Reasonable Accommodations in the Workplace conference call. At this time all participants are in listen only mode. Later we''ll connect the question and answer session and instructions will be given at that time. If anyone should require conference assistance during the call, please press star and then zero on your touchtone cell phone. As a reminder, this conference call may be recorded. I would now like to hand the call over to Ms. Marian Vessel, Director of the Mid Atlantic ADA Center. Marian, you may begin.
Good morning and good afternoon to everyone and welcome to the ADA audio conference series. My name is Marian Vessel and I''m the Director of the Mid Atlantic ADA Center and I will be serving as your moderator for this session. This program is brought to you by the ADA National Network. The ADA audio conference series is offered monthly and covers a variety of topics related to the ADA. Today''s session is titled Reasonable Accommodation in the Workplace. And we are really privileged to be joined by our presenters, Dr. Ellen Fabian [phonetic] and Dr. Kim MacDonald. I will introduce both of them shortly. Individuals are joining us today using a variety of medians including telephone, streaming audio on the internet and real time captioning. Individuals may also view today''s PowerPoint presentations online. Refer to your instructions for the URL. A written transcript of this session will be created, edited and posted to www.ada-audio.org website, along with a digital recording of the session within 10 business days following the conclusion of today''s program. Our presenters will provide us some really valuable information today. And at the conclusion of their presentation there will be an opportunity for everyone to ask questions and we will be taking a break midway as well to take your questions. The operator will provide instructions when we are ready to take these questions. Depending on the number of questions we have, we may not be able to get to all of the questions and address all of your issues and concerns. We encourage you to follow up with questions to your regional ADA center, which you can reach at 1-800-949-4232, voice and TTY. Let me begin today''s session by introducing Dr. Ellen Fabian. Ellen is the Professor and Director of the Research Team for the Mid-Atlantic ADA Center. She''s an associate professor and Director of the Rehabilitation Program at the University of Maryland at College Park where she''s taught since 1999. She has had more than 20 years of experience as a Rehabilitation Educator, a researcher and a trainer. Dr. Fabian has published more than 50 articles and book chapters as well as two books on topics relevant to the field. She has served as a Director of the Research for the Mid-Atlantic Center where she is responsible for directing and coordinating the centers research activities. I''d also like to take this time to introduce Dr. Kim MacDonald Wilson:. Kim is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland and she''s co-director of the research project for the Mid-Atlantic ADA center. Some of Dr. MacDonald-Wilsons research interests are psychiatric rehabilitation, employment of rehabilitation, functional assessment, reasonable workplace accommodations, teaching interest, psychiatric vocation rehabilitations and disability policy. So you can see both of these women are very well suited to be able to conduct the research that we have been conducting here in this region for almost five years on reasonable accommodation process. So with that we would like you to begin today''s session and as I said, we will be taking questions halfway through. So without further ado, I''d like to turn the program over to Ellen and Kim
Hello, this is Kim
Hi everybody, this is Ellen. We''re glad to have you here.
: I''m actually going to be, this is Kim, I''m going to be starting the first part of the presentation but you may hear both Ellen and I throughout the session today kind of chiming in. I want to direct you to slide #3, oh actually I see so it kind of took that one, we have a description of the project so I''m going to talk a little bit about the reasonable accommodations research project that most of our presentation today is based on some of the findings from the studies that we''ve conducted. This project overall that we developed with the Mid-Atlantic ADA Center was focusing on developing a model of the individual, organizational and job setting factors that affect the provision of accommodations in the workplace. And this particular project is a collaboration, as I mentioned, between University of Maryland Rehabilitation Counseling program, the Region 3 DBTAC, the Mid-Atlantic ADA Center and the DBTAC Research Coordinating Center at Virginia Commonwealth University. Next slide please, slide 4. So the Reasonable Accommodation Research Project that we''ve been working on has had a number of different phases or sub studies in the project. We are basing our recommendations for the field and for employers based on these different phases, in particular today we''re going to focus on the comprehensive literature review where we surveyed all the literature business and rehabilitation literature on workplace accommodations. Some in-depth interviews that we did with employees and employers and service providers about their experiences with job accommodations and then an online study that we''ve done about some of the attitudes and characteristics of employers regarding accommodations. We''ve had a couple of other studies that we won''t be focusing on so much today but we''ll have available through the Mid-Atlantic ADA Center. Some of our publications are on their website as well. Okay, next slide please, slide #5. Okay so we''re going to talk mostly today about, first, in-depth interviews that we''ve conducted and the online survey about what''s important to employers in the decision regarding the provision of accommodations in the workplace. And then after presenting the findings of those two studies we''ll talk a little bit about recommendations for practice for employees, employers and advocates. Next slide please. We base these studies on identifying the need for more research on accommodations from a couple of different viewpoints. First we found out that the discrimination charges that are filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under the Employment Provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act were most frequently, or the second most frequently, filed complaint was about failure to provide reasonable accommodations in the workplace. Secondly, we don''t really have a complete understanding of what the factors that are involved in the request and provisions of Accommodations in the workplace and needed to do some more investigation about what''s really important or what most influences those processes. And despite all, since the ADA was implemented in 1990 there really has been unlimited research in this area of accommodations so we''re still unclear about what employer or business factors most influence positive outcomes of accommodation in the workplace. Okay, next slide please, so this particular slide, and the next couple of slides, really is to give you a basic overview about accommodations in the workplace so we''ll go through them rather quickly so that we can start to talk about some of the findings from the studies we''ve done. First of all the definition of reasonable accommodations under title 1 of the ADA is that in general an accommodation is any change in the work environment where the way things are done allow people with disabilities to enjoy equal employment opportunities as long as the required modifications do not result in an undue hardship for the employer. Okay so that''s the definition of accommodations that we''re using in conducting our various research studies. The types of accommodation, next slide please, sorry, slide 9, the types of accommodations that we found were most frequently mentioned in the literature are including this list but not exclusively those on this list. But would involve things like making existing buildings or facilities physically accessible, restructuring jobs or exchanging job duties with other workers, adjusting work schedules or making full time work possibly part time, acquiring or modifying equipment that someone needs to use in the workplace to do their job, changing any employment testing or training and orientation materials or adjusting some of the policies, employment policies around either hiring or once someone''s on the job. It may also involve providing qualified readers or interpreters in the workplace or