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Transcript
Like all employees, people with disability bring a range of skills, abilities and qualifications to the workplace, working in all sorts of jobs.
John Bennett, Director of Engineering at Benbro Pty Ltd says: ‘We have people with disability working for us in different roles. We have a couple of engineers that work for us as people with a disability. We have production assembly staff and we have technicians'.
Arthur Szeto is one of Benbro's employees: ‘My name is Arthur Szeto. I'm the engineer in charge of training staff with and without disabilities and in charge of the production testing area’.
Perth Regional Roof Trusses also employ people with disability in a variety of roles: ‘Presently, positions held in this company by people with disabilities are on the factory floor and also foreman position. We've also had leading hands who have been deaf’, explains Jim Johnstone, Director.
Robert Messenger is the foreman at Perth Regional Roof Trusses. Robert uses Australian Sign Language (Auslan). He signs: ‘My name is Robert Messenger and I work for Perth Regional Roof Trusses in Western Australia. My responsibilities here—I'm actually the foreman. I have a lot of liaison with the managers. I operate the forklifts and I supervise all the other workers’.
‘Elynwood provides all sorts of career opportunities because it's a fairly diverse organisation’. states Jo Spiteri, Catering Manager. ‘So in the cleaning department, we have cleaners and supervisors. In the catering division, we employ cooks and chefs, kitchen assistants. We also provide opportunities in the form of general landscaping and maintenance, and that's an area that we're slowly moving into as well’.
Equal Employment Opportunity Coordinator, Emma Davies outlines the apprenticeship and traineeship program at Hunter New England Area Health Service: ‘We have targeted positions for our disabled apprenticeship and traineeship program, and those applicants participate through our recruitment process, which is merit-based’.
One apprentice at Hunter New England Area Health Service is Daniel Majkic: ‘Hi. My name is Daniel Majkic. I'm an apprentice plumber at John Hunter Hospital. Out of working here, I feel very proud and I feel like I've accomplished something through the activities and things I do, the jobs I've done. And to move somewhere else and to find such a good job and do the things I do is great. I just get a whole lot of enjoyment out of it’.
Emma adds, ‘I guess some people may be hesitant in employing people with disability because there's a misconception that they require more effort, that they need extra assistance, but that's not always the case. A lot of our employees contribute to our organisation and don't require any assistance. A lot of people, you wouldn't even know that they had a disability. So I think there's a lot of misconceptions there’.
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