THIS IS AN ARTICLE ENTITLED "HOSPITALITY SPOTLIGHT" IN "DEAF-BLIND AWARENESS WEEK"

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Hospitality Spotlight – Cara Aase, Communications Agent, Hyatt Regency Austin Town Lake

Submitted by Leanne J. Mills, Texas Hotel and Lodging Association.

It is a typical day for a communications agent or reservationist in the hotel business. Like most, you battle the morning commute to get to work, making the magical transformation from personal to professional life. For a front-line hospitality employee, you may head for the locker room to don your uniform, instantly becoming an ambassador for the hotel. Then during the crucial work day, you vitally assist the hotel in ensuring every guest or potential guest’s experience is a positive one.

This is exactly the kind of average day for Cara Aase, Communications Agent for the Hyatt Regency Austin Town Lake.  Like so many folks found specifically in our great hospitality industry, Cara is a spirited and friendly person and the kind of employee you want assisting your guests with their needs. 

What you don’t know from the above, is that Cara is blind and hearing impaired. This makes her work day a little different than most, but handled with no less efficiency, commitment to excellence or grace.

Cara has been with the Hyatt Regency Austin Town Lake for four years and loves her job. “I enjoy talking to people, taking their reservations and getting to know our regular callers,” said Cara. She also says the job has changed her life in many ways, from owning her own apartment for the last seven years to having the money to do the things she enjoys, and also arriving at a place where she is happy with her life. According to Brad Carlson, Deaf-Blind Specialist for the Texas Commission for the Blind, who has worked with Cara since middle-school, Cara is now more of a take-charge, happy person. “Because of this job, Cara is more independent, self-reliant, assertive and more able to carry on how she wants to in the world.”

Despite endless success stories such as Cara’s, some employers remain hesitant to hire persons with disabilities as a result of many myths such as higher insurance costs, costs of on-the-job accommodation, fear of extended training and even simple fear of the interview process. 

Jana Loucks, Director of Human Resources at the Hyatt Regency where Cara works, is anxious to debunk those myths. Loucks is also the Lead Employer for the Central Texas Business Leadership Network, an organization committed to promoting the recruitment and hiring of persons with disabilities.

“You would hire a person with disabilities like you would any other potential employee – the concerns are the same,” remarks Loucks. “You look at what jobs are open, identify skill sets and determine a good fit for the person.”  

As for training, Loucks remarks that training for Cara took only a little longer than the average time to train a communications agent. Cara is able to take reservations using a Braille keyboard and software which allows her to hear what she is typing while taking reservations.

Many potential employers fear potential costs of accommodation needs.  The truth is the vast majority of employers who have hired a person with a disability report that the average cost of accommodation was only $500 or less. In fact, nearly three-quarters of those employers report that no special accommodation was needed (World Congress and Exposition on Disabilities, March 2003). Employers such as Jana Loucks from the Hyatt Regency also state greater loyalty and longer employment with their property.

Simply put, hiring persons with disabilities also makes good business sense. There are four million Texans with disabilities, representing a large pool of motivated workers that remains largely untapped. With turnover always a challenge in the lodging industry, actively recruiting persons with disabilities is practically an economic imperative.

In addition, employing people with disabilities also helps the rest of your staff better serve guests with disabilities when at your property and also in their own personal lives. At the Hyatt, the Communications Department set up a buddy schedule for staff to help Cara to the cafeteria for lunch. The staff learned how to lead and walk with a person with a visual disability. Loucks states that this experience has helped Cara’s colleagues to learn more about people with disabilities.

Reprinted with permission from Randy Feille, TX Commission for the Blind.

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