled is great, but what they really need are jobs. And businesses need the disabled just as much as they need the jobs, believes philanthropist Jay Ruderman.
In Israel to accept an honorary Ph.D degree with his wife from Haifa University, Ruderman said that based on his vast experience in working with the disabled – and in business – hiring the disabled is the among the savviest moves a company can make.
“As human beings, we identify ourselves through our work and our jobs,” said Ruderman. “That’s why our foundation has made it a primary goal to promote inclusive workplaces in whatever way we can.”
Including the disabled in an employee roster doesn’t just help them, said Ruderman. It also lifts the morale and sense of purpose of everyone else in the organization.
“Recently we sponsored a program in which hospital orderlies were mentoring disabled workers, training them to do orderly work,” he told the Times of Israel. “Not only were the trainees filled with a sense of purpose, the trainers were as well. That’s an amazing thing.”
Jay Ruderman, who together with his wife Shira manage the Ruderman Family Foundation, one of the world’s most active advocates of inclusion for the disabled. The foundation, based in Boston, runs dozens of programs in the US and Israel, from providing grants to organizations that advocate on behalf of the disabled to a fund to provide money for disabled Israelis who want to start a business.
The Rudermans were recently presented with an honorary Ph.D from Haifa University for their work and for their “groundbreaking and important initiatives that aim to improve Israeli society and the Jewish community,” said Haifa U. President Amos Shapira. “Jay and Shira constantly strive in their actions to bring about a change in reality and create a better society.”
Among those reality-changing projects was one held in Tel Aviv in March of this year, where the Ruderman Family Foundation sponsored, together with the Reut Institute and ROI Community, the TOM:TLV “Maker Hackathon,” where entrepreneurs, high school kids and creative types got together to develop devices to make life for the disabled easier. Among the projects developed at the event was a mechanical “raptor hand” made out of Lego and other interlocking pieces designed to help kids and adults provide functionality for disabled hands.
Other projects included an automatic page-turner to allow paralyzed individuals who cannot move their arms or hands to read a book independently; a video game developed by a group of volunteers from Intel, who “gamified” physical therapy routines that injured people often find monotonous; a set of crutches that relieves pressure on the shoulders, and enables the person using them to easily answer their cellphones; and a system that allows those deaf and hard of hearing to determine when someone on the other side of a door hears their knock, which, the makers said, could help deaf people get jobs as hotel maintenance staff.
For the Rudermans, developing tech to help the disabled is a welcome project, but helping them get jobs in tech companies is even better.
“We have seen statistics about the positive impact hiring the disabled has on organizations,” said Shira Ruderman. “Disabled employees are extremely loyal, and they provide a sense of mission to everyone working in an organization. When workers interact with a disabled co-worker, they feel they are doing something important and significant, even idealistic. That’s an important motivator, and helps the organization be more productive.”
Among the tech companies to have realized the benefits of hiring the disabled, for example, is German software giant SAP, which has a recruiting program specifically aimed at autism and Asperger’s Syndrome sufferers. Although they have trouble fitting in and don’t do well on interviews or in social situations, they are often great with numbers, and have a particularly strong sense of visual perception, which among other things is very useful when testing software, according to SAP Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Anka Wittenberg.
Besides SAP, many other firms, including Google, Intel and pharmacy chain Walgreens have active recruiting programs for disabled workers.
That SAP and other companies are now actively searching out the disabled is no accident, said Jay Ruderman. “Millenials and Generation Y kids have much different attitudes than older workers. They grew up in a much more inclusive environment than baby boomers, and they expect to see that kind of environment in their workplaces as well. In other words, the more divers a workplace, the more attractive it is to the talented young workers that companies are fighting to hire.”
And that goes for the Jewish community as well, another area the Rudermans are very concerned with, sponsoring exchange programs for academics and government officials between Israel and the US, and funding educational programs in schools, camps and afterschool programs.
“The Jewish community has been focused on continuity, on ensuring that there will be a future Jewish community, and less focused on diversity and inclusion,” said Jay Ruderman. “From day schools all the way up to Birthright, nearly everything is geared to promoting continuity. But if organizations want to reach out to young Jews, they need to be more inclusive of all kinds of people, including the disabled.”
“We’re at a historical turning point,” he said, “and Jewish organizations need to understand the importance and power of inclusion.”
The Times of Israel Community.