Good afternoon, everyone, I''d like to thank everyone for their patience with the last-minute changes to the materials and the updating of the site. Today''s session is brought to you from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) & Information Technology (IT) Technical Assistance Center. It is a collaborative project. Today''s session, January 17th session is the first one of a four-part series on employment and the ADA. Today''s session is titled Employer Case Studies: Best Practices of Employment. As you all know, the changes were done to speakers, so we will have Robin Jones, Director of the Great Lakes ADA & IT Technical Assistance Center be the speaker today. And I also want to remind everyone that today''s session is being real-timed captioned and those of you that are participating or using that technology will be able to save the transcript and view it at a later time, also the materials will be posted to the audio conference website, which is www.ada-audio.org ten days after the session to review the transcript, listen to it, as well as view the materials. Also, if there is any questions about participating in another session in the future, you can review the schedule there. Or contact your local ADA & IT Technical Assistance Center at 1-800-949-4232. At this point I''d like to transfer it over to Robin Jones.
Thank you, Claudia. I am switching hats a little bit today, I am going to be presenting the material for today. I do want to extend our sincere apologies. There has been a change in this particular session and I know it has created a lot of hardship for many of you, due to the last minute availability of some of the materials and we had some communication mixups and problems with our speaker and, no faults of theirs, they were unable to do the session today. The majority of the information that is going to be utilized in today''s program has been taken from the Rehabilitation Research Training Center on workplace supports and job retention, which is located at the Virginia Commonwealth University. Their website is www.worksupport.com. They have done extensive work in the time period that they have been functioning as an RRTC, and that is a project that is funded by the U.S. Department of Education National Institute on Rehabilitation and Research and Disability, or NIDRR as we would call them as an acronym. This information you should have gotten, or hopefully got again last minute and we do extend our apologies, from the website for this session. That would include a copy of the PowerPoint presentation as well as a number of key case studies of a variety of employers. There are a number of employers, over 30 employers, that were a part of or have been a part of the studies that this organization has been involved in, and those case studies are posted on their website and again, I will give that to you, www.worksupport.com. And you can search for case studies under their reasonable accommodations section or their linkages with employers. I am going to be highlighting a few of those, in the best practices that have been identified in some key areas that are most commonly asked about or discussed or come up in relationship to reasonable accommodations. I encourage you during the question and answer period to explore these issues further with me, and again, also use these materials. Some of the information has been pulled from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Which, as many of you may or may not be aware, produced a report on best practices for employment of people with disabilities in state government. They issued an interim report and a final report. We provided you an executive summary of those reports to review as materials for today, but also as supplemental materials, if you choose, there was also the ability to download the full reports and they were somewhere in the range of 32 pages a piece. So it is your choice whether you decided you wanted to explore that further. Those reports are also available on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission''s website which is www.eeoc.gov. So I am going to go ahead and proceed with the session today. As I said, we will have an opportunity, as we typically do, to be able to be engaged in some question and answers toward the end of the session. I am going to be featuring or focusing on a couple different point that is have been highlighted in many of the case studies and best practices that were done through the work support center. Those being outreach recruitment efforts, our ability to attract individuals with disabilities or our proactive efforts in that regard, interactive process for accommodations. Many who are in the HR or the employment arena know how important this critical component is and how the ADA very distinctly calls for the requirements for an interactive process for accommodations and may also be aware of the fact that there has been some case law, not a huge amount, but some case law developed around the issue of where employers have failed to engage in the interactive accommodations process. Also we will be discussing and highlighting some of the best practices around funding accommodations and, of course, paying for accommodations or the ability to pay for accommodations is always a high issue in most conversations that we have and our colleagues have around reasonable accommodations. One of the biggest questions always is, is it too expensive, how do I pay for it? Where can I get some financial assistance? Or is there any financial assistance in that area. Another area we will be talking about is injury management and return to work. Again, for many of our individuals with disabilities who are covered or protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act, or for that matter, even under our state human rights laws, many times it is the issue of not a disability that they may have had from birth, but maybe one that they acquired during the employment process, because of the type of work they had. Or whether or not they had an accident or an illness of such that took them out of the workplace and when they wanted to return back into the workplace. We will also be discussing some of the best practices identified by these organizations and companies related to labor relations, working with collective bargaining units is also a key factor. They are very much a player in the employment process under the ADA, and one can''t ignore that area of importance either. Finally we will be talking about staff training. Staff training is a critical issue in regards to the fact that that is also where you make it or break. For many individuals, as I would often say in my trainings, is that you are only as good as your low test denominator; that is you could have investment of management, investment of your supervisors and such, and a buy-in, but if you don''t have the line staff who are dealing with the variety of issues in your day-to-day interactions with individuals with disabilities, aware of disability and sensitized to disability issues, that was where the problems often times can come in and create more problems than an employer may have anticipated. So I will be talking about some of the best practices again, identified by some of these employers in relationship to that particular area. Okay, to proceed. If you are following on my PowerPoint presentation, we are on the third slide which is outreach and recruitment efforts. With the employers that were targeted and that were worked with by the work support center, they had identified a number of different strategies and issues related to the area of outreach and recruitment. Oftentimes what we hear from employers when it comes to the context of recruiting or bringing in people with disabilities into the workplace, we are often confronted with such statements as where do I find individuals with disabilities? Nobody with a disability has applied for a job with us. Or where can I get some additional information or assistance or input on hiring people with disabilities. Several of the companies that are featured did very proactive activites and engaged in some very successful activities as it relates to engaging employees with disabilities. For example, Northwest division of Safeway, which is a grocery food establishment out in the northwest in the Seattle area, has identified that their most successful strategies were related to the fact that they identified and developed relationships with disability organizations such as vocational rehabilitation agencies and other groups that facilitated connections with individuals. Some of the groups that they have identified that may be readily available in your own geographic areas are organizations such as projects with industries, your state''s business leadership network. You may also have some subsets of that in different geographic areas, but the business leadership network is an outcropping of the old presence committee and employment with people on disabilities which is now the Office of Disability and Employment Policy within the U.S. Department of Labor. And the business leadership network is really a business-to-business relationship. It is a network of employers who are either seeking information on employment of people with disabilities or individuals who are interested, who have been successful employing people with disabilities and want to the share that information. So if you do or have a BLN or a business leadership network in the area, they are a good resource for potentially tapping into other candidates. State vocational agencies, local disability providers such as Easter Seals, United Cerebral Palsy, the ARC, Good Will Industries, every organization or every location in the country will personally have different names associated with their disability organizations, but often times these organizations are a good pool and as our employers have identified in a couple situations that by developing a relationship with these organizations and entities, they were then able to better match qualified applicants with the positions, because both organizations got to know each other. Got to know the skills of the people that they may be working with, from the side of the disability organizations and the disability organizations and the providers gained a greater understanding of the type of employee or the type of positions