reassigning someone to a vacant position. So these are the general categories that have been referred to in the literature, actually since the 1970''s when the rehabilitation act of 1973 was passed. Next slide please. One of the, a couple of points that we found that we wanted to make about job accommodations is that first of all most job accommodations, as most of you know, require some disclosure of disability to an employer so in order for someone to enjoy the protections of the American''s with Disabilities Act they have to let the employer know that they have a disability and that they''re eligible to receive accommodations. This places a lot of burden on the employee to actually request accommodations so that can often introduce some stress to the employee who''s not sure how an employer might respond to either the disclosure or the request for accommodations. As cited in the law, all employees must be able to perform the essential functions of the job in order to be eligible for accommodations so employers are not required to allow someone to not do a major function or major task in the job as an accommodation, that''s not reasonable to ask an employer to do. Also accommodation needs, such as an interpreter, must be related to the functional impairment such as the hearing loss so people are only really able to ask for accommodations that are directly due to a limitation related to their health, physical or mental health condition that is disabling. Accommodations do not need to be provided to other disadvantages that someone might have like you know unable to read cause they never went through school, far enough in school or language issues or things like that. It really does need to be related specifically to the disability. And one of the other things that we''ve heard our colleagues, particularly at the job accommodation network and people who have a lot of experience with accommodations, tell us that accommodations really come in units of one. And what that means is that accommodations are really done specifically to the particular job situation and to the employee with the disability so there are no one type of accommodation that''s useful for all people with a certain type of limitation or certain types of disabilities. You really need to look at the situation, the employment situation, the demands of a job, the limitations that the person may experience and accommodations that are both feasible and reasonable for that particular situation. And then finally we just pointed out to you and gave you a reference to a great resource on identifying accommodations, if you''re not sure what kinds of accommodations may actually be useful in particular situations, is to look at the job accommodation network. They actually have a searchable online accommodation resource process that can help you in identifying accommodations. Okay next slide please. The first thing that we did in our research studies was to review the published literature about accommodations in the workplace. And some of the things that we found from the literature were the following next two pages. These findings were summarized in an article by me, Kim MacDonald Wilson:, Ellen Fabian and Shanley Dong [phonetic] in 2008 and I think we have the link to that article. We actually have a copy of that article on the Mid-Atlantic ADA Center website. Essentially some of the findings or outcomes that we found is that accommodations themselves seem to actually help reduce or remove the barriers to employment for people with disabilities and have some other positive effects such as helping people retain their job or have longer tenure on the job, receiving accommodations tends to increase the job satisfaction of people with disabilities and for employers it tends to reduce the overall cost of employing people with disabilities or employing anyone actually because there are lower replacement and hiring or retraining costs required when accommodations are provided. We also notice that accommodations can improve individual employee''s productivity and can facilitate job advancement opportunities for people with disabilities. For people who are out on long term disability leave, providing accommodation promotes an early return to work so the cost of employees being out on a long term or short term disability leave are lowered. And other benefits accrued to the employer, not just to the employee so employers are able to retain a more diverse workforce and equity in the workplace. One thing that I want to note about the literature review is that we''ve also provided on the Mid-Atlantic Centers, ADA Center''s website, a link to an annotated bibliography of all of the research literature on accommodations that we''ve categorized, I think into eight or 10 different categories so it''s searchable
Right
: Online. Okay, next slide please, we also were able to find out that there were certain factors that seemed to be associated with accommodation outcomes and identified some of the things on this slide that we have used to do some of our further studies. So some of the things that were associated with accommodation outcomes in employment are characteristics of the business. A lot of literature looked at the size of the employer, whether they have a dedicated ADA resource person and whether employers have had previous experience with people with disabilities. The supportiveness of the employer as perceived by the employee with a disability seems to affect both requesting accommodations and the outcomes of accommodations. Often whether a job specialist or a rehabilitation professional is involved in helping someone, an employee with a disability in the workplace seems to be related to accommodation outcomes. And in particular we notice that the skills of the employee and their confidence in requesting accommodations affected whether they actually made the request and received accommodations as well as employee, both employee and employer knowledge about accommodations and the Americans with Disabilities Act seem to have a strong relationship to accommodation outcomes. And what seemed to be most, one of the other most important factors seem to be the relationship or linking of a functional need, a need for accommodation based on functional limitations to the provision of a particular accommodation. When they''re with that link there was a strong relation to accommodation outcomes. So based on some of these factors that we found in the literature we actually wanted to know a bit more about the strength of those factors to accommodation outcomes and provision. Next slide please. So in order to do that one of the things that we did was conduct in-depth interviews with 20 people who represented employees with disabilities, employers and service providers or rehabilitation professionals that may be working with people with employees with disabilities in the workplace. So we did these in-depth interviews that were about one hour long interviews. We had a variety of business industries represented such as healthcare, finance, education, retail sales, and government work and so on and the job level of the employee with the disability ranged from unskilled labor to professional and technical positions. The interviews themselves involved open ended questions, asking people about their experiences with job accommodations, positive, negative or otherwise and some of the things that they thought most influenced the accommodation process. With these 20 interviews we then had extensive transcripts, word for word verbatim transcripts that we then analyzed to do qualitative analysis so we could identify some of the themes of those interviews, across all the interviews and by groups of employers, employees and service providers. So the next few slides that I''m going to introduce are going to try to summarize some of those major themes that we found. And after we go through those we''ll stop for a break and give people an opportunity to ask questions. Okay next slide please. One of the things that seem to really stand out from analyzing these different interviews with these major stakeholders was that disclosing skillfully was a critical area of interest. And in fact I described this as disclosing skillfully as related to the success of the accommodation process. One of the things that we found out is that employees who acquire disabilities when they''re on the job, they don''t enter a job with a disability but experience something when they''re on the job, tend to have a much harder time with requesting and getting accommodations in the workplace. They''re not as familiar with the disability, often sometimes