TAYLOR

Backgroud

DIB Coffees of Hawaii is a project specifically tailored to the hearing-impaired community.  DIB is a gourmet coffee restaurant which focused on Western food and coffee.  The beans are sourced from Hawaii.  The non-profit community business project was set up in year 2011.  DIB Café in DamansaraPerdana in Selangor employs only deaf persons, DIB stands for Deaf In Business.  DIB Coffee of Hawaii is a non-profit establishment, and the profits shall be utilized to open more DIB outlet.  DIB is the first gourmet coffee chain in Malaysia operated fully by deaf personal, guided and trained by a few hearing coaches.  In time to come, DIB hope to train the partially blind, mild autistic as well as people I wheelchair.  Besides, with the support and encouragement from their customers and community, DIB will be able to provide more employment opportunities to deaf Malaysians and possible business ownership to deaf employees who have their own dream.  Dr Allen Teh, the founder of DIB café, has a vision to someday become the world’s biggest employer of the deaf.  He has already embarked on his plan and his Deaf-In-Business Coffee OF Hawaii restaurant at MenaraGamuda in DamansaraPerdana is operated by the deaf and lead by a few able-bodied staff.  Dr Allen Teh invested his life savings of RM500,000 into the business, and was not embarrassed to admit that his business was running at a loss. He funded DIB, with the income from his other business just because he wanted to empower the disabled community especially the deaf.  Although he was able-bodied, he has the passion towards helping the deaf to achieve their dream.  

 

Profile of Manager

MsLanna Ng, the manager of DIB Coffee of Hawaii, is a good friend of Dr Allen Teh. MsLanna loves her job and she is a very helpful person. She was born in Penang. She knew how to talk in Hokkien, Bahasa Melayu and also English. She is now 41 years old. She has married for almost 20 years. Her husband is a Chinese and they have a 14 year old son. Before she get into this business, she worked together with her husband in her husband own event management company. M sLanna knew that DIB is a non-profit organization, but she still accepted the job. She described herself as a crazy woman because she accepted this job 8 months ago. This job did not bring income to their family, yet she need to use her pocket money or borrow from her husband to give salary to the employee when the company faced a loss. But, she enjoyed this this job she said. Being a manager in DIB is not an easy task. Is harder than you think she said. Her hard work pays off as she is going to be promoted as CEO of the outlet and also outlet in Taylor’s University at 1 January 2015. And now she has a good team and a chef to train them. 

 

Challenges

She faced many challenged in the beginning. This is a completely new working surrounding that she never place in. This is because,now she needs to communicate with the deaf and train them to work like normal people do. She could not just talk to them like talking to normal people because they can’t hear it and they can’t know what she talks. Not only that, she did not learn sign language before entering the company and the employee also did not learn how to read lips. Hence, she needs to use body language. Worst come to worst she had to write in BahasaMelayuor draw what she needs to express on a piece of paper to communicate with them. It is not an easy job.She found it difficult when wanted to tell urgent things to them. Hence, patient is also important when handling them. She described the employees there as bunch of kid because the employees is always forgetful and playful, they often forgot what have been teach. Then she needs to correct then back, but she cannot scold them because they can’t hear it also. Sometimes, her explanation or order is not clear enough for them, and then she needs to slow down by teaching them step by step, leading them with full of patient.In addition, she needs to separate the each and every one job. Some was separated to work in kitchen to learn cooking or make some coffee and tea, some work as cashier to take order and receive money from customers and the other work as waiters to serve the customer and clean up the outlet. Moreover, the deaf is like normal people, they will feel sad and happy. She learned to make jokes with them and sometime buy them an ice-cream to eat when they feel unhappy. Each of them has their own characteristic and own personality. The ways to handle the problems faced by them is also different. So, she needs to use some time to keep thinking of the problems to find out ways to solve the problem. Until now she also needs to keep doing this because the worker emotion changes all the time. They maybe miss their family, maybe feel depress or facing other kind of problem. Not only that, she need to solve the argument between the employees. Furthermore, she faced the financial problem as the company did not have much profit. But luckily her husband has his own event management company to earn money for the family. Her husband also acts as a supportive role. He supported her in financial part and also helping her to solve the problem she faced in the company. As all the money earned in DIB will use to pay the salary of the employees and the hostel rental. After that, the money left is put back into the company for future event. If the company got a loss, she needs to use her money to pay for the employee’s salary. Although this is a hard job, she did not give up. She continues her hard work and trains the employees. And now she already used to it, she can communicated with the employee well by using sign and body language that all of them can understand and solve their problem in a short time. All her hard work pays off now as her employee is becoming more and more dependent. She hopes that the

 

Motivate

Handling the worker is not an easy job. It required many skills, but one of the most important skills is to motivate. A good manager will motivate the employee; it is a process of individual’s effort being energized, directed and sustained persistency to achieve the goal.Motivation can be done in many ways, one of the ways used by MS Lanna is toconsole them when they corrected by the head chef. She talked with them and told them that everyone will make mistake, no one can escape from mistake. She motivated them to accept the mistake they had done and corrected it so that they will not do it again. After this, she maybe started making joke with them again and the employee will become happy again. Sometime, she will buy ice-cream for them. Not only that, she teaches them not to give up on their life so easy. Although they are different form the other, but this should not be a reason to stop them from entering the society and compete for employed chance like normal people. The disable should also have the equal chances to get employed by the company outside; they should be accepted by the society. Hence, this company has given them a chance for them to equip some skills and prepare them before they enter and work in the society. Moreover, she helps them to set their goals. Some of them want to buy new car, phone or some even want to buy a house. This makes them work and learn even harder that bring them and their goals nearer. Additionally, they organized outdoor activity at Saturday from time to time. They went to watch movie, shopping or have a meal together. This had makes their relationships closer and gives them chances to understand each other better.

 

 

Conclusion

In this interview with Ms. Lanna, we really learned many things from her although it is just one and a half hour talk. Each and every one life maybe started off differently; some are rich, some are poor, some are born disable, and some are born with disease and many more. But with the hard work and persistence, we can change our life and live like what we want. Never give up and some day you will definitely reach what you wanted in the beginning. Most importantly, we learned to be positive to accept what we are now. Those employees there were not giving up on their life although they were different compared to others, they worked and learned hard now for their better future, family and their love. During our visit, Ms. Lanna called an employee to introduce him. He used his finger to show the letter in his name. At the end, we success to speak out his name, his name is Lai Wei Kang. He showed a big smile and his hand shows a like when Ms. Lanna tells him we speak his name correctly. Most importantly, we had given a great chance to be prayed by one of the employee there. In the beginning, he was shy to come forward. But after Ms. Lanna pursue him for few minutes; he walked near to place we sit. He was very shy yet cute and his face was red like a tomato. Finally, he started praying for us, he used his hand language that we could not understand. A suddenly pin drop silence among us, we were too focused on what he doing. We feel touched as the employee face and eye were red and he was like going to cry but yet he still keep on praying for us. After he had done, Ms. Lanna told us that he had prayed for our safety. We thanked him and he is so happy after that. Also, we learned ways to communicate with them. Ms. Lanna had taught us to do some sign language. For example, thank you, goodbye and also taught us how to order what food we wanted. Moreover, she said that we just leave her a massage before we go to the company and become a volunteer in the company whenever we wanted to learned to communicate with them, play with them and work with them. We were so grateful that Ms. Lanna had given us so much of knowledge that could be learned in the classroom. This knowledge is useful for us and we surely can gain much more than what we expected.