that the employer needed and that those relationships were extremely valuable. Another best practice that was identified in relationship to this issue was collaboration with service organizations to design or host training programs that specifically meet the needs of the organization that is in need of employees in order to ensure a pool of qualified applicant when they are recruiting for these positions. Several of the employers that are highlighted in the case studies talked about the fact that they worked closely with disability organizations to identify positions within their organization for which they were commonly hiring, some of their high turnover positions or some of their positions where they may have a need for some specialized expertise and were having difficulty finding that expertise in the community by partnering with some of these organizations to customize the training programs and to really target some specific skills that were needed by that particular employer that they had success in identifying qualified applicants at the time when the employer was doing their recruitment and hiring. That often times employers identify that they may have positions available but have a difficult time finding people who are qualified for this position. This linking or this partnership with the disability organizations to customize their training that would prepare people for these positions went a long way to ensuring that there were more opportunities for people to be employed with these companies because of the specialization of and often the nature of their positions and what skills people needed. Also, in addition they identified as one of their best practices or at least one of the practices that were highly successful for them, were that by promoting efforts they had done internally to recruit and hire individuals with disabilities with other units within their organizations, that they increased the likelihood of those other units hiring people with disabilities. I think that if you read some of the information and you look at further some of the discussions, some of the comments that are made by the employers in the case studies you will find that some of them which was also what we find to be true, we will say, yeah, maybe we will get one employee who champions the hiring of people with disabilities or one unit that has a high percentage of people with disabilities that they may hire in their particular unit. But when you look across the company we may not tend to see that type of spread or diversity. Often times it may be fear of unknown or a lack of awareness by some of those other hiring managers and supervisors about people with disabilities or the skills of people with disabilities that might be in the potential workforce. And by promoting the activities that already have taken place, and highlighting the successful employment that may have been achieved that that has a positive effect on other units and down the road, others will begin as they are doing the recruitment and hiring to look to, well how can I tap into that same pool of individuals, I have some positions that somebody with those skills and background may be able to do. And that helped to encourage others, then they knew they had someone else that they may be able to talk to about any concerns or fears that they had or someone that already has experiences within the company on issues. And we do know that ignorance is often was does play into lack of hiring of people with disabilities is because of the fears or just understanding that I don''t know what to do or how would I do that. It is easier to avoid it than to embrace it itself. Moving on to some of the other areas, or the next area being an issue of interactive process for reasonable accommodation. One of the things that often we know and has been touted many times in the regulations and various document that is have been distributed by the equal employment opportunity commission, is the fact that the reasonable accommodation needs to be an interactive process, it is not the employer doing something to an applicant or to an employee. But it is the interaction between the applicant or that employee with the employer as it relates to the need for accommodation and identifying what potential accommodations are available and looking at the problem solving that may be necessary to successfully implement a reasonable accommodation. Some of the best practices that were highlighted by some of the employers again, within this pool that we are looking at today specifically looks at the issues of designation of an employee, a specific individual, whether they are called an accommodation specialist, whether they are called a reasonable accommodation specialist or a different term. Many different terms are used by these employers across the board to designate this particular person. The key here being there is a designated individual to address accommodation issues, and I do not think in looking at and reviewing all the case studies and looking at what is out there in the literature, that this is not something that is only successful or practiced to be utilized in large employers where you think that, yeah, it makes sense to have a designated person. Even in the smallest of employers, by having one individual or two or three individuals who are designated as people who are responsible for assisting with and addressing reasonable accommodation issues creates a pool of knowledge and an ability to specialize in this particular issue, so that you do have someone who is able to and is aware of what is going on in the entire organization, who is able to spend time as is part of their designated job to do the research necessary to ensure that they are effectively accommodating and to look at what might be going out in that broader sweep of the environment around reasonable accommodation issues and disability issues. When there is also someone who is also identified as designated as has been reported by some of the employers who have participated in this process, with the work support center, was that it also created clarity for other employees about the process, by knowing that there was a designated person, by understanding there was someone they could go to to ask questions to, who is had a specialization or was very knowledgeable in this area, had a great deal of impact upon the success of the reasonable accommodation process, because they developed a relationship with, and there was a comfort level there, that they were dealing with someone who knew what they were doing, versus someone coming out of it on an ad-hoc basis who may have not had an accommodation issue in the last 12 or 18 months and is not as attuned with what may be going on or that may not be the area that they have set aside, designated a time in their schedule as such, to address and deal with. The success is having a designated employee is someone who is known to everyone as someone who can assist or is responsible for the reasonable accommodation process, was very valuable in the overall success of the reasonable accommodation process. Another practice that was identified across the board and is one that we see as well identified by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as a key issue across many of the states who have best practices in the area of employment was the use of forms to provide documentation of the need for an accommodation that while the ADA itself does not require that there be a documentation or a form filled out, signed, sealed delivered in anyway shape or form, the use of forms to provide or to collect information relative to the need for reasonable accommodation appears to be a very successful strategy and one that is being used in many different venues across the board as a regular practice for collecting information from the employee, giving the employee a clear understanding of what information is needed, it allows for the organization of information so that we are collecting information very specific to the need for the accommodation, the limitations that may exist, how they impact the individuals'' ability to do their job as well as seeking information from the employee if they know of what potential accommodations they might suggest. This is the first step to the interactive process to engaging the employee in the accommodation process as well. And this is in a very successful practice again. Again not one that is mandated in the law. But it does become a process of how do we implement reasonable accommodation and from the documentation that is out there, and it has been reported on many levels, the use of forms to provide that documentation has been a very successful strategy to be used. Again to be reminded for an employer, that they need to make sure that those materials or the documentation is also available in alternative formats and readily available to an employee. For example, some of the examples of how this documentation is made available to employees, put forth by some of the case studies are that employees have it on their intranet websites, employees have copies available as regular forms that may be available like your dental forms, insurance forms or other kinds of forms from the HR staff for completion so that making it readily available so it is not something I have to ask my supervisor for, that sets up another problem or potential issue as it relates to the comfort level of someone requesting an accommodation or disclosure at that point when they may not be ready to disclose or hint at the fact that they may need an accommodation or be seeking an accommodation from an employer. It is different when we are talking about situations of new applicants who may need accommodations in the testing process or the application process. Again, though, some of the practices that are laid out by these employers in their documentation in this process identifies that even having that information readily available to an applicant so on the application websites, if I am using E-recruiting or E-HR processes for an application, that there be a form there or information there specifically related to how would I request a reasonable accommodation in the interview process. So not just looking at it strictly as an issue for existing employees, but also, those individuals who may be seeking employment and applying and making