The Comfort Inn recently received the Commissioner’s Award as the 2018 Disability Employment Champion by the Department of Business and Economic Affairs. The award was accepted by Comfort Inn’s General Manager Joyce McCabe along with four of her associates with hearing disabilities.
The Comfort Inn, a property of the Duprey Hospitality Company, is a well-respected local business. The staff was recognized for their ability to hire people with disabilities that have been largely overlooked before being hired by McCabe. McCabe has worked to help hire people who are deaf and from the New American community.
“Our state and local resources have been an asset to the Comfort Inn by helping to find individuals that are excited to come to work every day,” McCabe said. “They’ve aided with recruitment, training, accessibility, speech translation and sign language.”
Comfort Inn is a model employer by demonstrating that they are thinking in advance by anticipating the needs of their guests, and their employees, and then diversifying their business model to successfully accommodate the changing workforce.
Through a sign language interpreter, Damanta Dangal spoke of her experience working as the first deaf employee at the Comfort Inn and about the support she has received from the entire staff. “I am very happy here,” she said. “As a woman living here in America, I can now be independent.” Over the three years she has worked at the Comfort Inn, they have hired five more deaf employees, one of them also blind, and Damanta has moved up into a full-time position.
Kate Fleming
Duprey Hospitality
