Concord Hotelier Heralded For Disability Hires

CONCORD, NH – A capital city hotel received an employment award on Oct. 10, 2018, for its ability to hire and work with employees with disabilities. The Comfort Inn in Concord was honored at the award ceremony for utilizing a hiring strategy that has been largely overlooked in the Granite State – hiring sign language employees and using cellphones to communicate with deaf and New American employees. The strategy was used by Joyce McCabe, the hotel’s general manager, which led to the employment of four people – one who is blind and deaf.

“The original person she hired has been promoted to full-time work and is now a U.S. citizen, partly due to retaining her job,” it was noted at the event. “This year, they have hired another person who is deaf and a refugee with no written language skills and extremely limited (American Sign Language) skills.”

The Comfort Inn hired a native interpreter as well as an ASL interpreter to establish communication when the employees were first hired and later, used cellphones to text message each other. Signs were hung on the wall asking whether or not an employee could come into work or informing the employees of what their schedules are.

Because this method has worked so well, the Comfort Inn felt comfortable taking on more employees with communication barriers.

The Comfort Inn is one of about 500 employers in the state that has hired more than 610 employees with disabilities in fiscal year 2018.

“It is great to see so many New Hampshire companies filling positions with high quality and highly committed individuals who need and want employment,” said Frank Edelblut, the commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Education. “This is a success story for NH Vocational Rehabilitation that they don’t share widely enough.”

McCabe and one of the employees – Damanta Dangal – accepted the award on behalf of the Comfort Inn and Duprey Hospitality.

Read more about the Employment Leadership Award winners for 2018 in this .pdf online.