that same information readily available to them and very user friendly. Through and through every one of the case studies, time and time again, no matter what the issue was that they were discussing as it related to reasonable accommodation, one of the most critical issues that came out was the need for ongoing communication between the employee and the accommodation specialist or the designated employee, whether that be the supervisor or the manager or an HR specialist or whoever that may be, that when I talk about ongoing communication, that is from start to finish, not just, you know, once to acknowledge the receipt of a reasonable accommodation request. But once the reasonable accommodation request is received that there be ongoing acknowledgement and dialogue of where are we in the process? What are the steps? Is there additional information we are trying to seek, and might the employee or applicant be able to give us more information? Would they know where we can get more information? Do people know the status of where the accommodation request is? It is under consideration. We have identified X accommodation and we are in the process of purchasing, whatever else it may be, it is that ongoing dialogue and communication, not just a one-shot deal. Not just a one-quick contact with the employee or the applicant. But a firm dialogue with them so that the individual feels engaged in the process, and has a clear understanding of what the process is, and where they are in that particular step. I think in if you look to some of the case law, you look to some of the problems that have been articulated by employers when it comes to this reasonable accommodation process, often where the breakdown is, is where the employee feels they have not had their accommodation needs met, or that there is a need for an accommodation that has not been adequately addressed or heard by the appropriate people. This ongoing communication dialogue allows for or ensures that everyone is on the same page, and that the employee is getting up to date information and is remaining a part of the process and not, again, something that is being done to them. But is something that is being done with them. So whether that is through ongoing face-to-face communications, telephone communication, use of electronic media, whether it be E-mail or other means or methods to communicate with an employee depending on their communication issues and such, that should be an ongoing process and again, very critical, can''t stress that enough. Some of the other issues that were brought forward is some of the reasons why many of these employers are viewed as being very cutting edge or best practice oriented, has to do with what they do in relationship to getting information about accommodations. And there were many instances within the case studies where employers identified that it was a key issue and a key component of the reasonable accommodation process was the extent to which the researched options for accomodations and also of external and internal resources such as Job Accommodation Network (JAN), the Job Accommodation Network or their Regional Disability Business Technical Assistance Center, Disability and Business Technical Assistance Center (DBTAC), also known as ADA and Accessible IT Centers. Whether it was the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Whether it was a local vendor or a local provider of let us say assistive technology services and such, but the need to and the practice of making sure that a thorough research was done on options that were available and that the employer considered those options in collaboration with the employee. So, for example, if an employee had requested a particular accommodation, maybe a particular type of equipment or a particular device or something of that nature, or policy change, it could be a number of different things, the need or the employer''s scope of examination of that request and that potential accommodation, against what may be other options being critical to the overall process, while some may think, that could be a negative and that the employer should defer to the accommodation request on the information the employee has provided, that is not necessarily always the case and you can''t necessarily assume that an individual employee or applicant knows all of the potential options. Yes, they may be comfortable with one particular software, one particular assistive device or something of that nature. And so that they, of course, that is what comes to mind for them or that was what they may put forth as an accommodation request, but there may be other options. And there may be things that may create or be more efficient that the individual is not aware of, or things that may interface with the employer''s network or with existing software packages or hardware, and things that are being used that the employer wants to consider. And it is, again, perfectly within the right of the employer to consider those options, their obligation of the ADA is to provide an effective accommodation, and employers who are part of this case study process and were interviewed, time and time again, reiterated the fact that researching options and providing as many options as possible for discussion with the employee as well as others in the workplace who may be impacted was the most valuable to coming up in the end with a final effective accommodation. I had also provided and allowed for a better understanding of what the potentials were in that situation and how other accommodations might be needed later down the road as an individual switches positions and such, and the more information available is obviously better for everyone in that situation. Involvement of other parties was a key factor in the majority of the cases that are part of this process that we have provided you today as part of our review and study. Involvement of the parties, meaning not just doing it in exclusion of, for example, the disability specialist and employee, but also looking at when it is appropriate or necessary to pull in supervisors, managers and even union representatives if you are within a collective bargaining unit. That the involvement of others, especially when the accommodation may impact the overall organizational operation, if others are not pulled in, that the likelihood of success down the road could be impacted because they won''t feel they had input into it or they were not consulted as part of the process, and again I think it should be recognized that supervisors, managers and other parties may have different perspectives on job tasks, certain aspects of performing job responsibilities and such that could add to the dialogue. Again, always being careful and acknowledged throughout the discussions by these party that were interviewed that the issue of confidentiality is very critical that the specifics of a person''s disability and such would not be part of the involvement or the discussions with other parties, but definitely if it was the issue of implementation of a particular accommodation, or looking at options that might work from one situation to another that pulling in those other parties was really critical and part of that overall success of the accommodation process. And time and time again, the discussion comes up or the comments came up in the case studies from those that were interviewed about the need for ongoing monitoring of the effectiveness of the accommodations. That I think that what they reiterated time and time again in the documents was the fact that if the accommodations are not monitored, the potential for its effectiveness to not be identified or kept as it should be, for example, that it should be maintained as an effective accommodation, was going to be critical. What I mean by that, and what was brought up in the case studies by that was setting up or establishing a process by which an accommodation was reexamined on a periodic basis, so, for example, if a particular piece of software has been provided for someone to do their job, to examine whether or not that software needs to be upgraded, are there other upgrades to that particular software that may make or enhance the efficiency of that particular accommodation for someone? Is there something about that person''s disability that has become potentially exacerbated so they are having more difficulties, so that maybe the accommodation itself needs to be re-examined. Or maybe, on the other side of things, the accommodations are no longer necessary. There needs to be ongoing monitoring. Whether that is done on a monthly basis, a quarterly basis, annual basis, depending on the accommodation. One of the employers identified they had an automatic process of the yearly review with the employee of their performance. One of the things they addressed at that time was the reasonable accommodation and whether or not there were any additional issues that needed to be addressed for that employee as it related to reasonable accommodation and made that as an automatic part of the employee''s evaluation process, so it became something that everyone expected and knew was coming and then could be prepared to respond to. Not that it would be advocated you would wait until that yearly evaluation to address any problems that might be related to the accommodations, but definitely would be a time period to think about just a check-in or a check on that particular issue, and whether that responsibility was assigned to the accommodations specialist or designated employee or to the supervisor again as part of the annual review process, would be something that would be determined on a case-by-case basis depending on the organization. Moving on to funding accommodations and some of the issues that were identified. I guess I should say upfront there were no magic bullets in any of the best case scenarios here, best practices with the employers, no employer must shed light on any situation of where there was a magic pool of money available or where they had uncovered some secret source of funding as it related to reasonable accommodations, but many of them talked about procedures or processes or strategies that they found successful in looking at their issues related to reasonable accommodation. Most commonly, identified in men, and I will say that the majority of the employers are large employers