"Workplaces tailored to special people"

Dättwil - The company AP Dialog also employs blind and visually impaired people and values their cognitive abilities

BY KATIA RÖTHLIN

The traffic island at the Täfern bus stop in Dättwil has been redesigned for almost a year. It has been raised and supplemented on the pavements by white, also raised markings. This makes it possible for blind and visually impaired people to cross Mellingerstrasse safely.

The island was redesigned because the company AP Dialog has its headquarters in the Täfern industrial quarter. Around 20 per cent of the employees in the company, which is based in telemarketing, are blind or visually impaired. AP Dialog was created through the merger of Agendaset GmbH and Phontom GmbH. The former was an integration project for blind and visually impaired people in Bern.

Training needs more time
"A call centre needs to be of a certain size to be profitable," says Peter Frommenwiler, Managing Director of AP Dialog. That's why they bought Agendaset in 2009. "I had no experience with blind or visually impaired employees before," says Frommenwiler. In some areas he had to get used to things differently. "Training, for example, takes more time. I can't just do a Power Point presentation, I have to read out each slide," explains Managing Director Frommenwiler.

Overview thanks to Braille keyboard
40-year-old Martin Käufeler sits at a workstation specially set up for the blind. He has been blind since birth. His hands switch at lightning speed between the computer keyboard and a device that translates the screen content into Braille. Through the headphones, he receives information about the screen content from a computer voice. Käufeler is on the phone with a customer of a company that produces accounting software and is trying to convince him to update. "We make the appointments, the actual sale is the manufacturer's job," says Käufeler.

"It is difficult for us as blind people to find suitable jobs."

Martin Käufeler, AP Dialog staff member

"It is difficult for us as blind people to find suitable jobs," says Käufeler, who has worked at Agendaset and now at AP Dialog since 2006. After business school and an internship with the municipality of Wettingen, Käufeler worked at the reception desk of a company. But pure telephone operator positions are becoming increasingly rare. At AP Dialog, Käufeler has a team leader function. He likes the challenge, and for him the move from Bern to Dättwil was a stroke of luck. "I live in Nussbaumen, the commute is much shorter now," he says.

More customers wanted
Peter Frommenwiler would like to offer jobs to more blind and visually impaired people. For this reason, he wants to motivate companies to rely on the special skills of the blind. "We don't earn more money simply because we employ blind people," he says. AP Dialog's clients include not only companies but also non-profit organisations and aid agencies. AP Dialog takes care of appointments, needs analyses, fundraising or membership recruitment. But ordering services or hotlines are also offered. There are many clients who attach importance to working with a social employer. High quality is the ultimate goal and the company can achieve this also thanks to the cognitive abilities of its blind employees. "In the medium term, we would like to offer 35 to 40 jobs," says Frommenwiler.