Mariko Horigome
Director, Professional Development Office
Tokyo Colony (Social Welfare Corporation)

Since the beginning of 2020 when the novel coronavirus appeared, everyone began to experience difficulty in commuting to work/school to avoid infection.  Teleworking as a way of avoiding infection has become commonplace, and working from home is still recommended in many establishments.  As a result, rapidly evolving remote technologies and services have eliminated many of the inconveniences and hardships that persons with disabilities have experienced when going to work.  In a sense, it seems that the convenience of teleworking shared by the general public made us realize that we as supporters lacked the ability to appreciate the potential of teleworking.  Now that teleworking is no longer for specific individuals, I would like to discuss the issue of teleworking, specifically for persons with disabilities from my standpoint.

1. Teleworking is a Method – The Essence is to Function in One’s Own Environment

The corporation I belong to has been involved in computer education for persons with severe disabilities for more than 30 years on the platform of working from home.  Until the early 1990s, the door to home employment did not open easily even after acquiring the very difficult national qualification for information processing.  However, in the mid-90s, as the requirements for policyholders of unemployment insurance and the application of the employment quota for persons with disabilities became clear, coupled with the spread of the Internet, the cases of employment regardless of work location have gradually proliferated, particularly in special subsidiary companies.

On the other hand, in the middle of 2000, when the Home-based Work Support Program for Persons with Disabilities was institutionalized to support people who work under contract, people aiming for more flexible employment without being restricted by the amount of work and working hours started paying attention to the freelance work style.  Approximately 10 years after that, working from home was institutionalized by the Support for Continuous Employment Program (Type A, Type B) under the Act on the Comprehensive Support for the Daily and Social Life of Persons with Disabilities.  It may not be enough, but employment in the welfare services can now be done remotely at the national level.  Under the COVID-19 pandemic, with the flexible operation of this system, it became possible for many people to switch from commuting to workplaces to working from home, which helped prevent the risk of infection.

What we can see from this trend is that teleworking is one of the methods of working flexibly by utilizing ICT technology.  For people with disabilities, the essence of teleworking is being able to function in your individual environment, and it is important that people who need to telework can do so as much as they need to, when they need to, regardless of the type of work, whether it be employment, contracting, or welfare service type of work.  It should not be something that is forced.

2. Disability Characteristics and Teleworking

On the employment of persons with disabilities in Japan, we have gathered the outcomes of research and practice of teleworking since the 1980s.  This was driven by people with severe disabilities.  Most of the factors that hindered the employment of such people were the difficulties of independence in mobility, toileting, and meals; so when Tokyo Colony established an information processing center in 1981, we made it possible to work on a computer at home, according to the circumstances of the members with cervical spine injury and severe cerebral palsy.  This movement eventually spread nationwide, and along with the know-how of working from home, personal computer support equipment and compatible technologies that affect work efficiency have become the cornerstone of employment support.  Nowadays some people with systemic disorders, who receive welfare and medical services at any time of day, work by teleworking.  This promotes the use of new tools such as teleworking robots (Photo), and also leads to “welfare-labor cooperation measures” such as the collaboration between local governments and business establishments to bear the cost of nursing care during work.

On the other hand, the number of people wanting to telework and those doing teleworking is increasing, including those who have no physical disabilities but who have difficulties in commuting, engaging in group activities, and having relationships with others, etc.  Some people with mental or developmental disabilities do not fit in with general working styles and rules, but over the last few years there has been an increase in the number of work arrangements designed to maximise the use of these characteristics in specific tasks.  Until now, training for employment has used a method of linking people around social rules, even if the work is done alone at home.  We give priority to giving them opportunities to do what they are good at; and as they communicate, they begin to learn the various ways of communication.  There was an interesting support case whereby a socially reclusive person left home and tried to work from a shared house. The teleworking method encourages a variety of people to take up the challenge, covering and making the most of their conditions and characteristics of disabilities.

3. COVID-19 and Teleworking

Among the cases I mentioned on the characteristics of disabilities in the previous chapter, the most significant case relative to teleworking I received in consultation was the case of an employee with an intellectual disability.  His case is similar to persons who had not worked on ICT but rather had been engaged in sorting mails and doing cleaning services.  The establishment owner started by improving ICT literacy, and tried to find ways to efficiently conduct unfamiliar online meetings and Web-based training.  During the trial, new digital technologies emerged and attracted attention, such as a tool for subtitling conference recordings and a service that allows you to add kana (Japanese phonograms) alongside Chinese characters while enabling you to interact with a website.  At the same time, hand-held white boards to show handwritten pictures and characters to the camera were also unexpectedly effective.

Those who are more efficient or motivated by face-to-face work will return to the traditional way of working once the COVID-19 crisis is over.  Even so, consideration and trials for the use of ICT for people with intellectual disabilities will definitely continue to be useful in the future.  The reason why using ICT was not so common before COVID-19 was that we might not have considered its potential enough.  In the survey conducted in fiscal 2020 for establishments that support employment of persons with disablilties, there was a comparative study of the number of people employed in the form of working from home with that of the previous year (Table 1 * Note).   From this, we can see that since the COVID-19 crisis, the number of cases of home-based employment has clearly increased in the Transition Support for Employment and the Support for Continuous Employment programs.  There were some cases of lack of preparation and hastiness due to the state of emergency, but at the same time, there are many cases where teleworking opened up new possibilities precisely because of the state of emergency.

4. In Conclusion

Recently, the word “diversified working styles” is frequently used, and teleworking is projected as its image.  As I mentioned in the beginning, teleworking is just one of the methods of working, but other options allow you to aim for employment using this method, whether you are self-employed, freelance, home-based, short-term or part-time jobs.  The choice must be determined by the diversity of each person’s purpose of work, and teleworking helps to make this happen.

The social transformation brought about by technology will continue to significantly change the way persons with disabilities work.  I hope that teleworking will not solely be a method for focusing on efficiency, but rather that it allows for freedom and familiarity so that everyone can feel the universal joy of working.  At the same time, it goes without saying that society must continue making efforts for commutes and travel for people with disabilities to be more convenient, which is just as important.

Note:
FY2020 Comprehensive Project for the Promotion of the Welfare of Persons with Disablilties “Research on Diverse Working Styles and Support for Persons with Disabilities” by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

https://www.pwc.com/jp/ja/knowledge/trackrecord/assets/pdf/the-diversity-of-disabilitiesreport.pdf

Photo: My colleague working with a teleworking robot

Table:  Total number of those who worked from home among those who transitioned to regular employment in each month of 2019 and 2020