Deaf people are a vital part of the team (Part One)

Mikomax is the founding company and manufacturing arm of the Hushoffice brand, a rapidly rising player in the global acoustic pods market. Hushoffice is one of the newest members of the Haworth family of brands. Mikomax is headquartered in Łódź, Poland, a district known for textiles and cinema.

For over thirty years – virtually since being founded – Mikomax has integrated Deaf workers into its manufacturing teams. We visited Mikomax to learn more, eager to meet the community and learn about this inclusive program. We spoke with a wide range of people across the company, including members on the assembly line, the director of HR, project team managers, the director of the factory, and a member of the management board.

The Deaf team members at Mikomax use Polish Sign Language (PJM), a language with a fascinating history. PJM is distinct from spoken Polish; like most languages, it has rich roots that disappear into the mystery of the past. For more information on sign languages – such as whether one ‘speaks’ or ‘uses’ sign language; if signed languages are universal; and which sign languages are most prevalent in your country - check out our Sign Language FAQ.

In every language there is great beauty. The great beauty to be found in sign language is often overlooked by the hearing community. Sign languages have blossomed in virtually every country in the world. They are packed with rich idioms and rife with clever jokes. Young speakers abbreviate and invent slang. Sign languages can evolve rapidly, at times spontaneously innovating and at times borrowing useful bits from other sign languages or even elements of local spoken languages.

Barriers to communication have often kept the Deaf community marginalised – but these barriers are far from insurmountable, as Mikomax has proven for decades. At the same time, we can’t deny that these barriers exist. Walls don’t go away on their own. They must be dismantled – that something new and more inclusive may be built in their place.

It was our pleasure to sit down with the Mikomax team to learn more about the inclusive community they have built. If there was one key takeaway, it was this: while building an inclusive community requires intentionality, investment and effort, the result creates something bigger than any one business. Inclusive communities contribute to human flourishing – and human flourishing is what makes our work worth doing.

‘Sign language is something that’s full of expression. It's a very expressive language, so you can tell by the emotional aspects that somebody's perhaps dissatisfied or something like that. It's sort of like where your feelings are true.’

Irek Piątkowski

Irek and Michał are production managers at Mikomax. Irek is the head of the assembly department. His team currently includes 19 Deaf employees; he has worked with Deaf members for 30 years and is fluent in sign language.

‘Sign language is something that’s full of expression,’ says Irek. ‘It's a very expressive language, so you can tell by the emotional aspects that somebody's perhaps dissatisfied or something like that. It's sort of like where your feelings are true.’

Michał is the head of the production department for soundproof acoustic booths; his team includes around 10 Deaf workers, and he speaks sign language at an intermediate level. Both Irek and Michał manage mixed teams, which means sign language is not the only form of communication.

‘In my team, we have a mixture of team members and so we have people that are Deaf along with other people who aren't,’ Michał says. ‘That means, of course, our communication is totally mixed. So I haven't encountered any major obstacles in communication with one another and people are able to overcome any difficult things that they have really quickly.

‘I would also point out that people who are Deaf have a very high proficiency and capability of lip reading,’ Michał adds. He explains that facial expressions and facial mimicry are also important features. After extensive experience with speaking sign language with Deaf team members, both Irek and Michał found that they were sometimes more expressive when they are speaking Polish – even when they are outside of work.

‘I do catch myself on that, being a little more expressive!’ Michał laughs. ‘I fully agree,’ says Irek.

Just like spoken languages, sign language develops rapidly. Each generation invents new slang; expressions are adapted over time; abbreviations abound.

‘You can also see differences in generational differences and…how people sign,’ Irek says. ‘So people who are a little more senior have different expressions, different words, and they sign differently, whereas when they're a little bit younger, then they're actually truncating things, shortening statements.’

With Deaf team members, it helps to know sign language. At the same time, there are other ways to communicate – one need not wait to become perfectly proficient in sign language before welcoming Deaf members into the team.

‘I wouldn't say that I'm 100% proficient,’ Irek says, ‘but I can say that I'm a competent user of the sign language… I think initially some people might think that they don't have enough skills, language skills, but that fear that is present at the beginning disappears very rapidly.’ And practice over time soon leads to proficiency. ‘For three years, I was working exclusively with people who are Deaf, and this is something that pushed me far forward in my skills.’

