SINGAPORE — Ms Reena Deen didn’t know it then, but despite her enjoying her first stint in the workplace as a fresh graduate, her dyslexia made it extremely difficult for her to read Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. 

Dyslexia is a learning disability that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling. For Ms Reena, 41, the information on the rows appeared jumbled.  

While she had a good relationship with her colleagues and manager, she didn’t feel comfortable enough to share her problems or struggles with them for fear that she might lose her job. 

“The only thing we learned how to do over the years is we don't really tell people that we have this issue (disability) because if you do that, you’re instantly going to be stigmatised,” said the freelance tuition teacher and indie filmmaker.

When it comes to speaking about disabilities, especially invisible ones like hers, Ms Reena has noticed a marked difference in attitudes over the years since she started working. 

For one, she feels safe enough in her current tuition centre — her workplace for the past three years — to speak openly about her dyslexia, thanks to her manager. 

Ms Reena’s manager had shared that her son had Asperger’s Syndrome and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and she was getting him help. 

This gave Ms Reena the confidence to be more upfront about her condition, even with her young charges.

“This is the first time in a tuition centre that I can openly share with my students about my dyslexia,” she said. 

“I think, in a way, things are changing. But then again, I know my experience (of being open about her dyslexia with her manager) is an exception, not the norm.”  

The attitudes surrounding disability at workplaces have continued to change in recent years and this is evident from Mr Ian Tang’s experience.

The 42-year-old suffered a stroke in 2018 which affected the left side of his body. While he has regained some mobility, walking around is very tiring for Mr Tang, as his right side does most of the work.

He now works in marketing at the National Trades Union Congress and speaks of how his managers and colleagues have been supportive.

In one instance, his human resource department helped Mr Tang plot his route from his home to his office to ensure it was sheltered. 

He also remembered how accommodating and proactive his manager was in asking him if he needed a bigger desk or if he wanted to work closer to the door.

“Lifts and ramps are good, but they are not enough,” said Mr Tang. He added that if an employer wants to hire a person with disabilities, everyone from managers to employees has to support this person as part of the company’s culture.

Indeed, persons with disabilities and advocates for them told TODAY that Singapore has made good progress in fostering a more inclusive workplace environment and boosting employment opportunities for disabled individuals.

WHY IT MATTERS 

Resident employment rate for persons with disabilities aged 15 to 64 has increased from 28.2 per cent in the period of 2018-2019 when such data was first collected, to 30.1 per cent in 2020-2021 and to 31.4 per cent in 2021-2022.

To continue pushing for a more inclusive Singapore, the Enabling Masterplan 2030, announced in 2022, outlines a roadmap of 29 recommendations to support people with disabilities.  

The recommendations include a target of 40 per cent of people with disabilities to be employed by 2030. 

While some disability advocates TODAY spoke to said that this goal is both “ambitious” and “achievable”, they said that more needs to be done to increase employers' and businesses' awareness of disability to better integrate disabled individuals into the working world. 

For example, the 40 per cent employment rate needs to be further unpacked to determine what constitutes being “gainfully employed”.

“The challenges we face as persons with disabilities are to be given real jobs and not created jobs,” said Ms Cassandra Chiu, president of the Disabled People’s Association.

Beyond increasing the employment rate, advocates highlighted other challenges, such as career progression and mobility for persons with disabilities. 

THE BIG PICTURE 

While there is still room for improvement, disability organisations and advocates agreed that Singapore has made strides in levelling the playing field for persons with disabilities at the workplace.

Ms Chiu cited government schemes such as the Enabling Employment Credit and the Open Door Programme that support employers in hiring persons with disabilities as a factor.

The Enabling Employment Credit offsets up to 20 per cent of wages and is capped at S$400 per month for each employee. The Open Door Programme encourages employers to hire, train and integrate persons with disabilities through recruitment, job placement and job support services. 

In 2022, close to 6,600 organisations received the EEC and collectively employed more than 10,000 employees with disabilities, the Ministry of Social and Family Development said in a parliamentary reply in October 2023.

“If we look at the last 20 years or so in terms of employment of persons with disabilities, I think there are a lot more schemes currently,” said Ms Chiu, who is blind. 

