Bank boss gets up to speed on digital accessibility options
YOUR average reader can get through about 250 words a minute.
That’s pretty fast but nothing like the 425 words a minute ANZ’s global head of accessibility Hamish McKenzie can manage. And McKenzie is blind, after losing his sight in a car crash in 1996.
McKenzie, who is based in Australia, uses screen-reading software to do his job, ensuring the bank’s digital channels are as accessible as possible to people with disabilities.
‘‘I can comfortably comprehend at 425 words per minute. I can listen at 550-600, and get the general gist of what’s going on,’’ he said. This enabled him to function at a high leve, and he’s not even among the fastest speed-listeners in the workforce. ‘‘I know young guys who are listening at 700 words a minute, which sounds like complete and utter gibberish to me,’’ he said.
Speed listening is a skill that takes time to develop. ‘‘It’s probably a couple of years, to be honest,’’ McKenzie said.
For each individual it’s a process of dialling up the speed every couple of months to find the ‘‘wall’’ – the maximum they can comfortably listen at.
His New Zealand-based ANZ colleague Asima Leone is starting on the journey to find his wall.
McKenzie is aware that ignorance of such life-enhancing technology is widespread, but isn’t bothered.
‘‘It’s not like people are ‘screw all the people with disabilities because they are just a small part of the population’ . . . They just don’t know. It’s not malice.’’
But it can result in employment prejudice. A survey of blind and partially sighted adults across three countries showed Australia had the lowest full-time employment rate at 24 per cent, followed by Canada at 28 per cent, while New Zealand had the highest with only 32 per cent.