so they may have some to do with their identification of this particular issue, but centralized accommodation fund for, especially larger organizations that there would be a centralization of dollars available for reasonable accommodation, so that an individual, unit or program within a larger organization that may have an employee who needed to have an accommodation in the workplace could then go to a centralized source for the resources necessary to purchase the accommodations. And there were a couple of issues that were brought up as part of that centralized fund or advantages of that fund. One was an overall consistency in the granting of reasonable accommodations through the centralized funding process, so there was not an issue where one unit would determine something was an undo burden from a financial perspective and another unit would not identify the same thing as being an undo burden within the same overall umbrella organization, which can create problems and issues, because under the law they would be looked at one entity in regards to their overall resources, irregardless of the budget for those organizations. By having a centralized fund it really removed that issue of individual supervisors, managers, directors of units and such, making the decision or looking at their own budgets and how their own budgets may be impacted by that. Also allowed the organization to have a better understanding or handle on how to budget for reasonable accommodations by understanding and having a centralized fund so there was the ability to monitor those expenses and have from a year-to-year basis an understanding of where those expenses may come from. For example, an employee who may be deaf who needs an ongoing use of or access to an interpreter or real-time captioning, looking at that expense that allows a company to budget for that from a year-in and year-out basis whereas it may come from an individual unit who may be resistive to paying for those things or may take shortcuts in order to accommodate that individual which may have a negative impact upon that individual''s effective accommodation needs. The other thing was also gave that organization an understanding of what they actually had in place as a reasonable accommodation, so they had a better understanding of their overall scope of accommodations being provided and leading into that next bullet point on my PowerPoint where it talks about shared accommodation program. The use of a centralized accommodation fund made it easier to look at a shared accommodation program, because there was a centralized database of accommodations being provided and what actually was in place and where it was in place, so that if there was the potential for any kind of shared accommodations that would be able to be better coordinated or known by individuals within the organization. The shared accommodation program also lent itself to being able to know where accommodations may be sitting that are not being used so if another unit or program within the organization or company may hire an employee or have an employee who acquires a disability who needs a particular accommodation that it is not a duplication of purchasing of a particular accommodation day, if it is known that there may be an accommodation that is being unused at the present time because maybe an employee retired, left or is on leave. For example, often times our software programs may lend themselves to that. Some of our screen reader software, other kinds of magnifying software. One handed typing software might lend itself to that. Specialized key boards or specialized large screens on computer monitors or other types of adaptations that have been made to existing equipment or specialized equipment that has been purchased. Always keeping in mind the employee who currently is using the accommodation will always have access to the accommodation, but for example, one of the employers said, he has a lot of employees who are part time employees and that they have accommodations that were not being used on certain days of the week. Maybe some strategies could be looked at for cost issues to look at how individuals who may need the same accommodations, how their hours might be coordinated. Again, not that you would reduce one person''s hours in order to accommodate so they could share someone else''s accommodation to avoid having to purchase it twice, but again there are times when it would lend itself to having that kind of information and being an effective way to manage the accommodations. Several, a couple of the companies also identified that having collaboration across units within the organization to allow for the ability to identify expertise in relationship to the use of consultants and purchasing entities, again in some of our larger organizations and even some smaller organizations, you have individuals who have expertise because it is their particular area within the organization and within their functions, so they may have a particular expertise or knowledge because they do a lot of software purchasing or they do a lot of hardware purchasing on behalf of the company or they may be the disability management program that is working with individuals who are in a worker''s comp or work injury situation, and that may be a separate function from those who are dealing with issues related to reasonable accommodation, so you may have people who have expertise around consultants for ergonomics or consultants for assistive technologies or other types of things that are being used. By being able to tap into some of that expertise, knowing where it lies within the company, could save a lot of time in one of those earlier issues I talked about, which was the research of potential accommodations and the options that are out there. So identifying and using the expertise across the organization and somehow advertising that or promoting that, for example, one of the companies that, at least more than one of the companies, identified that they use a centralized internet based system for reasonable accommodation and that system includes information that can be updated on a regular basis related to who internally in the organization or the company has expertise in certain areas so that is widely available to others who might need it along the way as they become engaged or involved in the reasonable accommodation. Also several of the employers highlighted the collaboration with other agencies when appropriate, such as the state vocational rehab agencies, the WIA - Workforce Investment Act agencies, or the veteran''s agencies related to potential acquiring reasonable accommodations or assistance with acquiring reasonable accommodations. Whether it was assistance from the perspective of referrals or assistance from the perspective of payment, copayment relationships that could be worked out, or loans or whatever else it might be, that those relationships were critical and crucial and that they were something they found very valuable and key to their overall accommodations process. One thing that also came up several times or was discussed by some of those that were interviewed as part of the gathering of data for these case studies was the issue of making sure that when you are considering purchasing of software or hardware, that you consider options for purchasing upgrades or maintenance of those because often times with specialized equipment, specialized software, as we all know, we can equate that with our own life, whether you are a Microsoft person or a user of some other software, you know there are on a regular basis, updates being issued for those software packages, so you have various versions and then the updates within those versions that come out. The same holds true with many of the things related to assistive technologies or accommodations that may be provided. Sometimes we don''t really think of that issue when we may be exploring a purchasing, so, for example, when I may need to purchase a piece of software as an accommodation am I also considering whether I want to perfect the upgrades or the option that they have for automatic upgrades for the next year or the next three upgrades being made available for a packaged price. And to consider that upfront, because one of the things that we find that often will occur and again it was mentioned in a couple of the interviews that were held, was that you will purchase a particular piece of equipment and that cost has been expended and may come out of the centralized pool or an individual''s company organization''s budget, a unit''s budget, and then down the road when that needs to be upgraded in order to be made an effective accommodation or to allow the employee to have the full advantage of that accommodation, now we are back to square one of who is going to pay and how that is going to happen and the potential time that is lost in doing that as PO''s or other purchasing requisitions and such have to be generated. That becomes very problematic. Up front when one looks at the ability to purchase upgrades as part of the initial purchase, or to purchase any kind of maintenance program that they may have available may allow you to have a better outcome with that particular accommodation and will reduce the amount of work and effort that might have to go into maintaining that particular accommodation as an effective accommodation. Moving to the next category, which is injury management and return to work best practices. This is an area that cuts across and when we look at the organizations and the companies that are part of this process of case studies that were done, by the work support center, they issues raised time and time again is that it is not always the person I am hiring that has the disability often times it is the individual that works for me already and acquires a disability either through injury or through some kind of illness or a situation that takes them out of the workplace and then now we are in the situation of how do we return them back into the workplace? And some of the best practices that were identified in successful practices that were highlighted by these employers included some attitudes of and some culture within the organization and one of the first bullets here talks about the presumption of return to work, unless there is some reason that is not feasible for the employee, so