Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act outlines the need to provide reasonable accommodations to persons with disabilities. The law requires that these accommodations ensure equal opportunity in the job application process; that a qualified person can perform the essential functions of a job; and that an employee with a disability enjoys equal benefits and privileges of employment.
While many immediately think of physical accommodations – office space that is wheelchair accessible, technology to assist the hearing impaired – that is only the beginning of providing for employees with disabilities. For instance, an employee that recently underwent back surgery may require a special ergonomic desk or a new mother may want a private area to nurse.
There are dozens of examples that federal human resource and civil rights offices must provide to employees under the law. With more than 2 million employees, about 20 percent of which claim a disability of some kind, federal agencies have struggled to keep pace with employee needs. Too many federal agencies face a backlog of accommodation requests, meaning that employees that require something in order to successfully do their job have not yet received it.
Creating a Positive Environment for Employees
This backlog creates two major problems. First, federal agencies could find themselves not in compliance with the ADA. As part of the federal government, agencies should want to be a leader in providing accommodations to employees and failing to do so undermines the law.
Secondly, and perhaps even more important, failing to adequately meet these requests shows a lack of concern for employees. In many cases, employees may only need these accommodations for a small period of time. If any agency does not – or cannot – answer that request it not only hurts the employee’s ability to do their job but lowers morale.
Employees will not want to work at places that do not care, or do not appear to care, for their special needs. As the federal government fights to recruit for new talent, especially with the wave of coming retirements as part of the Silver Tsunami, agencies will want to establish and maintain an excellent record of employee care.
Symplicity Can Help
To help fight this backlog, federal agencies should look to Accommodate, Symplicity’s cloud-based solution for managing these requests. Instead of managing these requests through hand-written forms and Excel spreadsheets, agencies now have a single platform that can organize, manage, and report on all accommodation requests. Not only does this save time and money for those in-charge of handling these requests, it ensures that employees get the accommodation services they requested in a timely manner.
Symplicity’s Accommodate platform has helped organizations across a wide-range of industries manage these requests for more than two decades. We work with more than 1,400 higher education institutes and a number of Fortune 500 companies. There are a lot of similarities between what these organizations need from an accommodation request system and federal agencies.
There is no reason for your agency to continue to fight this backlog of requests. For more information on Accommodate, check out the brochure.
For those interested in learning more, email info@symplicity.com.