The Ability '03 conference aims to persuade employers that people with disabilities are more than willing to go the extra mile and help boost staff morale, writes John Cradden.

Rosie McAdam is a serious talker. This is just as well, as her job as customer relationship executive at Esat BT means she is constantly on the phone, either to colleagues or to customers.

Working on the third floor in Esat BT's plush headquarters at Grand Canal Plaza, Ms McAdam's job is to act as the point of contact for more than 300 small and medium-sized business customers of the company, making sure that everything regarding the telecom firm's service, such as technical equipment and billing, is in order.

A big part of getting her work done involves liaising closely with many colleagues in different departments within the building, and, every now and again, she will have meetings in person with them. Some of them are "taken aback" when they meet her face-to-face for the first time, but Ms McAdam says she is used to this.

"When they start dealing with me, they mightn't necessarily know initially that I'm in a wheelchair and that I have a disability. By the time they find out it's like, 'Oh God, you're Rosie, oh right', I've already done whatever they needed to have done.

"It's the same with customers. They don't know because you're dealing with them over the phone that you're any different from anybody else in the company. I kind of prefer that."

She has been working in Esat BT for three years now. She got her initial job, working on Esat's international call-card service, simply by sending in her CV to the company, through which she secured an interview.

Since then, she has worked in billing services and now customer support.

She has a degree in social sciences from UCD and is currently studying during the evenings for a diploma in management from Dublin Business School.

Ms McAdam (28), from Belturbet, Co Cavan, will be seen talking about her employment experiences at a major conference in Dublin Castle next week entitled Ability '03.

Sponsored this year by the European Year of People with Disabilities and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the conference will present a series of case studies of positive experiences of employees with disabilities, including Ms McAdam's.

It will feature short speeches from the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, BP chairman Mr Peter Sutherland, Mr Proinsias De Rossa MEP, and Aisling Foundation founder Ms Caroline Casey.

It will also launch a new partnership with Access Ability, a consultancy that assists organisations in recruiting and working effectively with employees who have a disability.

Ms Casey, a former Accenture management consultant who is partially blind, says she was driven to organise the initial Ability conference last year because, through her work in helping to organise placements for people with disabilities with private sector employers, she found that employers were asking the same questions over and over.

"They had never come into contact with a person with a disability, so the various preconceptions they had could never be openly discussed, such as: 'Do you need them to telework?'; 'Are they not expensive?'; 'Are there not lots of accidents?'; 'Are insurance costs going to go up?' etc. That's when I realised that the only reason they don't know is because they've had no contact."

The conference will give well over 200 employers the chance to see people with disabilities working, to see the organisations that are employing them, and to give them a chance to interact with them themselves, she says.

At a time when companies often wax lyrical about having a sense of corporate social responsibility, Ability '03 looks like a very good opportunity to put words into action. But, of course, this doesn't mean employers should take on a person with a disability purely for altruistic reasons.

"We're not saying you need to employ a person with a disability because you have to," says Ms Casey. "If you employ the right person with the right skills for the right job for them, you will benefit as you will benefit from anybody else."

In the course of its work over the past couple of years in placing people with disabilities into private sector employment, the Aisling Foundation team admits - somewhat to its surprise - that it has found it more difficult to attract suitable candidates with disabilities than companies willing to take them on.

Ms Casey says one obvious reason is lack of confidence. Employers have a responsibility to reach out to those people who may not have the confidence, she argues.

Many employers might argue that this is not their responsibility, but if you want the best talent, you need to look outwards, she says. "Why assume that someone with the potential or talent may not be someone with a disability. If you are, you're missing a huge opportunity."

On the other side, candidates with disabilities have to market themselves and provide potential employers with answers to potential issues quicker than the employers themselves would provide them.

If Ms McAdam's experience highlights one thing, it is that she has been able to market herself in such a way that she is placed in a job where she is at no disadvantage compared to able-bodied colleagues.

"With Rosie, okay, so she can't move around that much but, my God, she's great with people on the phone, that's why she is where she is," says Ms Casey.

One of the messages of the conference is that people with disabilities are more than willing to go the extra mile and help to enhance staff morale. This certainly seems to be the case with Ms McAdam and Esat BT.

In the course of planning the Ability '03 conference, the Aisling Foundation heard about Ms McAdam from four different people within the company, according to the foundation's communications director, Mr Coman Kenny.

"Rosie has set standards that are hard to follow," said Mr Tony Fitzgerald, Esat BT key account manager and leader of the SME customer support team.

In the context of the work of customer services, she is one of these valuable people who is able to "take ownership and responsibility for something and see it through to the end".