that there be a positive from the outset that we intend to bring you back to work, we intend to bring all of our injured workers back to work. We intend to bring all of our employees who may acquire a disability through accident or illness or some other means come back to work, unless there is absolutely no reason that we can bring that person back to work, because of their health condition, ongoing needs or whatever else it may be. That presumption of return to work sets a tone and attitude within the organization related to how everyone sees and perceives individuals who may be injured or individuals who are out of work and need to return to work due to disability or illness and such. The sustained communication with the injured worker being critical and key to the success of a return to work program articulated time and time again by the employers during the interviews and documented in the case studies, that is similar to what was identified in the issues related to the interactive process of reasonable accommodation, and in this situation, it is sustained communication with the injured worker even when we are not yet at the point of engaging in the reasonable accommodation process. But from the time that the person is injured and at the time the person becomes aware they are not going to be able to come back immediately into the workplace, that sustained communication on an ongoing basis even if it is just a check-in to see how they are doing, check-in to see how their doctor''s appointments have gone, that there is a process in place by which the employer, the designated employee from the employer, is there and communicating with that injured worker on an ongoing basis. Or also, many employers talk about this is a practice they use also, when they have an employee off on FMLA for an illness or medical condition in relationship to their return to work. So it is not just an injured worker. The utilization of healthcare professionals who share an attitude of reemployment and swift recovery and return to work was emphasized by several employers as a workplace strategy that they implement. In that they do not even work with professionals that do not have the same attitude that they do have about reemployment. That they are not interested in working with healthcare professionals who are only interested in keeping the employee out of work, as some employers may be interested in working with physicians who may find reasons why someone can''t come or can''t return back to work. The employers that were interviewed as part of this process and identified this as an area of success for them, said their greatest success comes when they work hand in hand and they interview their healthcare professionals they are utilizing for their evaluations for any follow-up with their employees and such, and they interview them for their attitudes. Related to reemployment and that they only work with those who are proactive in the reemployment process and believe that employees can come back to work and will work toward that end to whatever they need to do in order to make that successful. So again, I think that is just an extension of the positive attitude that some of these employers identified was so critical to their process, if we have a presumption you are going to return to work, we want everybody we associate with, whether it be the worker''s comp carrier, the medical health professionals that we are using internally and externally. That they also have that same attitude. It only takes one to throw a kink in the armor and create potential problems and that attitude needs to be pervasive in the entire process. Also they identified it was really critical as part of their success strategies was to develop a strategic plan for return to work. Including any reasonable accommodations or adjustments that may be needed. From the onset, there would be a plan in place that involved all appropriate parties whether it be a supervisor, manager, the HR department, or others within the organization to identify what was it going to take and what is it going to need to return this person back to work and what do we need to do proactively in order to ensure that. So beginning the process of looking at reasonable accommodations, and adjustments that may be needed. What do we need to purchase? What do we need to construct? What do we need to change as for as policies and such? And having a plan in place and not waiting until four days before the person''s FMLA ends or before the person''s current period within their worker''s comp process ends before we start looking at that. But having a plan up front that proactively goes in and looks at it, and continues to look at it, and works toward that reemployment process in a proactive manner. Maintaining a current list of other positions was identified as a key strategy in the reasonable accommodations process that worked successfully for employers in situations where reassignment may be necessary. Again, the majority of employers that were interviewed discussed their first and foremost intent is to return the employer to the position they currently hold, and so by maintaining a list of other positions when it is necessary to address reassignment that they can more quickly go into that process and understand and know what those positions and skills that are needed for those positions are so that they can more effectively work with the employee on the potential reassignment. But again, maintaining a current list was a critical component and I stressed as they stressed the issue of current so you do know what may be available when it is necessary or needed. Moving on outside consultation when necessary, again most of the HR professionals and accommodation specialists who were interviewed as part of this process identified they tended not to use a lot of outside consultation as it related to technologies and things they attempted or tried. Again most of these are larger companies to have the expertise as much as possible and how to address these issues, but did recognize that there are times when they did need to look externally, the use of a rehab technologist or ergonomics to analyze work stations or technologies to help them identify potential areas of risk for injury and such was it a strategy they used and felt was successful, but was not something they used on a regular basis. If they have a particular area they are noting they have some ongoing injury with, to pull somebody in from the outside to come in to give an external review, another set of eyes, another viewpoint on the situation to give them recommendations. And again when necessary, related to an accommodation, it may be that the expertise is not available and they would have to call on someone to fabricate or to assist with specific types of equipment or placement of equipment or modifications of existing tools and things of that nature. Use of light duty or transitional work was really something that most employers said it was not a common or high priority practice for them, that they looked at something they only did when they could make it meaningful and productive, they were not really interested in using this type of a process for an employee to come back and do nonsensical work that didn''t make any sense. That they felt it was critical to the successful reemployment process to keep the employee engaged in meaningful work, so if the employee job did not include in the past stapling and copying and things of that nature, that was not necessarily meaningful work, but just busy work in that situation, that they would not necessarily look at that as a first strategy to use with that particular employee because they found that when they did that type of thing they tended to breed more problems with reluctance upon the employee to engage in the process of return to work, because they were dissatisfied with what they were doing or they felt disengaged in the process because of what they were doing. Labor relations. And we are getting toward the time when I need to be take something questions here, but let me just continue on here and we will be done in a few minutes. Labor relations is an area that was discussed, several of the companies that were part of this case study process were within a collective bargaining unit, and so they did have a keen understanding of how the, or the role that labor played in this successful reasonable accommodation process. And some of the strategies that were identified by these employers were the need to have an ongoing communication with the stakeholders that they, the union, and others that were part of that process needed to be part of the discussions when they looked at reasonable accommodation policies, when they looked at changing or modifying any of their procedures and policies, they definitely needed to bring in this factor of their organization as part of the process, that if they didn''t do that, they found that they had greater difficulty with buy-in or collaboration and cooperation down the road and they felt they were a key, as much a part at the table as the employees, supervisors and managers were. They felt there was a need to have ongoing communication. Also to maintain again with the labor union, the expectations of reemployment that they found that it was critical, that the labor entity also supported that reemployment expectation and that by again having that element of expectation go across all aspects of the workplace, was critical to the success. Having positive labor relations, which is something that some people can say tongue in cheek, is there ever really any positive labor relations? There is always some degree of tension between management and labor in that regard. But maintaining or as much as possible having positive labor relations will have an outcome or will have an impact on the successful outcome of the reasonable accommodations process. And the reason for that is, is that there needs to be a creative and collaborative problem solving with all parties involved in the process of reasonable accommodation. When we start to talk about reassignment to the positions that might cut across the various issues of priority, seniority and things of that nature, it becomes critical that those parties that are affected be involved from the get go and be a part of that problem solving. How might we make this work? What