One of BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc.’s top-performing advisors has a learning disability. Murray Newman uses voice-activated technology called Kurzweil, which converts text to audio and plays it into his ear.

“This advisor is consistently among our top performers in Canada,” says Stephen McDonnell, senior advisor in human resources communications at Nesbitt’s parent, Bank on Montreal, in Toronto. “He’s really defied the odds. His learning disability is no reflection of his intelligence, and technology enables him to deliver exceptional service to his clients.

“We never lower the bar of excellence,” McDonnell adds. “But we are firmly committed to the bar being accessible to everyone.”

People with disabilities represent a talent pool that financial services companies — from the big banks to independent advisory offices — can tap to ease the shortage of skilled workers and improve their bottom lines, say human resources experts.

Certainly, from an employment-equity perspective, hiring people with impairments is the right thing to do. But if employers exercise a little foresight and communicate well, it can also be a profitable thing to do. People with disabilities can offer value and productivity, from administration and front-line advisors all the way to the executive suite.

About 3% of Winnipeg-based Assiniboine Credit Union’s workforce of 560 have some kind of disability, says Lisa Anderson, manager of employment equity and diversity. The credit union regularly participates in job fairs geared toward people with disabilities in order to gain a better understanding of how they can be accommodated in the workplace.

“A lot of candidates who are really skilled are being overlooked because companies don’t think they can accommodate them or they don’t understand what abilities those candidates bring,” Anderson says. “We’ve found there are many skilled candidates who can do many of the jobs we have at Assiniboine just as well as or better than anybody else.”

The accommodations made by Assiniboine are usually quite minimal and can be as simple as finding a specific chair, computer keyboard or monitor.

Many accommodations have come down significantly in price because of technology. For example, a 19-inch flat-screen computer monitor costs a few hundred dollars today and is commonplace in many offices. Just a few years ago, that flat-screen monitor would have cost about $2,000 and required a special order.

The average expense to accommodate a disabled worker is about $500, says Norma Tombari, senior manager of diversity and workforce solutions for Royal Bank of Canada in Toronto. But those costs are becoming more isolated. Some of the RBC’s latest renovation plans include making new branches accessible to anybody with a mobility issue. Some of these branches are one storey.

“That’s very accommodating to someone who has a walking or physical impairment,” Tombari says. “You just need to have the right conversation and be open to thinking creatively.”

Making the necessary adjustments to the workplace empowers employees with disabilities. “A disabled person who works for you doesn’t feel disabled when you make accommodations for him or her,” says Don Smith, senior vice president of human resources at Winnipeg-based Investors Group Inc.

One of Investors Group’s best examples of accommodation was the purchase of technology that enabled a blind employee in the company’s call centre to put his finger on his pulse and read in braille what is on his computer screen while he is talking to a client.

“He became one of our best customer-service reps,” Smith says. “Technology is a wonderful thing.”

If you hire a person with a disability to work in your practice, it is important to make an effort to eliminate any initial discomfort able-bodied employees may feel when working with a disabled colleague. Assiniboine helps prepare employees in a number of ways, including bringing in speakers from organizations that specialize in matching disabled people with the right jobs.

“We’ve made sure we do a good job of educating our managers, so they know what to expect,” Anderson says. “If somebody has a visual impairment, for example, get him or her to sit down with the team and explain the disability or what accommodation he or she will need. Similarly, the team may need to learn that a hearing-impaired person might need to see the face of the person who is speaking to them.”

Most people agree that hiring people with disabilities is the ethical thing to do, says Yasmin Meralli, vice president of workplace equity at BMO in Toronto, but few appreciate that it is driven by a strong business case. With the growing shortage of skilled labour in Canada, it only makes sense to tap into the pool of people with disabilities to fill your business’s employment needs. “As the baby boomers retire, a lot of us are looking for untapped pools of talent,” Meralli says. “We’re discovering there is significant talent in the disabled community.”

@page_break@ “We’re finding it tougher and tougher to recruit employees,” says Investors Group’s Smith. “By 2015, experts say immigration in Canada won’t be sufficient to fill the job vacancies in the market.”

Investors Group makes sure all of its internal policies are employee-friendly so that it can not only attract employees with disabilities but also retain them over the long term, he adds.

Lack of work experience is another potential barrier for disabled employees. Many disabled people who would like to work for BMO have had little or no previous employment experience, Meralli says. So, the bank puts them through a six-week training program before they start, in order to familiarize them with the work environment and what will be expected of them.

BMO works with a group called the National Education Association of Disabled Students, which holds job-search forums to help university students with disabilities prepare to enter the workforce.

“A lot of students with disabilities can’t get summer jobs because they can’t be accommodated because [the job] is for a short period of time,” McDonnell says. “Part of our national strategy of reaching out to kids in universities and colleges is to ask them if they have thought about a career in the financial services industry. We tell them we can accommodate them. We give them the courage to ask.”

Meralli points out that not all people with disabilities have been that way since birth; they may have become disabled because of an accident; others acquire disabilities, such as vision and hearing loss, as they age. “But because they have accommodation, they don’t see themselves as disabled,” Meralli says.

About 3% of the BMO’s workforce has some form of disability, but the bank’s goal is to continue recruiting until that number reaches 4%.

There is a definite business case for adding people with disabilities to the workforce, says Greg Findlay, executive director of the Manitoba Business Leadership Network, which sponsors an annual job fair each fall geared toward people with disabilities. And many in business agree.

Findlay recalls the story of one Florida-based bank that hired a woman who was in a wheelchair several years ago. In order to accommodate her, the bank built a lower counter for her workstation. Bank executives were pleasantly surprised when others in wheelchairs came into the bank because they could meet with the disabled employee eye to eye rather than having to look up at tellers at traditional wickets.

“The relatives of the people with disabilities were saying, ‘This bank is accommodating to our families and friends’,” Findlay says. “So, they started dealing with that bank, too. After a couple of years, the bank captured enough of the marketplace that it bought out its major competitor.”

RBC’s Tombari agrees: there are solid business reasons for having a workforce that’s a microcosm of society. “Diversity for growth and innovation” is one of RBC’s corporate values.

About 4% of RBC’s employees have disabilities.

“The more diverse our employee base, the more innovative and creative we are and the more it reflects the client base we serve,” Tombari says. “Our population is quite diverse, and we want our employee population to mirror and reflect the communities we serve.”

The bank has the same attitude when it comes to recruiting women, visible minorities, aboriginal people and people in the gay and lesbian community, Tombari adds.

Some of RBC’s disabled employees have become some of the bank’s top performers. For example, an aboriginal woman with a disability who runs one of RBC’s downtown Toronto branches has done a “phenomenal” job in developing community relations and serving its customers, Tombari says.

And a former fishing-boat captain in Nova Scotia who was left a quadriplegic after an accident became a personal financial services representative. Many clients ask to see him — not because they relate to him being in a wheelchair, but because he’s a former fisherman.

“It’s part and parcel of doing business,” Tombari says.

Perhaps more important, says MBLN’s Findlay, people with disabilities make good employees. Studies have shown that people with disabilities are more loyal than other employees when the employer is accommodating to their needs. Also, he says, their tenure is twice as long and they miss less time than the average employee. IE