Answer to: How Far Would You Go to Accommodate non-Verbal Colleague?

He can communicate via Slack chats (we have a flexible-hybrid working environment, with 3 days in office) but cannot take calls. Even when face to face, we have to communicate by typing on our respective keyboards and looking at each other's screen. It sounds like you have an effective way of communicating with this individual. This individual obviously has proven they are capable of doing their job. It’s actually you who has to prove that you are capable of working with this individual, and given their role, it likely is essentially a job requirement to do so. There is a very good chance, the individual can actually read lips, you might want to ask if they have this skill. Needless to say, it has been quite challenging, and slow, and now a days (after about six weeks), I am trying my best to go around him as much as possible, trying not to consult him even when deploying ETL or inference pipelines to production. But my boss keeps insisting he has to be sort of the gatekeeper/approver of production deployments etc. If you are trying to actively avoid working with this individual, you are absolutely in the wrong, if they can communicate through Slack you should use that medium. How would you approach it? I am not against DEI (diversity, inclusion or whatever), but do you think at some point someone has to draw a line? Or do you think I am in the wrong to think that it affects the team's productivity? What you describe has absolutely nothing to do with DEI. The individual is deaf, presumably since they are also mute, this was a disability they were born with or is something they dealt with their entire life. You could always learn sign language or ask the company to purchase tools that will help communicate with this individual. Of course the individual should also be requesting those tools in my opinion. I have not spoken explicitly about it to my other colleagues, as I do not want to appear like I am ganging up/teaming up against him, although I suspect at least some would agree with my sentiment here. You shouldn’t share your feelings about this individual with anyone at work. What you are doing, avoiding interaction with this individual, is definitely wrong. What do you think is the best way forward? Should I just suck it up, and learn sign language (in my own time) to be inclusive? There are tools that exist which will transcribe your verbal communication to text in real time. I think you should try harder to communicate with this individual and make sure they feels welcome to the team. After all you are actually the new guy not this individual you describe.