Lim Wei Jie

Foreword Coffee Roasters exists to fill the employment and engagement gap for persons with disabilities (PWDs) upon graduation from special education schools. Specifically, the firm caters to PWDs who do not qualify for open employment due to their support needs, but who are also excluded from many support services because they perform above the minimum level required to qualify for sheltered workshops. Foreword provides training and employment opportunities for those with special needs, disabilities and mental health conditions, giving them a safer and longer runway to acquire workplace and social skills. Unique stakeholder-centric engagementWhile the social enterprise work-integration model is not new, Foreword’s stakeholder engagement model is unique. It operates in an interdependent system of stakeholders involving partners, the community and the company’s committed leadership.Foreword's engagement modelAn inclusive workplace culture is built through the practice of Foreword’s six company values: Improving the self, Meaningful engagement, Person-centred, Action-oriented, Courage to try, and Trusted relationships. These values spell “IMPACT.” By placing its people at the core of everything the organisation does, Foreword creates functional teams from individuals with diverse needs and strengths.Foreword's fifth anniversary get-together for its employees and family members, held at Temasek ShophousePartnerships are Foreword’s main revenue source, where organisations engage its services and purchase its products. This includes the spaces where Foreword operates its cafes, supported by landlords who stand with its social cause. Through such partnerships, Foreword brings greater visibility to PWDs.Community support is the “heart work” of Foreword in developing its employees. The successful placement of an employee often requires a family member, a job coach, a case worker, other nurturing agents such as former teachers who continue to support the employees, or a combination of them.Cafe Manager, Leena, at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music outlet, guiding a new cafe staff on operating the coffee grinder. Although Leena is deaf, she has been a reliable and trustworthy leader within the organisation who has trained many employees with special needs.Committed leadership steers the company’s growth while balancing profit and purpose. As a certified B Corporation, Foreword’s mission is protected in its constitution, ensuring it practises stakeholder governance even with leadership changes. B Corporation certification is a designation that an organisation met high standards of accountability and transparency on factors of employee benefits and charitable giving. The growth of Foreword depends on the growth of its people, and its leadership team places great emphasis on people development. Achieving a sustainable social business modelAs Foreword emerges from the business pressure due to Covid-19, the goal in the next two years is to achieve sustainability in its social business model. In other words, Foreword endeavours to achieve sustained profitability while growing its social impact.In its Enabling Masterplan 2030, Singapore has set a target to increase the employment rate of PWDs from 30 per cent to 40 per cent by 2030. This is equivalent to 10,000 PWDs entering the workforce. This can only be achieved through a concerted effort with the private and public sectors and the public.Social inclusion for those with disabilities and mental health needs is a complex issue that will grow in importance over the years. Although Foreword is currently in the food services industry, its future trajectory is not limited to this line of work. While Foreword stays focused on its mission, it recognises that collaboration is key and hopes to see more actors joining the movement towards a more inclusive society.

Foreword Coffee Roasters employs people with disabilities, special needs and those in recovery from mental health conditions. To us, building a strong team means having people from diverse backgrounds with different abilities and strengths that contribute meaningfully to the workplace. Most of the time, we observed that the first hurdle that our employees needed to overcome was their lack of self-esteem. For them, working at Foreword could be their first job upon graduating from a special education (SPED) school. Or it could be their first job placement after an extended period of unemployment.To ease the transition into the workplace, we break down a job role into its tasks, and break down the tasks into sub-tasks. We do not expect new employees to “plug and play.” Instead, we provide the time and guidance and scaffold the learning into manageable chunks, which allows our employees to gain confidence by first mastering the easy tasks, before moving on to more difficult ones.The coffee machine that foreword uses to make the coffee-making process easier for its staffIn Foreword, we talk about emotions all the time. Part of the responsibilities of managing a diverse team is acknowledging the emotional baggage that they carry. This makes us different from most businesses which expects employees to manage their own emotions and mental health.Psychological theories involving motivation, behavioural analysis and emotional theory are made known to employees through our employee handbook. Our leadership team is coached on the practice of these theories in the workplace, which helps us to extend the “validity” of our patience working with employees who require higher support. An empathy-driven approach to problem solvingPatience is key to being empathic towards our employees. Empathy is necessary for us to solve problems effectively. We are mindful of how we protect the level of patience we have and encourage creativity to try new ways to overcome issues faced in the workplace. When we see improvements made because of our creative process, our patience is replenished, and we are further motivated to work with our employees to make further progress.Foreword's cyclical approach towards A different kind of return on investmentThe returns we get from the investment of our resources into our employees go beyond the workplace and cannot be fully measured in dollars. With gainful employment, other outcomes would include reduced caregiver burden, increased self-esteem, improved emotional resilience and independent living. In the workplace, we assess our employees’ abilities to learn and retain new skills and knowledge to determine how their job scopes can be expanded, which in turn lead to career advancements, further reinforcing the positive outcomes in other areas. The Mere Exposure EffectPositive externalities may also be reaped by having our employees with disabilities at the front of our cafés. When café-goers interact with our employees with disabilities, the positive experience with disability may develop into a preference for it. This psychological phenomenon is known as the Mere Exposure Effect. With increased and regular interactions with our employees, we hope for the public to accept persons with disabilities in other situations outside our cafes.The foreword team during Christmas 2019While it is difficult to quantify the social returns of investments, it is imperative for businesses to invest resources into our human capital beyond looking solely at financial returns. Employees know if we genuinely care for them or if they are treated simply as a number within the organisation. A human-centred approach towards the management of resources in Foreword guides us to make decisions that consider the benefits of our employees. What goes around comes around; when employees feel valued and trusted by their leaders, psychological safety is built into the organisation’s culture. With internal stability, we may then focus on defending our organisation’s position in the competitive business world.

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Lim Wei Jie

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A work-integration model for social inclusion

Brewing opportunities for the disabled a cup at a time