Linking CSR with employment

We can, says visually handicapped:

Janaka KUMARASINGHE

Harshani Opatha, an employee of Link Natural Products (Pvt) Ltd said he had been treated in England for six months at the age of two for blindness which had been cured, but on her return it had become worse. According to my mother an instrument had damaged my visual system during the caesarean operation and now I am totally blind. I never gave up, but studied hard and entered the University of Sri Jayawardenapura where I completed a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Buddhist Civilization in 2007.

She is among the six differently abled persons employed eight months ago by Link Natural.

"We wanted to support the socially responsible initiative by the Ministry of Labour in employing differently abled people which I consider a very good cause.

These employees' work on par with others and the rest of the workforce too feels good about our decision to hire them. We should provide opportunities for differently abled people to live with dignity" said Chairman/Managing Director of Link Natural Dr. Devapriya Nugawela, who is also a founder member of the company.

Four of these staff members are employed in the packing section of 'Link Kesha' and their Assistant Production Manager Dhanasiri is satisfied with the contribution of the visually handicapped employees. "After completing a task some even ask for more work.

Their fingertips are very sensitive and they can detect shape related quality problems better than us. Their productivity is as good as any other competent worker."

Dhanasiri also said, "I understand the sentiments of visually handicapped people better, as my own sister is also totally blind by birth. Differently abled people do expect empathy and not sympathy. Therefore, assisting them should not be overdone. Overdoing will make them feel helpless which damage their self-esteem." Visually challenged Sirikatha Jayaweera of the same department confirms what Dhanasiri said. "It took some time for our co-workers to understand us. Of course, they were kind and supportive.

But as human beings we like to feel that we are not totally dependent on others. We too can do certain things on our own which makes us self-confident. I am glad that gradually our friends are understanding it. That makes us feel important and valuable to the organization and society." This is Sirikatha's second employment and he had moved to Link Natural since it is closer to his hometown 'Kirindiwela'. He is proud to have represented Sri Lanka in Cricket in the World Cup Tournament for visually handicapped. He is Harshini Opatha's husband.

"These days we get regular inquiries from differently abled persons about vacancies after the current initiative. This initiative has increased our goodwill among the community. Even the company trade union is pleased with it," said the Assistant Human Resource Manager Priyantha Kolonnage.

Main concerns

"Before recruiting them we had to address two main concerns. Where to accommodate such staff and what types of jobs to be assigned to them" said the HR Director Dr. Ananda Jayawardena. "Depending on the functioning of different sensory organs we had to decide where to employ them. Therefore, five visually handicapped persons were placed in the packing section." It is encouraging to see these determined men and women with white canes arriving at the company premises using public transport. Though one of their most important sensory organs is not functioning, their courage is second to none or could even be considered more than the others.

They are very much concerned about their safety and it is not an issue for the organisation. During leisure times out of office, they play cricket with similar people, work with computers, read and listen to music. They want to live a normal life without being a burden to society.

"At a time where mass production is replaced by mass customization, production lines need to change the products too often necessitating production employees to be flexible and multi-skilled. Since visually handicapped staff members are not that flexible to be transferred from one task to another due to reasons beyond their control.

Adaptability of such staff into different tasks becomes challenging. Also initially we had to 100 percent quality check their work till they got used to the tasks. It has been observed that their interactions with other employees is limited. These are some of the challenges we had to overcome when employing such staff" said Senior Production Manager Yamuna Dassanayake. "Production planning needs more efforts when such staff members are around us. Also we cannot expect them to perform quicker than normal workers though they have the ability to do so in certain jobs. Welfare matters such as finding suitable boarding houses for them is difficult.

Anyway we are happy that we have had overcome many a hurdle and that they are with us. Also when it comes to things such as hygiene and honesty there are no problems at all" said Yamuna.

Unique experience

This is a unique experience by Link Natural (Pvt.) Ltd the knowledge based Sri Lankan company manufacturing and selling herbal healthcare products, who may be among the few companies to have such experiences. Their main product 'Link Samahan' has become a Sri Lankan iconic product used by many here and abroad. The company has consecutively won the Presidential Award for Export of herbal healthcare products for the last two years. Countries such as the USA, Malaysia and Singapore had granted approval to import 'Samahan'.

The recent approval from the Canadian Government to import 'Samahan' speaks volumes of Link Natural's achievements.