compromises or other things might we do, what provisions could we put in place that protects all parties involved? The most common thing discussed was to achieve this was to make sure that there was some kind of negotiated return to work article within the collective bargaining agreement. That identified obligations of both the employer and the employee. And so that there was a clear understanding within the agreement that this was something that was going to happen, and that all parties knew and understood this was going to happen. And would be part of the process and engage in the process, the example that was given by Alaska airlines was that in their negotiated return to work article, they have articles that actually, statements within the article that actually talks about the employer has an obligation to identify positions or tasks that the employee may be able to do or provide appropriate accommodation to enable the employee to continue their current position. But the employee has the obligation to make a conscientious attempt to achieve a normal rate of recovery and keep the period of temporary disability to a minimum. This is focused on return to work from an injury where there may not be necessarily a long-term or permanent disability situation, but I think the same and there were a few statements made within this employer''s case study, that talked about the fact that this is something that is pervasive whether, it is a long term chronic condition or not. If an employee is off work because of a disability but has the potential to return to work, there is an expectation the employee will work toward that return to work in a proactive manner and not try to belabor or use the system as some may say, and I say that in quotes. They very much talked about the positive nature and the need for the involvement of all parties in this process, and to look at where putting language in various documents that are utilized by both parties would enhance or at least go along to ensure that there would be some sustained commitment to that particular process. Staff training, no one can say enough about staff training and the critical nature of training as it relates to successful integration of people with disabilities in the workplace, including disability awareness as well as reasonable accommodation process. Employers that were part of this process identified numerous different strategies that were utilized on an ongoing basis and are felt to be critical and integral to the process. Those included incorporating disability rights into all new training, not just from the perspective of reasonable accommodation, but also from the perspective of disability rights. Similarly, how we may look at civil rights context for minority groups and things of that nature. Other minority groups, being inclusive or being included in some of our training in the tone and the direction of that training, but to make sure the disability rights aspect was also stressed as part of new employee training, they understand it was not just a special privilege or a perceived special situation for someone to receive an accommodation, but there was a rights context to this issue. Making sure that all supervisors and managers are trained about reasonable accommodation initially as well as ongoing, so when someone became a supervisor or manager, when they were going through training to become a supervisor or manager, reasonable accommodation would be included. But it didn''t stop there, there was ongoing education as well for supervisors and managers to make sure that that information is current and relevant to them at the time. You could have a supervisor been in their position as a supervisor, 15, 20 years, if their last training was in 1992 on reasonable accommodation, it may be indicative of why you may be having problems or difficulty with that particular supervisor or manager that some ongoing training and refreshers may be needed. Also to train regular staff line employees about reasonable accommodation process to make sure that they knew what their rights were in the reasonable accommodation area, and also they would understand that reasonable accommodation was something that may be going on in the workplace for employees that were eligible for it, and so they fully understood what that might mean and the process, again we reemphasized that was initially a new hire situation but also an ongoing basis as well. Disability awareness training, this is separate from training on reasonable accommodation. It was discussed by many of the employers that ongoing disability awareness training for both existing and new employees and using the available videos or pamphlets sponsoring disability mentoring days on a regular basis on a yearly basis having some kind of a scheduled or specific time of the year where there was a focus on disability as part of the diversity of the organization. So whether that be in the existing diversity activities that took place in the organization or it be something separate that was strongly encouraged and was also articulated as one of the reasons why some of these employers thought they were so successful because of the efforts they had taken in this area. Also, all of the employers that were part of this process, identified they had online information for employees related to disability etiquette, reasonable accommodation, and other resources related to disability. That was part of their intranet or internet, they did not necessarily only have it as an internal document but also made available to applicants and others so there was an ongoing ability for people to tap into information. So it wasn''t that you waited for a training seminar in order to get that information. If someone needed or wanted that information, it was kept readily available for them and that was kept updated and current by the employer. So that individuals could tap into that information on a regular basis. And maintaining it as part of their website for anyone who wanted that particular information. I am not going to spend much time on the best practices on states, our focus here was on employers. While employers are states and they are employers, and they are employers of huge numbers of people, there was not a whole lot different in some of the best practices that were identified by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in their survey of best practices by states, except there were a few things that I think that were reiterated or articulated as being highly successful. The states that were identified and focused as part of the EEOC study identified that the use of disability specialists or a combination of specialists was the key to their success. That in a large decentralized organizational structure, which many of our states are with the different departments and locations geographically dispersed, that the targeted identified individual within units or within subsets of units was critical to managing or being successful in the reasonable accommodation process, and having that one central source who was regularly updated and educated and became the conduit for information back and forth between the HR or other units within the government and the employees'' unit was critical. Centralized funding was also a key component of the states'' success in, perceived success in the reasonable accommodation process that again the similar to what a large company and some of the things that were articulated by the company that is were part of the employer best practices, came forth again in the states that the centralized funding pool availability, this case it was not as much from the same perspectives or viewpoints of why they did it as it may have been from the company side, it was more of a management or a manageability perspective of the costs and the resources for accommodations that was identified as the reason for state governments to go to a centralized funding type of structure. And online accommodation manuals or online accommodation information for the public or perspective employees or existing employees was also a key issue that was identified across the board by the states. So again, mirrored by our smaller employers, these are critical issues in their success also, states reiterated it as something that was part of their success, the development of those online resources to making sure that everyone had access or had readily had access and again making sure it was in alternative formats. And that people had access to the internet in the workplace. If they didn''t have access to the internet, that information was available to them in some other manner or format. And that there was attention to the fact that that may be necessary for some people who may not as part of their day-to-day operations in jobs interface with the computer or internet. On the other side the advantage of that was articulated that employees are able to access that information 24-7 when it is electronic and so that can also facilitate a better understanding and a better opportunity for someone to engage in that information because they may be able to do it from home or do it during time periods when they have more time to be able to review that information. That was cited as one of the rationales or the reasons of the justifications. I have provided you some resources on reasonable accommodations, some of these are probably very familiar to you. Some of you they may not be. But again, I would refer you to the ADA and IT centers, also known as the Disability and Business Technical Assistance Centers, I provided you with the RRTC on workplace supports and job retention that the case studies I have talked about today or took my material today come from. Job Accommodation Network funded by the U.S. Department of Labor. It is located at Virginia Commonwealth University also. And Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and HR tips which is a website maintained by Cornell University, Employment Law Center and has numerous documents and information on reasonable accommodation available to you. So these are places if you have not visited before, you may want to consider doing. That concludes my formal comments and again I apologize, I have gone a little over time here. Hopefully we will still be able to take some meaningful questions at this point. So I guess we are ready for questions.
