Show 07 __ The Job Accommodation Network
In this episode, Tajauna Dunning moderates a presentation by Dr. Beth Loy and Kendra Duckwork of the Job Accommodation Network on the topic of "The Job Accommodation Network: Making JAN Part of Your HR Toolbox". The full-length webcast originally aired on March 1, 2006 and can be found at:
The Job Accommodation Network Webcast
Beth Case: The Southwest ADA Center Podcast,
show number 7
(music)
Hello, and welcome to the Southwest ADA Center Podcast. I'm your host, Beth Case.
In this podcast, we bring you highlights from the longer webcasts offered by the Southwest ADA Center. If you like what you hear and you want to hear more, you can go to our website at www.ada-podcast.com and find the link where you can listen to the full-length webcast.
Today's show is from a webcast entitled "The Job Accommodation Network: Making JAN Part of Your HR Toolbox". In this webcast, Tajauna Dunning interviewed Dr. Beth Loy and Kendra Duckworth, both Human Factors Consultants with the Job Accommodation Network. This originally aired March 1, 2006.
Kendra Duckworth: We provide information to callers throughout the United States, even though we're located in this one office in West Virginia. We still provide information about jobs and job accommodations, the Americans with Disabilities Act and for people with disabilities, we provide information about small business and self-employment options.
For employers, we also provide information about other D. O. L. related programs such as EARN, the Employer Assistance and Recruiting Network. EARN is also a network that connects quality employers with skilled job candidates. So we can help if you're looking for an employee and we can also help you once you've hired somebody with a disability.
One of the best things about our service is that it's still a free service. Since we're heading up on tax time, we're still totally free and very easy to use. You can call us on our toll free line or you can E-mail us or you can provide -- or find information on our website that Beth keeps up to date every day. So we're still cheap and easy to use.
And Beth is a perfect example of things that are cheap and easy here around the Job Accommodation Network.
Beth Loy: Well, Kendra, thank you for that introduction. There are some other words that Kendra and I like to use to describe our services. While both of us were born and raised in West Virginia, and we've watched JAN grow over the last decade to a somewhat different, but also very consistent service.
So, first, our services are personal. Meaning, we answer our phone. Also meaning that we discuss accommodation situations one on one with each caller. Our services are often prompt. We are aware that accommodation information needs to be provided quickly so we try to get answers for our users the same day that we talk with you or if we need to research your question, as soon as we can find the information.
JAN's staff is courteous to callers. We want callers to call back. We want you to feel free to call us about any accommodation issue, even very controversial issues. We feel that we are knowledgeable. This refers to the longevity of our staff. Like Kendra and I mentioned, we have over 25 years of experience in the disability field.
Professional refers to the education level of consultants. All of us have at least a masters degree and several of us have other advanced degrees in business and law and some other education-related fields.
And many of us, like Kendra, have traveled all over the United States to speak with our users. Kendra does a lot of traveling and speaking for our service. And finally, our services are confidential. We never discuss one caller's case with another caller or release any information about a caller.
To give you an idea about the volume of services we provide, JAN receives over 32,000 accommodation inquiries per year. And that has stayed pretty steady over the last few years.
Although we are getting more and more questions about E-mail, most people still call us. So when you call JAN, an information assistant will ask you a few questions so she or he can direct your call to the right consultant. And Kendra, do you want to explain our routing and team system and how that's developed over the last few years?
Kendra: I sure will. When I started at JAN, we didn't even have a complicated phone system. Our system was there was a phone on your desk and when it rang, you answered it and addressed the question on the other end of the line. Because we got so many calls, we finally developed a system that works for us.
So we use several of what we call information assistants who will answer the phone and ask you several questions about what is the nature of your call. Is it a call about the Americans with Disabilities Act or a call about an accommodation request? What is the nature of the disability or limitation of the person, either yourself that you're calling about. And we do this because we want to route your call to the most effective and most knowledgeable person in that area.
So we have four different teams. We have our sensory team that deals with issues related to hearing and vision and other sensory issues such as allergies and fragrance sensitivity.
Beth L.: Respiratory, HIV/AIDS, diabetes.
Kendra: Yeah, those kinds of things. We also have the cognitive team of which I'm a member of. And we provide information on accommodations and disabilities ranging from brain injury to learning disabilities to psychiatric impairments, attention deficit disorder, epilepsy, anything that's related to the brain or the neurological system.
We have the motor team of which Beth is a member of, and they kind of get everything else. They deal with all the arms and legs, all the motor- related issues such as paraplegia, MS, carpal tunnel syndrome, ergonomic-related issues.
Beth L.: And if it's related to something that moves on your body, it usually comes to us.
