If you were to step inside a Cafe Coffee Day outlet to sip your chosen cuppa, chances are you will spot some customers writing notes on a napkin and showing them to a group of attentive brew masters. It's a mode of communicating with brew masters who are hearing impaired, or 'differently-abled' in the company's parlance.
But these brew masters more than make up for their hearing defects with other inherent strengths like an enormous sense of taste. In fact, their sense of smell help them become quality controllers who can ensure that coffees served to the customers are "the best possible in every way."
Says Shyamala Deshpande, Sr General Manager (HR and Training), Cafe Coffee Day: "These employees are specialising in this field since they have shown an aptitude for 'brewing' and not because they can't work in the direct servicing section."
The idea of hiring these candidates sprouted when Enable India, a nodal agency for recruitment of hearing-impaired candidates, approached Café Coffee Day to hire its disabled candidates.
"We decided to conduct a pilot initiative of hiring a batch of 10 hearing impaired candidates as brew masters in Bangalore. We were very happy with the results and today we have a total of 24 brew masters working with cafes in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad," says Deshpande.
The hiring process involves company personnel first interviewing the candidate with a sign language interpreter present. The chosen candidate is made to go through a two-week coffee training period and a test is conducted by Café Coffee Day's in-house trainers.
Even this process happens with the help of sign language interpreters. This training is followed by a practical and theoretical test.
Enable India co-ordinates with NGOs working with disabled candidates across cities. It handles the pre-screening and keeps batches of interested candidates ready for interviews. Such candidates are hired in a minimum batch size of five or more.
Says Deshpande: "The brew master is a very integral part of the café environment, his contribution is extremely important to the satisfaction of customers as coffee is at the core of our business. We ensure that all staff members of the café including the café manager who runs the café is sensitive towards our silent brew masters."
As for the brew masters, they are out to prove that even the deaf can hear the end-customer.