Great. This is a really big broad topic and a hot topic that encompasses a lot of issues. You had a lot of topics to cover and had a lot of material which hopefully drew you to think of other situations you have been involved in. If you have any questions at this time, please operator give instructions to the participants on how to ask a question.
Thank you. In this whole thing I didn''t hear the word accessibility overall mentioned once and that includes accessibility to the information systems, and to the physical environment. The other comment I''d like to make, when it goes down to developing accommodations and it does interface with the general overall accessibility is how many state and local government entities have conducted Title II self evaluations regarding revision of reasonable accommodations?
Okay. Thank you for your comments, I mean, I guess I did not specifically focus on overall accessibility in my comments. I did in a couple situations bring up where employers did identify and talk about the need to ensure that there was equal access to all that information for individuals who may not have the same type of access. So for example, make providing an alternative format for individuals to make sure that not just PDF documents are contained on websites to be able to be completed, or that manuals were not only online in a PDF format or that they didn''t use a lot of diagrams or tables and things that were not accessible to somebody who was using alternative types of assistive technology, that was very much a part of and discussion as part of what things were brought up by these employers. Physical accessibility again, I did not talk about that specifically, many of these employers did not in their case studies talk about overall accessibility of their organization, that wasn''t the feature or wasn''t the focus, but I think that we would all want to reiterate that having access to the employment process whether it be physically being able to get into the facility in order to fill out an application or being physically able to get into my place of employment from everywhere from parking to path of travel inside the door to my workspace, being a critical part of the overall accommodation. In relation to state and local governments, that is a topic for another day, I mean, that is a huge problem, percentile wise, I can''t even tell you right now, I know that there has been some informal surveys that have been done on the national level to identify how many state and local governments have completed their self-evaluations and I know that it is not even, that it is less than 20% that have completed that process. Employment obviously being part of that, part of the overall self-evaluation process, because it is one of the programs and services that a state and local government does. That definitely is a critical issue for state and local governments that they do engage in a process to ensure. If their processes are already accessible, then maybe there is not a need for that. But just like anybody, I wouldn''t say it is only something special and specific to state and local government. Any entity should always be reviewing on a regular basis their programs and services including employment to ensure that they maintain or are accessible.
Great. Did the caller have another question or can we move on to the next one?
Okay. Operator can you move on to the next question, please?
Yes, I have a question.
Go ahead.
One of my concerns is this, we have been developing sensitivity training, maybe not so much in the beginning after World War II, but I do know that since 1973 we have been at this. What is concerning me is that I feel that I might be wrong, but there is a little bit too much red taping and the process that providing reasonable accommodation for disabled individuals. And when that happens, what we do is not only prevent the disabled person from moving ahead in a company, or in their environment in a productive way, but it also creates a time block in the production of that employee. What I''d like to see is for us not to double load ourselves and create a block or too much red tape in coming to the decision providing the accommodation for an employee. That is the only thing that I would like to add to this. This is not a question. It is just something that I can see that is been going on for 65 years and there has been a need, a great need for training of sensitivity training in all states and private entities as far as providing reasonable accommodation for disabled individuals. And I feel that we are a bit slow at doing that. And what I feel today is that there is going to be a lot of red tape in the process, and providing immediate services for the disabled individuals both within the public sector as well as the private sector, I''d like to see us move ahead a little quicker than that.
Good comment, I think that is true, I think the red tape is a problematic issue we hear, and I know that some of the things that I have read and explored and heard from employers is that often times that employee will say it is taken, I haven''t heard back, it is 30 days since I made my request for an accommodation or something of that nature. And when you get down to it, you had to take so much time to review it, you had to do a purchase order it takes 60 days to get that approved or whatever before something happens, sometimes there is a lot of red tape. But that in the meantime means someone is not able to do their job. I think part of a good reasonable accommodation process is identifying what those areas are that are potential for red tape and as part of the modification of policy and procedure, how can those policies and procedures be shortcuted to allow for the circumstances of reasonable accommodation be expedited so the employee is able given the full opportunity to do their job to do their job. If I am a new employee and I need an accommodation and I am in the probationary period, and not even going to get my accommodation into four weeks into my probationary period, how does that impact my ability to be fairly evaluated and my ability to do my job and be effective in that particular position. I think the issues are disability awareness and training. That should be an ongoing process, it shouldn''t be special or different and it shouldn''t slow down the process, it should be as we now look at how we educate around a number of issues, whether it is sexual harassment, violence in the workplace, and other diversity issues that disability should be part of it. It shouldn''t be seen as, you have to go through step one before you can go through step two, it should be part of or integral to the overall system and you are right, it is tough to get in, and to move employers to that process. Those employers that have done it and I would say those that are highlighted in this case study have already been through that process, they don''t have a lot of red tape. That their goal is to move it expediently and efficiently through and that is why they have put systems in place and looked at their procedures to ensure they are able to do that.
Great. Operator, can we move on to the next question?
Go ahead.
Hi, is this us?
Yes. Go ahead.
Hi, yes, this is Miami-Dade county government in Florida, and thank you very much for this presentation. I am interested in knowing about whether or not you found that organizations with best practices, whether or not they do disability determinations before accommodating?
All of the employers identified in this process that they do have a process and they shared with their form, you will be able to link to some of those if you go online and look at these case studies, the paper copies don''t provide you some of the websites where they provide documentation of the disability, but some of the case studies and a few of the employers identified that is not their first issue they look at. Yes, they definitely look at and address the issue of whether or not that person has a disability as it may be defined by the particular laws. For the majority of them, or I should say many of them, they identified that they have an overall disability management program, so while they are looking at overall accommodation of employees, how they can ensure they have productive employees. So there may be times when the documentation may become critical to quote unquote Do I have a disability as defined by federal law, state law, or whatever applicable law there might be. But overall that they are first and foremost looking at the limitation, what is preventing this employee from being able to perform in their particular position, and is it reasonable for us to look at an adjustment or accommodation? In fact, two of the employers said that they don''t use reasonable accommodation terminology, they use workplace adjustment terminology.
That is consistent with our organization. We recommend we don''t do a disability determination, because it doesn''t add anything productive to the process. The definition for disability as it is currently interpreted by the courts is so narrow that many people wouldn''t be helped if we just only assisted those people with ADA disabilities.
Definitely. I think that is why many employers have come to that recognition also because the reality is, you have state law, federal law, if you start to mish mash that, and there is so much gray in that area, that you could spend a lot of time, effort and money on that particular issue alone.
Exactly.
So it is again looking at, is there a limitation, do I have an employee who is not performing, or is having difficulty in their performance and what might I be able to do? Taking again, several of the employers articulated more in the workplace adjustment realm than solely an accommodation realm. Sounds like you have good practices in Dade County, too.