Michał emphasises the importance of visual communication, which is clear and helpful to Deaf and hearing people alike. ‘Especially if we think about how we conduct our production operations, we target visualisations,’ he says. ‘We try to visualise everything that we're doing, and this gives everybody an equal opportunity. So basically all parties, regardless of being Deaf or not, are able to grasp that quickly.’

New technology also aids the communication process – especially among Deaf members who speak different sign languages. Due to the war in Ukraine, Mikomax has welcomed Ukrainian members into the team. Technology such as translation devices have helped to overcome language barriers.

‘We also have mixed nationalities amongst the teams,’ Michał says, ‘and so in the sign language between, say, Polish sign language and Ukrainian sign language, there are some differences – and so we actually purchased some translation devices, and this gives us an ability basically to translate automatically from Polish into Ukrainian, and so we were able to overcome those difficulties.’

The inclusion of Deaf workers at Mikomax was a pleasant surprise to Sławomir Szachmytowski when he joined the company five years ago as the Managing Director of the Mikomax factory.

‘It’s not a problem for me to communicate with Deaf people, because my parents were Deaf,’ he says. ‘So it was really nice when I came on the production when I started the work and I found that Mikomax employed Deaf people… When I started to talk with them in sign language, they were very excited. [I was] also!’

Our visit is an impressive trilingual ask for Sławomir, but he manages it with aplomb. He is both answering the questions we ask him and facilitating our questions to the Deaf team members today – and having to switch rapidly between three languages as he does so, translating between PJM, English, and Polish.

The first Deaf team member we speak with is Zbigniew. He’s on the assembly line and has worked at Mikomax for around 30 years. (Sławomir helped to translate.)

‘A lot has changed,’ Zbigniew says. ‘We are producing new stuff, we have new customers all the time.’ Zbigniew tells us his manager is ‘the best, because he can communicate’ in sign language. As he says that, a familiar face walks by – Zbigniew’s manager, Irek, who we interviewed earlier in the morning.

‘You start to talk with Deaf people, you automatically use sign language,’ Irek says, laughing. Zbigniew and Irek have worked together for 30 years, Sławomir tells us. They’d had good times; they’d had bad times.

‘But right now, they’re in a good community,’ Sławomir says.

Zbigniew tells us that he’ll be retiring in five years – but he likes his job, so maybe he’ll be back!

We next catch up with Robert and Michał. Robert was previously with the company for twelve years; after a short break; he’s been back at Mikomax for four years. Michał has been with the company one year.

Robert and Michał agree that communication between each other, among the Deaf community, is easy. Robert mentions that while he was working elsewhere, he didn’t have the opportunity to speak sign language with leaders and managers the way he does at Mikomax. Sławomir explains that managers do not always find speaking sign language easy, but they have training courses and have passed exams. (We’ll learn more about these courses in Part II.)

We ask about how to overcome barriers of communication between Deaf and hearing people.

‘For Deaf people, you need to speak slowly,’ Robert says as Sławomir translates. Robert recommends emphasising the words with the mouth.

‘We can use small signs, adjusted to the tool, for instance, or to the operations you need to do,’ Michał says. And online communication is easy, with Facebook Messenger being the preferred tool. (Messenger also seemed to be the preferred app for online dating!)

When we ask about football, the generational differences Irek mentioned earlier flare up. Both Robert and Michał support local Łódź clubs – but then we ask about favourite players. Robert initially chooses Lewandowski, but quickly pivots to players of previous generations – Bonek, Tomaszewski, and so on. Without skipping a beat, Michał says Messi and Mbappe. When pressed to choose between the two, he goes for Mbappe.

‘He’s younger!’ Michał says.

During this first portion of our visit, we experienced the good-natured, professional ease of a team where everyone knows each other well and feels like they’re included. To put it simply, it was just a really nice place to be.

Thanks to the impressive translation skills of the Mikomax team – regularly translating from Polish Sign Language to Polish to English – we were able to speak with the Deaf members and hear about their experience. We learned some beginner words in Polish Sign Language (and, at our request, some other words that were a little more ‘fun’).

In short, we walked a day in the life of an inclusive community.

In Part II, we’ll sit down with Maciej Mikołajczyk, a member of the Mikomax board and a son of the company’s founders. Inclusion is deeply embedded in the company’s history, and no one knows that better than Maciej. We’ll also chat with Paulina Wieczorkiewicz, the Director of HR, to look at the specific initiatives Mikomax runs to keep the culture of inclusivity thriving.

Here in Part II, we’ll speak with the HR director and a member of Mikomax board of directors.