people may not even be aware that they have a disability and might have rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act to accommodation. They have limited knowledge about disability about the ADA and about accommodation process. And so it''s a much more fraught or emotionally charged situation often for employees who are on the job that experience a disability or major health condition while they''re on the job. The employees who had a disability prior to entering a job and may have had a service provider involved often had a much easier time with this decision around disclosure, particularly if they have the support of a service provider. And service providers, when we interviewed them, often thought that involving the service provider with the employer often facilitated the disclosure process and requesting accommodations and they thought it was very helpful, their role was very helpful. The other thing that we found is that proactive employers often encourage disclosure. These employers who are committed to diversity and identifying active policies and practices related to accommodation tended to do a much better job of encouraging employees to disclose disability, when they identified that there was an issue, even if the person was somewhat hesitant to do so. So this issue of disclosing skillfully, I''ve pulled out a quote from one of the interviews that we did. This was with a service provider who worked with youth transitioning from high school to the workplace and she said, and then I''ve had some students who decided to go on and disclose. They didn''t do it very well and it scared off the employer. So I think if you''re going to disclose, doing it in the right way with the right support at the right time is really important. So the service provider saw her role as really facilitating, helping the employee to disclose skillfully so that they could get the accommodations that they needed or the opportunities for employment that they wanted. Okay next slide please. Another theme that we identified is related to the job demands, limitations and accommodations. And one of the things that seem to really stand out was that knowing how the job demands, the function of limitations that are due to the disability and the accommodations interact. The more you knew about that that facilitated the accommodation process. For employees in particular it was very helpful to them when they knew what the job demands were and could think or plan ahead of time for the accommodations that they might need in a job that they''re looking for so for applicants in particular, the more they knew about the job demands they could actually, in some cases, choose whether to find a position that was a good match for them, that might provide the needed accommodations but in a natural way to all employees so they didn''t have to disclose or request specific accommodations. They could self-accommodate. For other people it was just helpful to kind of keep the focus on what the job demands were, what the expectations of the job were and their job performance so requesting accommodations was really related to meeting particular job demands and could be framed that way. And then finally employers need to know about the ADA and how to respond to disclosure and accommodation requests. At times employers were, particularly with disabilities that they were unsure of, weren''t quite sure, particularly supervisors, may not know how to respond when an employee says well I need this accommodation or I have X kind of disability. And so some education and training was really going to be useful around that process. For example, one HR manager that we talked to said that most of the training is really on how they need to behave with the employee, that is the supervisor, how the supervisor needs to behave with the employee when the accommodation has been made so that they don''t fall into the trap of over compensating when they don''t need to. Most of the issues that we''ve encountered, to be honest with you, once an accommodation has been made is with the employee that pushes the envelope a little bit. So this manager was, HR manager was really talking about, you know, providing information and training to supervisors on how to handle, not just the request of the accommodation but the provision of accommodation and managing the employees job performance after accommodations were provided. So knowing about that match and what the expectations are seem to be really important. Another person that we talked to who was a financial analyst who is a person of short stature or with dwarfism said that one of the things that he did is he learned how to adapt to the environment without having the environment adapt to him. So he was a person that really thought it was important to know what the job demands were and he would figure out a way to self-accommodate to be able to get the job done and you know look like a competent employee. He didn''t rely on the employer for that information. Okay next slide please. A third theme was around the nature of accommodations and one of the things that we discovered was that the nature of the accommodation, for example, whether it was a simple or complicated accommodation, whether it involved others to provide the accommodation and the cost of the accommodation were factors that affected how formally an employer would respond. So more complex accommodations often required a more formal accommodation process including documentation of eligibility for accommodations, documentation of disability and easier accommodations or less costly accommodations tended to really be done much more informally, often between a supervisor and an employee. So for example, one human resource professional told us that the more intrusive the request, the accommodation request, the more likely there would be a need for documentation to establish it, okay so if a disability was unclear or it''s a not well known one like multiple chemical sensitivity then there might be more documentation required to show that the person has both a disability and the need for particular accommodations. One of the things that we also discovered was that any accommodations that required an ongoing change in behavior from coworkers or supervisors was often more of a challenge to provide and can be more problematic. So for example this employee that we talked to with a hearing impairment, she worked in a library and she said I have to remind them all the time that it''s very hard for me to talk over the phone. In the previous job people just grabbed the phone from me without asking them to do the phone call for me so in one position she had people who understood what some of the issues were for her and automatically would help. But in her more current job that that was a problem and she was getting frustrated with constantly having to remind people about they needed to help her with particular job duties that directly was affected by her hearing impairment. Okay, next slide please. A fourth, I guess it was a fourth theme that we discovered was that there was a relationship between work culture and accommodations. The different work cultures tend to respond to accommodation requests in clearly different ways. So the work cultures that seem to be more amenable to accommodation requests and provision of accommodations were ones that were more generally collaborative or creative in nature. They were more diversity focused or that was a value of the particular organization. And they viewed accommodation as a tool to enhance the employee''s productivity. So they focused on kind of the solution part of things and the benefits that could accrue to the company when they were dealing with employees of theirs that had disabilities. More competitive or hierarchical types of work cultures tended to look at accommodation as a cost or a problem, something to be managed. So they focused more on the problem than on the solution. And those procedures or companies often tended to have more formal procedures to follow. So as an example of each of these different types of accommodations for the first we talked to a person who is a consultant to a technology related employer or a business, stated that for their clients or employees that have been service oriented businesses where they''re selling or relying on the intellectual capital of their employees, are much more willing to accommodate. So they focused on the person and the value of the person to the company. On the contrary in another retail sales kind of position, a woman who is a sales associate who had breast cancer, had an experience where she said the