Thank you very much.
Okay. Should we move on to the next question, please.
Robin, can you hear me?
I can.
This is Tom.
Hi Tom.
How are you doing?
Fine.
I have a question for you. What happens when you have a person, I am going to use the example of a bad back. They come in, they are a new hire and something is just happened to them. And they ask for a reasonable accommodation of a chair and I am using that as an example. And they may not be qualified otherwise with the exception of a bad back. And I have actually been having this happen, there has been two examples of these type of things, so they ask for this accommodation and the employer knows they may not be otherwise qualified but they want to help this person by providing a comfortable workstation. So how do you provide that situation without the employer being recognized as or regarding them as a person with a disability?
Again, I think that that the district''s situation plays well into some of the things we have been talking about here in the context of what some of the other employers including previous questions from Dade County is that not focusing on their being a specific disability or being an issue that I am only responding to because of the quote unquote presentation of a limitation or a disability as we may formally define it in the more medical context of things but looking at it, okay, I have an employee who, you know, could do this job and is qualified to do this job except for the fact that they need this ergonomic chair or this specialized chair, and, you know, why wouldn''t I want to make sure that all my employees were comfortable in their workstations. They are going to be more productive and if I am going to put time and energy and effort into training this person and this person is qualified, I think the person is qualified. In the long run, what is my overall cost benefit here if I could even look at it that way. It is dangerous to look at cost benefit, because some employers will use it the opposite way. I have a productive employee, if it is going to cost me 250 dollars to put in place an ergonomic chair, why not do that?. I think the only time you risk the person being perceived as or viewed as a person with a disability is when you do get into the context of the medical diagnosis and the medical context of things and you start to look at or view this person with a disability in the more medical sense of things versus just looking at it from a more social perspective where you may be responding to somebody who is identified a need in the workplace, just like I might identify that it is too hot and I want a fan.
I understand that part, but we have a situation where the employer has done these things and they are regarded as.
What the employer has to look at is what do they have in place, what is the culture that has been in place in regards to how they have treated other situations and have they taken the approach in the past? And what have they done to treat this situation or person as giving the message that it is a disability related issue? Are they using disability related terminology? What is the basic message or premise that is coming across? Are they giving anybody the sense that they are viewing or potentially could be viewing a person with a disability? I think if you have an employer who wants it, they have to look at how they go about doing it and what practice has been in place, and what is the evidence that I am regarding you as a person with a disability. Giving you an ergonomic chair does not mean I view you as a person with a disability.
Okay, we have time for one more question.
Go ahead, please.
What do you do when you have an employee who needs an accommodation based on a safety issue, but the employee doesn''t think they need the accommodation. Specifically I am talking about an employee who needs a hearing aid.
Let me make sure I understand this correctly. It is a situation where you have an employee who is in a particular position who may be having difficulty doing tasks or performing within the workplace, and the employer has identified that they believe they need the reasonable, that they need the hearing aid? Is that correct? And the employee does not believe they need it?
Yes, that is how I understood it as well.
Let us see if I can get a clarification.
Yes that is correct.
Okay. Thank you, first and foremost. You have to go to the fact, to look at the issue of what is the performance issue here, and whether or not the employee is qualified for the particular position, you look at the particular area or issue the employee is having difficulty with and then what has taken place in regards to engaging the employee with the employer about that particular difficulty or problem they are incurring in the workplace so that there is a mutual understanding or at least a recognition of the fact that there is a problem that exists. And then looking at what type of interaction, once we have established that, here is the position, here is the particular problem we are having with this position. Interactively, how are we going to solve this problem, and here are some options. The employer may lay out the option they believe that a hearing aid would enhance or facilitate. They don''t know that for sure, because it is impossible for someone who is not trained or otherwise to make an assumption that someone who uses a hearing aid would automatically improve that particular situation. But are there other options? Is hearing an integral part of the position? Does the person have to be able to hear or are there their alternatives to what the person may be doing in that position for the purposes of communication? So if I need to respond to noises, are there other means or methods, there has to be an interaction here that takes place of what is the limitation, what is the job task and then what are the potential accommodations and again a hearing aid may be one option but there may be other options. An employer cannot force an individual to accept a particular accommodation. The issue becomes the employer has the obligation to look at an array of options. An employee''s reluctance or refusal to engage in the reasonable accommodation process if there is a bona fide issue that has been identified that impacts that person''s performance that may be related to their disability is also not an excuse for the individual. The individual needs to engage in that process. So if there is a problem identified they need to be engaging with the employer about the options but the employer cannot force an accommodation upon somebody. However, if the individual refuses an accommodation, and the performance continues, does not engage in the process and does not identify a potential option and the employer does not consider those options and the employee continues to not be able to perform in that particular position, there may be negative consequences of loss of job, disciplinary action, and such. So there is a lot of complexities to this particular issue. But I really would encourage, I mean, to the employee and the employer to engage in the process by which they identify, one, what is the limitation and how does that relate to the disability? And two, what are the potential options for accommodation and explore those options.
It is situation where the employee can''t hear equipment.
Okay. So again, looking at what my options might be, is there a potential for some kind of a flashing alarm? For example, many pieces of equipment, if it is an issue of something that I need to know when it goes off. Is there an ability to retool that equipment so the light goes on or a different colored light goes on when the piece of equipment is off versus on. A flashing light to get my attention. Something of that nature. I would encourage in that situation that I don''t agree with that probably a hearing aid is the only solution. I think there are other options that an employer could consider and should consider. And I would really recommend for this individual that they consider pulling in some expertise either internally or externally that may be able to help identify what some of the options are and what may be available for this person to do this job.
Okay. With that. We''d like to end the conference for today. Thank you to everyone, and Robin for today''s topic and materials and hopefully the information provided gives everybody a little insight as to how to handle issues in the workplace. For those of you that have questions and are still waiting on the line today, we encourage you to contact your Disability and Technical Assistance Center by calling 800-494-4232 for both Voice and TTY. If you are not aware of which center serves your area, there is a website www.adata.org. And from there there is a map that, the map of the country for where you can look for your state and the specific region that serves you. Also, want to invite all of you back for our session next month for part two of the employment series, Hot Topics on Employment: Preemployment Testing and Leave as an Accommodation. We will be having Adele Rapport from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on February 21st. Please be aware the name of the session has changed due to recent case law. We found it vital to include this information. So we invite you back to join us for that session. Also invite you to visit the website to view the other sessions we have available through the year, if you have not seen the schedule, please visit the website at www.ada-audio.org. You can view the rest of the audio conference schedule as well as more information on the program. Again, once again, I''d like to thank everyone for being online today with us, and we look forward to having you in the future. Thank you, good-bye.