Ms Chiu remembers graduating with a Masters in Counselling in 2011 and how difficult it was to get a job as a school counsellor in public schools. When she finally got a job with a private firm counselling inmates at Changi Prison, she discovered that her salary was half that of her peers, at S$1,800 before Central Provident Fund deductions. 

She was also not provided with a laptop equipped with accessibility software to do her work, so Ms Chiu had to bring her own to the workplace. 

“I wasn't able to do my job because there were attitudes or mindsets that a blind person could not do the job because it was dangerous or whatever the reason,” she said. 

Mr Richard Kuppusamy, 47, who holds a leadership role at a multinational company and uses a wheelchair having being born with spina bifida, said Singapore has also made progress in terms of physical accessibility. 

“In Singapore, we’re good with the nuts and bolts of infrastructure,” said Mr Kuppusamy, who is also an adviser to the Disabled People’s Association. “You can spend money to adapt the environment and make it accessible to people.” 

He said he had a good experience with his employer when he returned to Singapore to work as an architect in 2012. His then-employer, WOHA Architects, had used a grant to renovate its entire shophouse office to make it wheelchair accessible for Mr Kuppusamy.  

BOTTOMLINE 

A significant challenge that the disabled community still has to grapple with is the lack of awareness about disability in general.

Ms Emily Ong, senior director of employment and lifelong learning at SG Enable, said: “In the workplace, some misconceptions about persons with disabilities are that they require more effort to integrate into the work environment or are less productive.”  

SG Enable is the main government-linked agency that seeks to help persons with disabilities to live and work in an inclusive society. 

Mr Shalom Lim, 28, said that while there have been improvements in the last 10 years, social stigma remains a main barrier for persons with disabilities at the workplace. 

“There is the issue of marketability and the age-old trope that we are less capable because we will be less productive and therefore undesirable as employees or as candidates,” said Mr Lim, whose last job was a community partnerships executive at K9Assistance.

Mr Lim has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare genetic disease characterised by progressive muscle weakness and wasting, as well as ADHD. 

“People are not aware (of the experience of disabled persons) and not accepting, and there is no avenue for persons with disabilities to go through if we are discriminated against.”

Mr Lim added that because there is currently no discrimination law for disability, hiring managers can easily dismiss a disabled individual as “not a good fit”. 

However, Singapore is planning to introduce Workplace Fairness Legislation, which will give people facing workplace discrimination legal teeth to seek redress at all stages of their employment such as during hiring, promotion and dismissal.

Persons with disabilities interviewed by TODAY said they hope the proposed legislation will help curb workplace discrimination, and also address the need for employers to provide reasonable accommodations, that is, modifications or adjustments that enable disabled individuals to perform their given tasks. 

Mr Max Soh, a research and policy manager at the Disabled People’s Association, said that while some employers are well-meaning, there is a “lack of mainstreaming of reasonable accommodation protocols”, and persons with disabilities are afraid to ask for them.  

“Another misconception is that reasonable accommodations are special advantages or special treatment or something that employers should be rewarded for providing, but by definition, reasonable accommodations are essential and necessary modifications for persons with disabilities.”

Besides encouraging employers to make reasonable accommodations, job crafting is another solution — with employers creating jobs that focus on the strengths of persons with disabilities.

As an indie filmmaker who casts actors with various disabilities in her films, Ms Reena makes it a point to tailor the job to the actor.

For example, she had an actor with ADHD who had trouble memorising lines, so she told him that for his scenes, he could improvise instead, and she would edit around it. 

Job crafting is especially important in the neurodivergent space. 

Ms Jacelyn Lim, executive director of Autism Resource Centre (Singapore), said: “Jobs must fit the strengths of individuals on the autism spectrum.”

Advocates added that with reasonable accommodations codified, employees will be more willing and braver to ask for what they need. 

“I want employers to see the person and not the disability. Look at what a person with disabilities can do and not what they can’t,” said Ms Reena.

“Employers forget something vital. A person with disabilities has many struggles that have built up their character. This makes them resourceful, determined, and hardworking. These are traits you want in your employees.”