manager finally called me that night and I missed the call so I called her back in the morning and then she started yelling at me telling me that corporate had told her that they were afraid I would be bad for business. They were focused on the bottom line and worried about the bottom line and saw her as a problem for that particular bottom line. So the nature of the workplace and the culture and values of the workplace really seems to influence how accommodations work in those organizations. Okay next slide please. I think probably the biggest finding for us across all of the interviews is the social context of accommodation. The accommodation is really an interactive process that everyone who''s involved has a responsibility to do it skillfully so there''s no one person that''s primarily responsible. The employee has to decide to disclose and request accommodation. The employer or the supervisor, manager, needs to respond to that request and be knowledgeable about what the accommodation process and policies in the company are and service providers may be a liaison between the employee and employer and have to be familiar with both the needs of the employee and the employer in that process. So the better there is communication and effective communication between all of those parties, the more likely there''d be a positive outcome to the accommodation process. When the communications went wrong, often the accommodation process went wrong. And so people had more trouble communicating with their supervisor or someone in human resources, the more challenging the situation was and the more negative the experience was. So an example of that, an employer that we talked to said that on more than one occasion we found that the issue was the disability that the employee doesn''t want to disclose and we went straight from disciplinary action to talking with him. And I said to him, listen, in the absence of any explanation these are grounds for termination. I just can''t do anything else for you. That is when he came up and he got the accommodation and now he''s just fine. You''d be amazed at how many people would prefer to be fired than admit that they have a disability. So this was an employer who focused in on the fact that the person may have a disability and you know basically was trying to find a way to encourage the employee to see that and accept or ask for an accommodation that would really help the situation. So the more sensitive employers, supervisors are or HR folks are about that, the more likely there''s going to be a positive outcome for accommodation. Next slide please. And then finally one of the other themes that we unfortunately heard a lot of negative experiences, particularly from employees that we talked to that how they would get caught in high intensity negative reactions if the situation turned bad and they were battling with the employer for fairness in their situation. And so it could easily kind of spin out of control in those situations. For example, the sales associate that I mentioned before with breast cancer, she said that she had gotten stuck with an assistant manager who blew up at her because she, the employee, wanted to know why she wasn''t getting a particular schedule. The employer wasn''t giving her hours. And all other staff was getting a schedule. So I was reprimanded. I was scolded. I was humiliated and basically I was very belittled about the whole thing and I walked out. So it could easily kind of spiral out of control when communications were disrupted and people had emotional reactions and then had a reaction to the emotional reaction, seem difficult to disrupt that process. Okay so we''re done with talking about some of the major themes that we found from the in-depth interviews and one of the things we thought is that maybe we would take a break for a few minutes for any questions. This is kind of our midway point and see if anybody had any questions related to the literature review or some of the findings from the in-depth interviews.
guess we turn it back to Marian
Could you please give us instructions how people can indicate that they have a question to you?
Thank you. If you have a question at this time, please press star then a one on your touchtone telephone. If your questions have been answered and you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. Again, if you have a question please press star then one. We have a question from Gary Adler.
Okay
It''s from our office in Cleveland. I want to talk about the nature of the accommodation which was slide 16 I believe. And I found it interesting when you talked about a hidden disability such as MCS or multiple chemical sensitivities and I think what I''d like you to talk a little bit more about, I understood the part that you might want to do more documentation and verify the disability but how do you get to the issue of what is the particular accommodation? You know because with the reasonable as standard and with you know the whole idea of how it will impact other people, you know and require other people to do things and I just wonder if you want to talk about that because I thought that was a very good example, which is a significant problem for quite a few people and it involves a community or a work setting that you can''t be by yourself.
Right, I know with this particular employer that we were talking with, he actually spoke about two different employees that he had with multiple chemical sensitivities, which was interesting. One person was asking for something like you know that all the windows be opened in the building and they were working in a building that didn''t have windows that opened
Right
: And so that that was really going to be unreasonable. It was going to be undue hardship to do that, having nobody wear perfume or those kinds of things that involves other employees. It''s much more of a challenge to provide those but something like having no one wear perfume is a little easier to accomplish than having you know all the windows open when they''re in a building that doesn''t have windows that open, you know, a high rise or something like that. So it wasn''t just that the disability itself was hidden but it was the nature of the accommodations that were being requested for the particular disability. So accommodations that were easier to provide and often ones that don''t rely so much on other people continually providing them were easier to accomplish and accommodate so it wasn''t only related to the nature of the disability it was really the type of accommodation.
Right and I think as well as I recall that employer, it was how the request was made so how interactively. Like Kim was talking about the interpersonal interactive process, how interactive the request was, how much input the supervisor had, I recall that those were really important considerations for that particular employer.
: Actually also interesting enough for that particular situation, the value of the employee to the organization came up, which isn''t really legal under the ADA but the employer was basically saying, the HR person was basically saying, when you have an employee that''s already been valuable to the organization and comes to you with an accommodation request, you know we''re frankly more likely to provide it and not request all this extensive documentation that we might for another employee whose work has maybe always been kind of marginal or not contributing to the organization or company so there are a couple of factors in there that we needed to kind of [inaudible] out. It wasn''t only the nature of the disability or the nature of accommodation. Next question
Thank you. Our next question comes from Abby Kidd.
This question, sorry, I''ll just read it. How do you recommend that employers handle situations where employees facing disability separation after extended leaves request a reasonable accommodation?
: Okay so let me see if I can rephrase your question so I understand it. So you want to know how an employer would handle someone returning from an extended disability leave and then requesting an accommodation in order to come back to work?
Well the employee is facing a disability retirement or separation, involuntary, disability separation as a result of being out for an extended period of time and at that point they want to request a reasonable accommodation.
: So that they can return to work?
Yeah
: Okay, do you want to, Ellen do you want to?
As if there were a performance problem that resulted in a, that may have resulted in a separation and then the employee described the disability and the need for accommodation to improve performance.
