SG Enable recognises 110 disability-inclusive employers, individuals

AT THE Enabling Mark Awards Ceremony on Tuesday (Oct 15), SG Enable recognised 110 disability-inclusive employers and individuals, the largest pool of recipients since the launch of the annual award ceremony in 2021. 

The event, held at Parkroyal on Beach Road, recognised 98 organisations and 12 individuals for promoting disability inclusion in the workplace.

Employers received the Enabling Mark, a national-level accreditation and framework which helps them measure how inclusive their workplaces are.

Companies are assessed across six areas, such as recruitment practices, workplace accessibility, and community engagement and promotion, among others. 

At the end of the appraisal, companies could be accredited with one of the Enabling Mark’s three tiers – silver, gold or platinum.

Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, the ceremony’s guest of honour, said there has been growing recognition in recent years of how businesses can contribute to society and the environment. 

He added that companies could also gain from its disability-inclusive practices, citing how customers and clients expect enterprises to be socially responsible, even as they pursue profits.

A more inclusive workplace could also draw in better talent amid steeper global competition for the resource, the minister noted.

Deutsche Bank, accredited with the Enabling Mark (Platinum) this year, said that it has made a conscious effort to consider more persons with disabilities for employment, on top of its employment policies.

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The bank was an Enabling Mark (Silver) recipient in 2021, and has progressed two tiers with its latest accreditation.

This comes after the lender launched its Neurodiversity@Work programme, which provides neurodiverse persons with work opportunities.

It also partnered Autism Resource Centre last year and introduced a programme to hire individuals with disabilities into operations roles. The lender is a founding member of the Singapore Business Network on Disability.

Raily Tissera, the bank’s regional human resource business partner in Asia-Pacific, said that job placements for people with disabilities also benefited the wider industry, with some former interns finding employment in other companies.

Small and medium-sized enterprises made up 40 per cent of the organisations that were accredited this year.

Re-store Enterprise, which uses discarded textiles and other recycled materials to produce fashion accessories, is a first-time recipient of the accreditation, with an Enabling Mark (Silver). 

Its co-founder Claudia Yong told The Business Times that the social enterprise had planned to provide jobs to marginalised communities when it launched in 2020.

While its initial hiring practice did not target specific underserved communities, its first few hires opened the doors for hiring more persons with disabilities, Yong said.

For instance, Mardiana, who is hard of hearing, was one of the first few members on Re-store’s production team.

She is now the social enterprise’s head seamstress, and was one of the 12 individual recipients at the awards ceremony.

Yong added that persons with disabilities currently make up about 80 per cent of its production team. 

At the ceremony, DPM Heng introduced a new Employer Development Grant of up to S$40,000 per organisation to help companies boost disability-inclusive hiring efforts.

This is in addition to the existing Job Redesign Grant of up to S$20,000 per employee with disability, as well as the training grant for employers. 

The newly launched grant is a part of the government’s Enabling Masterplan 2030, which aims to encourage more companies to adopt disability-inclusive employment practices. 

SG Enable, which organises the Enabling Mark Awards Ceremony, is the focal agency for disability and inclusion in Singapore.