About Disabled Employment
In June 2009, Flow, Inc. chose “enabling the disabled people” as one of its social venture missions.

At present, there are over one million disabled people in Taiwan, more than 5% of its total population. In China, this number is greater than eighty million. The population of the disabled has been increasing constantly in recent years along with the fast changing world. It’s no doubt that the disabled people have become an important part of our society.

Taiwan government and numerous not-for-profit organizations or foundations have done a lot by implementing the social welfare programs we knew, especially in the arenas of nursing, medical care, and education. However, everyone is still lagging behind in the area of employment. For example, enterprises have not yet found an effective approach to employ the disabled workers. They would rather pay the fine by missing the mandate set forth by the government on hiring a disabled worker equivalent to 1% of their workforce. In many cases, this fine could go well over one million Taiwan dollars in a single case.

Therefore, Flow, Inc. and its affiliated social entrepreneurs with domain expertise would like to find a complete solution for the enterprises. We will identify a sustaining and profitable business model that is innovative, sustainable, scalable, and replicable.

To employ the disabled people affectively, enterprises are suggested to adopt a “team approach” to recruit a team instead of an individual. Within the team approach system, a disabled worker is well supported by not only his or her team leader, but a counselor as well. The counselor will work along side with the disabled worker, and serve as an immediate mentor.

The services provided by the disabled worker team could be deployed to the following sectors: retail outlet operation (e.g. gas station, convenience store, café and restaurant), corporate coffee bar operation, as well as business process outsourcing (BPO) and information technology outsourcing (ITO), namely, customer services, data entry, packaging, software testing, multimedia design as well as customized gift items, and many others.

Flow, Inc. believes that a team composed by disabled workers and a counselor will not only provide productivity for the enterprise, but also meet consumer needs through effective professional management and counseling system. As a result, a disabled person entering a normal work space instead of a shelter factory can build self confidence and is no longer any family’s burden.

Finally, Flow, Inc. and its affiliated social entrepreneurs are passionate in developing a new way to increase employment rate for the disabled and disadvantaged people. This could all be realized through Flow’s unique collaborative innovation process, where a win-win solution will be created with leading enterprises throughout Asia.