Well the employee may go out for, let''s say six months, as a result of a position that may affect their performance and after, at some point the employer says you may not a work a certain period of time, there''s a question about whether or not you can do your job.
: Okay, yeah,
: I think you''ve kind of hit on the point that it would be a benefit to an employer for the most part to be able to get back an employee that''s qualified for the position and provide that accommodation so that the employee doesn''t continue on the long term disability benefits or go on unemployment or some other benefit. You don''t have as many training costs so the cost of recruiting and hiring a new person for that position so I think you would handle it basically the same way is to have the person, you know, identify whether they are capable of doing the essential functions of the job with that accommodation and if they are it makes sense then to actually go through the process and try to get them back into the position. The issue will be is if they cannot do that particular, the main functions of that particular job even with the accommodation.
I should add there are normally disability separation or disability retirement phase because there''s been a medical examination performed and this person has determined that they can''t do the job.
: Oh
And then they request a reasonable accommodation [laughter]
: You know it really, probably not so much a disability medical evaluation but a rehabilitation professional who knows what, can talk with the employer about what the demands of the job are and what the persons abilities are relative to that position and whether the accommodation is going to address the performance issues that may have come up before, may have led to the separation. [silence] Okay? Want to ask one more question and then go on to the next
Right, we have a question online that I''d like to read
: Okay
You spoke of requirements under the ADA, are public entities found entirely under the ADA?
: Public entities, meaning government?
Governmental State and local governments
: And Marian, you probably would be a good person to answer this question.
[laughter] Yeah, you can boot that right to Marian.
And your local ADA centers can respond to you as well.
: That''s right
But yes, an employer, whether it is a private employer or a state and local government, would be covered, in fact all government entities regardless of size are required to comply with the employment provisions of the ADA. Businesses that are 15 or more employees are those in the private sector that are covered under the American''s with Disabilities Act. Okay, I know we have further questions but I think we probably want to get back to the meat of the session.
: Right and we''ll have another question session at the end as well so folks can save their questions for then. Okay, Ellen Fabian is going to take the next section starting with slide number 19.
Okay thank you. Hi everybody. I wanted to say I''ve been kind of quiet and one of the reasons is I''m recovering from one of those awful summer colds so I''ve warned Kim if I go into a coughing spasm she''s just going to have to jump in and hum or [laughter] pick up from where I left off so forgive the sound of my voice a little bit. Okay so now we''re up to, in the first part of the presentation, Kim talked about a couple of our research studies of literature review and the individual interviews and we want to now cover, and I''m going to cover it fairly quickly cause we really want to get to our practical recommendations. It sounds like a lot of people are focusing more on the practical recommendations, which makes total sense, and less specifically on the research studies and how we did them. So I''m going to go through these first few slides on this last research study relatively quickly in order to have most of our time for the last three or four slides. So we did a research study of, the last study that we completed was a research study where we specifically wanted responses from employers regarding the factors that go into their decision to provide reasonable accommodations based on employee requests. And within that study then we looked at the following issues, we looked at the attitudes and beliefs of employers. We looked also at whether the type of disability matters in the decision to provide an accommodation. We looked at nature of accommodations provided by type of disability. We also wanted to take a look at company characteristics and the extent to which they mattered, things like size and sector. And finally we also wanted to look at a few of the personal characteristics of the respondent. Next slide, so we accomplished this study through an electronic web based email survey to our two employers. One of the things that I probably need to disclose is that our colleagues, in assisting us to find respondents, were the other DBTAC''s, other ADA centers, Jan and other similar entities to which employers turned to assistants with accommodations. So that may be an important consideration to take into account when you hear about some of our findings. So we had a survey. We developed a 19 item scale that looked at employer attitudes and beliefs regarding their decision to provide an accommodation and we asked them to use that scale in responding to what we developed called the case study of a guy named John. The case study of John, and I printed it out. I''m not going to read it because it will take too much time but I printed it out and hopefully people who are really interested have some time to look at it. We developed the case study as a research team. We vetted it with our participatory action research team for our DBTAC project which involved disability advocates, employees with disabilities, businesses and employers. And so we felt that at the end we had a fairly authentic scenario and as I say, we printed it out in the next couple of slides after this one and you can take a look and read it yourself. The type of disability was embedded in the case study and that was the only issue or the only variable or factor that differentiated three case study choices that our respondents had in the three versions. In one of them John had a sensory disability which was macular degeneration. That''s the example that we provided in the case study. In one he had a psychiatric condition which was depression and anxiety and in one there was a physical condition which was recovery from extensive cardiac surgery. So respondents were not given an advance notice of which particular scenario they were going to choose but instead we''re just asked to push a button and from that button they got either A, B, or C, which was the case of John as either somebody with a psychiatric, a sensory or a physical disability. So on the next slide you can see the case example and the case example I''ve posted here is the one, next slide, where John has the macular degeneration and everything else, all the other details other than the specific details regarding the health condition, did not vary from each of the three cases and in all of them, for example, John is a 52 year old manager. He''s been with the organization for five years and he exhibits the same behaviors and then requests the same types of accommodations. So if you go the left, the next slide on John, what the accommodations that he''s asking for are, and this is in the last paragraph there, is to work part time, to have a flexible schedule and or to telework. So in each of the cases we made the cases credible so that the accommodation requests were matched, could be potentially matched, with the condition that John had. Next slide. Here were our respondents. We actually had, for this particular study which was only for employers, we had 395 responding. Perhaps not surprisingly the majority of our respondents were female. Forty one percent of them were human resource personnel. Sixty six percent have been in the position for more than five years. It ended up being fairly even. About 1/3 randomly selected each of the three cases. Seventy five percent of our responses, of our respondents, would provide at least one accommodation for John so that''s an important thing to know about. So only about 25% of the respondents would not provide an accommodation at all. And the majority, and this is where I get back to how we recruited our respondents so the majority of our respondents, as you can see, 93% of them were knowledgeable about the ADA, which would be characteristic of businesses who would turn to the ADA centers and the website for more information about accommodations and who would then agree to participate in our survey. The next slide is disability type by the accommodation that the respondent would have