“I was looking for a specialist in the production area. I
already had hired more people with a disability, and they
all function well in my company, so I decided to contact
this service provider myself to ask whether they might have
somebody matching the criteria for a production assistant
who is responsible for assembling products by welding them
together. For instance, stainless steel tubes are assembled
and plugged together, hoses are wound and threaded, but
also different metals are welded together. It is all done by
hand and a responsible task; it requires practice. This is why
we prefer an employee who would like to stay with us for a
long time.”

“It was Grit they selected for me. Grit was trained as a metal
worker and had already been able to gain some professional
experience in various areas of metal processing in other
companies. I interviewed her, I was impressed by her open
and direct manner and she and I saw possibilities from the
very first moment. She then followed a short training in
our company, to find out whether we both made the right
decision. We could see directly that Grit knows how to
touch things and that she has experience in this work field.
You could see that Grit enjoys her work, she is not shy and
approaches other people openly. Grit from her side enjoyed
the work during these training days. In the end, she and I had
a short evaluation, and we were both positive. For us, it is not
easy to find well-trained people and we were glad that it was
a good fit from all sides. So, I hired her.”

“Right from the start, the other employees also noticed that
Grit has a good knowledge and skills in the metal sector and
quickly finds solutions when something doesn’t fit. Through
her work experience in different companies, she already
had routine. For the introduction, she was trained by one of
my experienced workers. We started with simple tasks just
like with other employees. It worked well. Grit understood
quickly and her tasks could be expanded quickly. After a few
weeks, she was also assigned welding work.”

“On her first working days, a job coach of the service provider
was present, as well as a sign interpreter. They together
spent time to introduce her colleagues into the world of
being deaf. A short explanation about what it means to
be deaf was held, and also posters with simple signs of
the sign language were hung up in the company. Some
colleagues were quite interested and picked up some of
these signs. It was needed to make colleague aware of how
to communicate with Grit.”

“One thing we weren’t really aware of, was the fact that
Grit can lip-read, and very good, in the German language.
The local dialect was a challenge for her to understand. In
addition, she also had to get used to the facial expressions of
individual people to learn how they pronounce words. That is
why in urgent matters she writes messages. She has an app
on her cell phone in which texts can be typed in large letters.

“Grit’s role is as any other of her colleagues. And she
functions like any other of her colleagues, they all ask
each other for help if needed, and Grit is included in this
questioning for help. No special adaptations were needed
for her. She can work with the machines as any other
colleague. She actually has an advantage with being deaf.
It is quite noisy in the production hall where she works. She
does not hear it and her colleagues already use a lot of
signs to communicate with each other, which makes it easy
for her again.”

“In the beginning, we thought she would need some
special contact persons, where she could go to when she
had questions or ‘stuff’ she wanted to talk about. She had
one assigned to her, and it worked well. Though when this
colleague left the organisation, it appeared there was no
need for her to continue having a special contact person.
We decided to skip it and ‘treat her the same as any of
other colleagues’. This works well, ever since. There was
only once this moment when she had problems with some
new colleagues, where we first thought it was because
of her deafness, but then found out it was just a matter of
different characters. Well, that can happen in any company
and Grit received some guidance of her job coach how to
work this out.”

‘Her supervisor is genuinely interested in how it is to be
deaf and to carry out the work while being deaf. He enjoys
learning from Grit how it works and how to communicate
and interact with her. One of the simple things her
supervisor learned, and now we all know, is that is better
to tap Grit from the side instead of tapping from behind, as
she might be frightened.”

“If Grit needs support, which is hardly ever, she has the
possibility to contact her job coach, via Messenger. She
just writes a message to her job coach, and they contact
straight away. I must admit, this was only needed in
the beginning and when this happened with her new
colleagues. For the rest, no support was needed.”

“ I can also make use of their support. I do it every
two years, when I have to apply for a grant from the
government. The applications must be renewed every two
years and we need to write a workplace report. My service
provider reminds me of this and supports me in writing this
application.”

“Grit has been working now for us since 2011. She is a
cheerful person and brings a lot of fun and joy to my
company. Grit’s open personality creates a good and
relaxed working atmosphere. The different way of
communicating also makes my employees more open.
Grit is now better at lip-reading in the local dialect and
employees are quicker at understanding signs. Some
employees have learned a few words in Sign Language.
For new employees it takes a bit time for both sides to
understand each other. But they are told to use the App
for writing things at the beginning. In addition, every new
employee is briefly informed that Grit is deaf and that they
communicate with their hands or text.”

“For us, hiring a person with a disability is something we
regularly do. We now have five persons with a disability
working in our company. We have experienced how it
works out, we have experienced the valuable support from
our service provider. We know now, it’s worth looking a
little further than the ‘normal job market’ to find suitable
employees.”