Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 10, 1993 TAG: 9306100241
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KAREN L. DAVIS SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
He has been instrumental in initiating an "open-door policy" for hearing-impaired job applicants at Kroger.
Biggs started working with the hearing-impaired when Kroger opened its Reclamation Center at Crossroads Mall in 1987 and contracted with a sheltered workshop to provide the workers.
"I've always thought it was the easiest thing I ever had to do," Biggs said of his work with the hearing impaired.
"I was in a position to help people get jobs, and I had the ability to help raise funds. I didn't have to move a lot of boxes or run 10 miles to make something happen. All I had to do was be able to communicate with someone. That's a pretty simple thing. All I had to do was let them demonstrate their skills and give them an opportunity."
Biggs said he "now can appreciate and admire the strength and courage it takes" for any person with any kind of disability "to get out there and be independent."
Biggs said Kroger officials "thought the Reclamation Center would be a good way to help people unable to get meaningful work elsewhere."
The Reclamation Center situation worked out so well that Biggs wondered what, if any, special concerns he might face if he hired hearing-impaired people to work at the distribution warehouse in Salem. For answers to his questions, Biggs consulted Cecil Prillaman, a regional outreach specialist for the Virginia Department For The Deaf.
"A warehouse can be a difficult place to work as far as safety is concerned," Prillaman explained. "We walked through the warehouse to determine if there would be any problems for a deaf person operating within those confines. We evaluated the things of concern and talked about ways we could remedy them."
Only minor accommodations had to be made, he said.
To adapt the warning and loudspeaker systems to a deaf person's needs, the company simply arranged to issue vibrating pagers to its hearing-impaired employees, Biggs said.
Normally, a warehouse evacuation would be announced over loudspeakers, Biggs said. In such a situation, a code also would be punched in to activate the pagers worn on a person's belt. The person would feel the vibration, check his pager and respond accordingly.
"New people have to work on call for awhile, so we had to purchase a TDD," telecommunication devices that enable the deaf to use telephones, to reach them, Biggs said.
Prillaman said the communication barrier is the major difficulty a hearing-impaired person faces when job-hunting. The best thing potential employers can do to help is maintain an open mind and an open-door policy.
"Kroger has made an open-door effort to, not recruit, but to make the door open to those who apply," Prillaman said. "The entire company has been more receptive to bringing in people in other areas due to the warehouse experience," he said.
When word got around that Kroger would hire hearing-impaired workers, "they didn't go to personnel," Prillaman said. "They went to the man who actually had the door open."
But Biggs wasn't content interviewing job applicants through an interpreter for the deaf. And if a guy did a good job, Biggs wanted to be able to tell him so himself, without an interpreter.
So he decided to learn American Sign Language.
He bought books and attended weekly HandS Group of Roanoke Valley meetings at the Ogden Center in Roanoke County. HandS, which stands for Hearing-impaired and Signing, helps interested people, whether hearing or deaf, learn to sign with their hands.
"It took about a year to feel comfortable enough with it to communicate. At first, I had trouble making my hands do what they needed to do," Biggs said. "Then you have to have regular contact to maintain that skill level."
Altogether, about 14 people have come through the application process since Kroger began its open-door policy, Biggs said. Some were hired, some were turned down.
Those hired were "sent for a company physical like anyone else. They were put on a 30-day probationary period to demonstrate their ability. They got no special treatment, no favoritism. They got the job because they earned it," Biggs said.
The Kroger Distribution Center employs three hearing-impaired workers, one in the warehouse, one in the office and one in the meat-shipping area, Biggs said. Kroger stores throughout the area also employ several hearing-impaired students as grocery baggers, stock room clerks and in other capacities.
None works at the Reclamation Center now, Biggs said, although Goodwill Industries-Tinker Mountain Inc. still helps staff that facility.
Biggs' enthusiasm has inspired other Kroger employees to learn sign language. The distribution center now has three skilled signers. And several other hearing employees learned enough to communicate nominally with their hearing-impaired co-workers.
Biggs' secretary, Debbie Long, learned to sign so she could communicate with her neighbor's deaf child. That child now is a grocery bagger at a Kroger store, Long said.
Long also is a volunteer board member for The Roanoke Valley Fund For Deaf Children.
In its first year, the fund provided TDDs and telecaptioners to children in the Roanoke City Hearing-Impaired Program, a regional program serving about 30 hearing-impaired children from preschool through high school, Biggs said.
TDDs cost between $200 and $500, Biggs said, depending on the type of printer. Telecaptioners, devices that print words across a television screen, cost about $190.
Biggs said the fund's initial outlay for the devices was more than $4,000. About a year later, the state started a program to provide the devices, and "then we didn't have to continue providing those."
The fund also gave computer hardware and software to Virginia Heights Elementary School for a speech therapist to use in voice training.
As part of its ongoing objective to provide hearing-impaired children the same opportunities for independent socialization and fellowship afforded hearing children, the fund takes children on field trips to places such as Virginia Beach; Washington, D.C.; Smoky Mountains; and Niagara Falls, Biggs said. Camping trips, skating parties and circus visits are other opportunities the fund offers deaf children.
All of the fund's administrative work is done by a volunteer-staffed, seven-member board, Biggs said.
Although a separate entity from Kroger, the fund's major money-raiser is an annual softball tournament sponsored by Kroger, Biggs said.
by CNB