provided to John. And as you can see the one point I want to make here is that for the physical, the psychiatric and the sensory there''s not a lot of difference among the types of accommodations that the supervisors, the HR personnel or the business owners would have provided for the case of John. And as you can see what''s really interesting is the last line says none so those were the 25% of the cases that said they would not provide any accommodations at all and that''s fairly evenly as well across each of the three disability types. The next slide then, as you recall I said that we had a 19 item scale where we asked employers to check off which of these factors went into their decision regarding number one, whether or not they were provided accommodation and if they did then what type would they provide? And the scale I should say, I think I neglected to say earlier, was developed based on a couple of other research studies that we did, one of which we mentioned, Kim went into great detail about which was a qualitative interview study. Another one, which we didn''t have the time to talk about this afternoon at all but which is a publication from 2010 and I believe it''s also posted on the Mid-Atlantic ADA center website so when we get to that final page and talk about the resources that we had published we''ll make sure to remember to mention that. But these research studies then inform the development of this 19 item scale for employers. So what was important, on what basis then did employers, all employers, whether or not they made an accommodation and what type of accommodation they made, what was important to all of them? And as you can see from this list it makes total common sense in terms of what practitioners or what employees would emphasize. What was important was their belief in the fact that all employees with disabilities could work. The feasibility and effectiveness of accommodation, their knowledge of their legal obligation to provide an accommodation, the match between the job and the accommodation request, the employees documentation of the disability and as we went over before these were the highly knowledgeable employers, their knowledge of the ADA. So kind of what we hope is becoming clear, even though I know we don''t have much time this afternoon, but what we hope is becoming clear is the consistency in some of these issues that employers base their decisions on and the issues that Kim was talking about from the interview study as well as the findings that emerge from the literature review. The next couple of slides then, so next slide, break down the considerations that employers used in determining whether or not they would provide an accommodation by those two categories of employers. So this first slide is respondents are employers and business owners who provided accommodations. These base their decision most strongly on their relationship with the employee, the perceived impact of the accommodation on coworkers, the timing of the accommodation request and their previous experience of the person being asked with the disability, with people with disabilities. So these were employers who provided accommodation and these were the highest rated items that they based that decision on. [background noise] The next slide, please, is what about employers who did not provide accommodation? What considerations, which factors did they base their decisions on and these are a little bit different, the duration of the accommodation, the extent to which the accommodation was linked to specific functional limitations so that match again, whether the employee was involved in the request process and the availability of disability documentation. So when you compare then the two slides where respondents who provided accommodation, which were a majority of them, and those that do not, you can see that there were some differences in that and in particular were those who did not provide accommodation that help us in terms of framing recommendations, were issues such as the duration, perhaps more specificity around the duration of it, the match between the individuals need and the job demand and the availability of disability documentation. Next slide then, so the previous slides really talked about what issues or consideration did employers use in making the decision to provide accommodation? This slide then, which talks about which employer characteristics influence the decision to accommodate isn''t based on those beliefs and attitudes but is based on objective questions that we ask our respondent. So some of the issues that affected or that influenced whether or not employers provided accommodation was their knowledge of the ADA, their background experience in their provision of accommodation, whether the company had an RA policy and surprisingly gender came up here too, not in the direction that you would expect, and I think in a couple of slides later we talk about that, as well as the persons position in the company. And this is perhaps one of the most important findings that emerged from our survey as to how important the position of the person so whom the request is made in terms of the outcome of that request. So the next slide then uses these same factors and highlights those that appeared to have the most influence that were the most important. So in terms of the position in the company, what mattered the most was whether it was being a direct supervisor as opposed to being a CEO or even an HR personnel. So when the request was made to the direct supervisor, when that person was involved, it was much more likely that the person would get accommodated. Interestingly enough the smaller the company was, and that probably has a relationship to the role of the person being asked because the larger the company the more likely it is that the policy is to go through HR rather than to the person''s direct boss or direct supervisor. National or less in scope, and this probably again relates to how close you are to the person who has the power to make that decision regarding the accommodation in private versus public or nonprofit. Private companies being more likely to provide accommodation, I''m not sure we can explain that. It might be an artifact. It might be Resources It might be the resources available in private rather than public. I promised I''d come back to gender. I''m not sure who you guessed but actually it''s males who are more likely than females to matter in providing accommodation. That could be because more females, of course, tend to be HR personnel who are less likely than direct supervisors. The next slide then, what didn''t matter in our study? These were things that weren''t significant. They may be important but for this particular study they didn''t end up being significant in terms of the decision to provide an accommodation in John''s case. Respondent''s owner family disability, that was surprising to us. That ended up not mattering. And that could be, if you go back and remember who our sample was, that could be that this is already businesses who have an interest or quite a bit of knowledge about the ADA. In those cases whether or not the person actually has a disability or family member with a disability may wash out. And also surprisingly whether the company has hired a person with a disability previously so that kind of surprised us too as not mattering in the accommodation decision. Even so, other studies have suggested that previous experience in hiring people with a disability tends to matter so again, it could be that the fact that these employers were very knowledgeable, interested in getting information about the ADA, so much so that they went to these websites of ADA centers and would have washed out some of these other differences that in a more naive sample, if you will, of employers could be more important, five more minutes. The next slide is, what we decided to do too is because the large and small company dimension seemed to be so important in terms of whether or not a request was granted and the factors on which that decision was made for employees, that we decided that it might be useful to close up this discussion of this research study with looking at some of the differences that employees and advocates can examine when working with small and large companies. So in other words the slide that this strategies was small companies, the first recommendation Next slide please Sorry, next slide please. The request for as much as the individual can, work with the direct supervisor. In small companies what seems to matter more is relationship, the timing of the request and whether or not the individual, the supervisor, has a previous experience with accommodation. What the employee should focus on with