Procter & Gamble (P&G) Philippines, a company that has long championed equality and inclusion in the workplace, launched its P&G Limitless program and the P&G Manila Service Center (MSC) Persons with Disability (PWD) Network.
The program aims to enable everyone to become disability confident, from the moment they apply and all through their career journey in the company. Disability confidence in business is when employers are able to have the skills, techniques, tools, and confidence needed to understand disabilities and address barriers for their PWD employees.
P&G aims to create an environment where all employees are well-equipped with disability fluency, thus understanding and knowing how to interact and work with persons with a disability. This helps create a more inclusive workplace and company culture where employees with a disability and employees with disabled dependents feel valued, included and can perform at their peak.
Among their practices, the company uses software applications and their features such as live captioning and other visual accessibility tools so that hiring managers, interviewers and employees can leverage these features to successfully conduct interviews, trainings, and meetings with colleagues and applicants with disabilities. For hard-of-hearing applicants, P&G can provide interpreters during interviews and onboarding activities to assist applicants in navigating and understanding processes to give them a strong start in a new company.
“P&G believes in the power of our unique differences and in giving equal access and opportunity to everyone regardless of gender, background, sexual orientation, and disability. We intentionally provide the necessary tools and accommodations that give people an equal opportunity to succeed. Across our hiring, training, development and appraisal processes, we assess every employee’s performance fairly based on their impact and eliminate bias where it is unnecessary,” says Vince Dizon, Country Human Resources Leader for P&G Philippines.
P&G also aims to strengthen its capabilities by partnering with different expert institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Benilde Deaf School to conduct basic Filipino Sign Language Training. Recently, the P&G PWD network also collaborated with the University of the Philippines College of Allied Medical Professions to conduct a Neurodiversity awareness and acceptance training for its employees. This included an interactive discussion about the introduction to neurodiversity, neurodiverse experiences and perspectives, and the types of therapies and support services to further help P&G employees to be disability confident.
Fostering inclusive communities
The PWD Network is the latest community that P&G has established to foster equality and inclusion in the workplace. Other P&G affinity networks include their Women’s Network, Parents at Work, Men Advocating Real Change (MARC), and Gay, Ally, Bisexual, and Lesbian Employees (GABLE).