small companies is the effect that the request is going to have on co-workers and proactive involvement so as actively involved as the employee can be in defining the need for the accommodation, the types of accommodation and really making that match between what''s needed in order to assist with performance discrepancies, the better it is in a small company. The next slide then please, talks about strategies for larger companies. Again, even though larger companies you''re going to tend to be an employee who''s going to have to, you know, involve HR personnel or policy, it still, every time, if possible, that the direct supervisor can be brought in to assist with the request the better the outcome will be. In larger companies then what seems to matter is disability documentation, the length between the job and the request, the communication style of the employee in making the request and the knowledge of the HR, the human resource knowledge about reasonable accommodations and the ADA. In larger companies employees then should focus on employee rights because it has to do with disability documentation and making strong connections to performance. So there were many, many different sorts of strategies that emerged from this particular employer study and we''re only now starting to kind of examine them, particularly as they relate to specific situations, small companies, large companies, HR personnel, no personnel but these in general are some of the findings that we wanted to share with you to date as we''re looking at, as we''re analyzing those data. We also, and the next slide, we also wanted to, emerging from that study as well as some of the previous ones, were more general recommendations or practice recommendation that we have for employees, employers and supervisors and Kim is going to talk about some of those on the slide recommendations for employees. Okay great so one of the things that we think is important for employees is, as we''ve mentioned from both of these studies, that employees do need to understand the demands of the job. That is something that''s really helpful in trying to identify the accommodations that specifically are going to focus on helping you to meet the demands of the particular job. And focusing on that match between you, your disability, strengths and limitations, the demands of the job and the accommodations that meet the need. Also for employees, one of the first options that may actually be useful when you identify their need for accommodation is whether self-accommodation is an option. So can you somehow adjust or modify the job without having to disclose or formally request an accommodation? Then you don''t need to involve the employer or the formal processes in the company. If you are going to go ahead and request accommodations then it''s actually very useful to present that accommodation request positively. So you''re not necessarily going to focus on what your limitations are or what you need, you''re going to focus on how this adjustment can enhance your job performance and may have benefits both to the employer and to co-workers if the accommodation is provided. So you''re going to focus on what the advantages are to providing the accommodation, not what the problems are in providing the accommodation. Another area that''s really important that''s been highlighted in a couple of these studies is you''re skilled in communicating and requesting accommodation. So since relationship is so important it actually would be helpful to kind of practice and develop skills in disclosing, requesting, identifying and requesting accommodations, negotiating with the supervisor or an HR person around the accommodations that you need and managing your personal emotional reactions or the employer''s reactions to accommodation requests. Since that was something that really could spiral out of control, the better you are at managing your own reactions to it and how a potentially initial negative reaction of a supervisor or a manager, then the more likely you''ll have a positive outcome. Ellen''s going to talk a little bit about some of the suggestions we have, recommendations for business. Next slide please Next slide, and I see we''re a little short on time so I''m just going to, and I''ve already really talked about these in our employer study so I''m just going to hit on a few that stand out, train managers, direct supervisors to respond to request for accommodations. That seemed to cut across all of our studies as well as the literature review. The third one down, always involving the direct supervisor in the accommodation process wherever possible, HR personnel, always you know having, if they can, encourage them to involve the direct supervisor in helping to understand what''s needed and thus avoiding as much as possible, what Kim was talking about, which is an adversarial situation with asking. Accommodations, businesses seeing accommodations as tools to enhance productivity rather than responding to the need, I mean they do respond to the need of an individual but the positive aspect is that you retain a qualified employee; it adds value to the business because it enhances productivity. And the last one that we haven''t talked a lot about because it''s the topic of a whole other presentation, would be looking at accommodation from the standpoint of universal design and opportunity to benefit and retain not only the employees with disabilities but obviously all your employees in the company. The last slide then Kim is going to finally wrap up with recommendations for advocates. And again I''ll just pull out a couple of highlights. One of the things for advocates and service providers is that you really need to have a balanced perspective on both the needs of the business as well as the needs of the employee. If you''re only focusing on the needs of the employee then you''re really missing an opportunity to both involve a business and affect a positive accommodation outcome. Since the issue of disclosure and communication skills is really important it''s helpful for the advocate or service provider to work with the employees around practicing that, figuring out what terms we want to use, how to go about the accommodation process so that it goes much more smoothly and so that they can develop, further develop a good relationship with a supervisor or manager. Probably those two are the biggest things, as well as adjusting your approach to the employer, depending on the type of work culture that they have, are they more open, creative, collaborative, and diverse or are they more focused on structure, hierarchy, and bottom line kinds of organization so you may approach those two employers differently. [background noise] And finally the last slide is our, just to draw your attention to for more information. If we don''t get to questions these are our email addresses, please feel free to email us and we sighted some of the materials that we''d already posted and will continue to post on the Mid-Atlantic ADA centers website and there''s a website address for you where you can locate the articles that we''ve published as well as the annotated bibliography that we''ve talked about. And I guess now we''ll turn it back to Marian for the questions.
Yes, in addition to finding those documents on the website, if you look under national initiatives under the adainfo.org you''ll see research and you go to research and you''ll see all of our information. Operator can you please tell us how to get a hold of the next set of questions?
Thank you. Again, ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time please press star then one. We have a question from Kay Phillips. Pardon me, your lines open. If you have your phone on mute can you unmute your phone please? Our next question comes from Abby Kidd.
The original legislation was intended to be proactive. Is there any evidence, after much study, if it has increased the number of disabled hired and retained?
I think the answer to that is not yet. [laughter] So far we haven''t seen the employment rate really change for people with disabilities since the ADA has been enacted. So we''re not sure if those are measurement and definition kinds of issues or in fact that people with disabilities still are not quote getting jobs and advancing in jobs.
Next question
Our next question comes from Gary Adler. [phonetic]
From Debra, given your findings would it be fair to say that it really is difficult for a new hire to get an accommodation versus someone who is a current employee who has an acquired disability and if that is true then do you have practical advice for those who are job applicants working with people who are seeking employment for the first time or seeking to reenter the job market?
Good question
: : That is a great question. I think there are probably a couple of ways to answer that. I think yes, it''s true that if you''re already a known employee to a company and you''ve been working there for a while it actually is much easier to get an accommodation while during the process it may be more difficult for people to see themselves as having a disability and able to ask for accommodations. But you''re more likely to get them provided I think if you''re already on the job and you''re known to the employer as a productive employee. However, people with disabilities who are approaching employers applying for jobs, when they either present the request positively and otherwise have skills to offer the employer or they have a service provider involved, accommodation requests can happen during that application process and doesn''t necessarily affect the opportunity to be hired. However, if you talk to advocates in the field they often will recommend that people, if you don''t need an accommodation during the hiring process to first sell yourself on the job, especially if you don''t have a service provider involved with you and the employer, to not disclose up front or request an accommodation if you don''t need it. Get the job and then ask for the accommodation once you''re on the job. So then it doesn''t interfere with your ability to get hired, which is much harder to prove discrimination in the hiring process than it is once someone''s on the job.
Right and I''d add to what Kim said, based on our findings the two things that really stand out is make the request as positive as you can and as concretely linked to the actual job demands.
: Good, next question
We have an email question, could you speak about rights under contract, not necessarily consultants or contractors but the contract help would be under the ADA. If not hired as employees but working under direction and in the workplace that may require accommodations? We''re seeing this condition increasing in America. Kim and Ellen, would you like me to take this one?
: Sure Go ahead, Marian. [laughter]
Essentially you have to look at the contracting contract and see many contractors work from a contracting organization and the responsibility for the accommodation rests most of the time with the employer who at this point is the contracting or the contractor company, the company who hires the person, not the places they are actually working at. But it becomes a mutual discussion because some of the obligations may be moving furniture which the host company would be required to work with the company to do. So it can be a very complex situation and so you have to look at the contracts, you have to work between three entities, the contracting company, the host company and the person with the disability to determine, especially if it''s an expensive accommodation, determining how long the person is going to be there, a variety of things. If you have further questions about that please feel free to call us at the 800 number. Operator, do we have another call?
Our next question comes from Abby Kidd.
Based on findings and or limitations of research on this topic, what future questions will you seek to answer or do research on?
That''s a good question. [laughter] I''ll take up a couple of topics we''ve been thinking about and Kim probably has some and Marian might have some as well. One of the issues we''re really interested in is universal design and accommodation so how do changes that benefit all employees in the workplace from simple things like lighting, privacy, space, cubicles, walls, etcetera, how do those kinds of changes that might benefit all employees also benefit employees with disabilities? The other issue that we''re looking at is that, and this has been brought up a couple of times, is aging with people who have a job and then as they age or as their health conditions change, the extent to which those employees request and receive accommodations. And so you know the issues of employees already in place, when their needs change or when the demands of the job change, what types of accommodations do they request and do they attribute those requests to the health condition and then how frequently are accommodations provided. Kim probably has a couple too
: Yeah I think we still often get questions and I think we don''t know what ways, what''s the process of asking for accommodations that''s more likely to lead to receiving one? So in terms of when you ask, how it''s phrased. I don''t think we really know research wise, we have recommendations to do that from some of these studies but we don''t actually have proof that asking in a particular way is more likely to lead to a positive accommodation outcome. So I know that''s often questions we get from both service providers as well as from employees with disabilities like how do I really go about it so I increase my chances of getting it? When''s the best time? Should I disclose in the interview? You know those are the kinds of things that I think we need a lot more information about.
: Okay I think we also, there''s a question I see online, Marian or in the chat
Well wait, she has to take them
: Oh, I''m sorry
Next question or are we at time?
Okay this is Marian. If an employee requests an accommodation and there are practices or policies already set up to accommodate, does a change still have to be instituted or can the employees be addressed through the practices that are already in place? In other words does an accommodation request always require a change?
: Does an accommodation request always require a change and in fact the answer to that is no. So if someone asks for an accommodation, they can identify what they think is going to be most effective but employers have the option to provide either that accommodation or another one that would be equally effective, especially maybe one that might be less costly or less disruptive to the work place. So you know I think you know there is a possibility that just because someone asks for an accommodation, if the situation does not necessarily demand it or if it''s not going to be effective then requesting another accommodation is not necessarily an automatic thing. It really does depend on the circumstances and what''s the nature of the new request for accommodation?
And actually we had a case, it''s interesting, where the flip side occurred where an employer was an employee who was hearing, severe loss of hearing and the employer wanted to kind of over accommodate the employee providing an interpreter at meetings and other kinds of options that actually the employee had already self-accommodated in a way that he felt was appropriate for him being able to meet the essential functions of his job so it was really an interesting kind of flip side of you know
: The employer can''t demand that someone accept an accommodation
Nor over accommodate somebody if the employee doesn''t want that particular option for whatever reason.
Well unfortunately we''ve come to the end of our time. I know there are still a few questions that folks have and we realize that many of your questions may not get answered. We have given you our contact information so please feel free to reach out to any of us or to call your regional ADA center at 1-800-949-4232. We want to thank our presenters, Ellen and Kim, for their time and expertise. I think that we all learned a lot from today''s program. A reminder that the digital recording of today''s session as well as a written transcript will be available for viewing and downloading on the www.ada-audio.org website within the next 10 business days. Please join us next month for the ADA federal update which is going to be the 21st anniversary, the ADA becomes of age and we''re going to have folks from the EEOC and the Department of Justice joining us so we encourage you to review our website and familiarize yourself with all the different programs we''ll be offering during this series. If you have any questions you can email them to adaconferences@greatlakes.org or you can call the Great Lakes Center at 877-232-1990. We thank you for joining us today and we hope you have a good day. At the conclusion of this session you will receive an email with a link to the online session survey. Please complete this evaluation about today''s program as we really value your input. We thank you for joining us and we hope you have a pleasant day.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today''s conference. This concludes our program for today. You may all disconnect. Have a wonderful day.