Kendra: Right. And if it happens in your head, then its comes to me. And finally, we have our small business team, and that is a small team that provides information to callers who are interested in starting their own small businesses. And they can provide information about the resources available for them.
So we provide information to callers on a variety of accommodation issues. We can provide information on assistive technology, so if you're looking for a specific type of chair or speech recognition system -- anything of a product that's going to accommodate somebody, we have information that can accommodate that person and we're happy to provide that to you. But our service isn't limited just to product-related accommodations because I deal with a lot of hidden disabilities and disabilities that aren't necessarily accommodated by purchasing something out of a catalog. We can provide information on other types of accommodations and I'm going to talk more about this in a little bit. But things like providing flexible schedules and adjusting supervisor methods. So we have a lot of information on accommodations that you're not going to find in a catalog somewhere.
Beth L.: While working for the motor team, JAN maintains a database on over 10,000 products because many of the calls we get involve questions about assistive technology and other products. These vary depending on the situation. We may get a request for a chair that goes from sitting to standing. Even a product to identify colors or maybe cellular telephone amplification which I just recently purchased for my parents. And like Kendra does, they continue to ignore me, but at least I know now that they can hear me.
So other questions that involve accommodations that aren't AP-related like Kendra mentioned could relate to modifying work schedules, work from home, job restructuring, changing management styles and even managing personal means in the workplace.
Almost all of our accommodation questions from HR professionals involves the Americans with Disabilities Act, and some of the toughest accommodation calls involve issues you may not think of off the top of your head. And Kendra gets many of these types of questions from HR professionals. Probably some of the most difficult cases we've ever dealt with involve one of these issues, don't you think, Kendra?
Kendra: Definitely. There are a lot of issues that I deal with that you just can't describe on a daily basis, but I handle a lot of issues related to absenteeism, inappropriate or erratic behavior and even lately, what do I do if someone threatens to commit suicide in the workplace. So we have people here that are skilled in handling those situations and providing you with some solutions.
Beth L.: And we even get some really difficult questions that cross over disability areas. Depression happens a lot with motor-related cases such as cancer, back conditions -- so sometimes those can be very difficult, too.
As Kendra and I were putting together this presentation, we were debating the most frequent questions we get from HR professionals. Some of the broad categories of ADA issues we deal with from an HR professionals call cover the why, the how and the what of the accommodation process.
So why should employers respond to an accommodation request? Well, as many of the listeners today probably already know, legally, employers with 15 or more employees are required to provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Also, many states have similar laws that apply to employers with less than 15 employees.
In addition, evidence that the employer made a good-faith effort to comply with the ADA may reduce the amount of damages against the employer if the situation ends up in a legal judgment. Evidence that the employer engaged in an interactive process can protect an employer from having to pay punitive and compensatory damages. So a lot of times, it comes down to money.
But from a practical standpoint, responding to an accommodation request can lead to a successful accommodation. And Kendra and I have seen it happen many times over the years. And this can provide a significant benefit to employers. You're saying, well, how can this save me money? How can this save my bottom line?
Well, a successful accommodation can save an employer money by retaining qualified employees. How many people out there listening today have spent time recruiting new employees after an experienced staff member leaves? Successful accommodation can save money by saving the cost of training new employees. How much effort do we put into a good training process? I know for Kendra and me, it takes years to learn this type of job.
Kendra: It does. It takes at least a year to train a new consultant to the point where they're really effective.
Beth L.: A successful accommodation can also save workers' compensation or other insurance costs. How many people have dealt with rising workers' comp and insurance costs? For example, say we have an employee with a back condition who is out due to an injury. The best way to increase our overall productivity is to get the person back to work and accommodations can get that person back to work.
Now, let's not forget we can enhance workplace diversity. There is simply no down side to bringing diversity into a workplace and creating what we call a corporate culture that reflects our society. I think this is one thing that Kendra and I agree on, that this is just simply good business.
One of the tools JAN now has available for your HR toolbox is that we've been doing some follow up research. JAN has been completing a follow-up survey with employers that have used us. We contracted with the University of Iowa Law Health Policy and Disability Center to conduct an updated study of employers, individuals and others who have used our services. So JAN consumers are being interviewed about the effectiveness of our service, the types of accommodations being implemented in the workplace, and last but not least the accommodation cost and effectiveness.
Although our data collection is ongoing, these preliminary findings have been of interest to HR professionals who use JAN. The findings to date indicate that a broad spectrum of business types use our services. And the data revealed that accommodations have low cost and high impact.
Now, these findings are summarized in the publication on our website. Our website, which hopefully many of you have visited, is www.jan.wvu.edu. The publication that I'm discussing is called Workplace Accommodations -- Low Cost, High Impact.
Now, I'll just share four important policy findings with you. We have number one, employers want to provide accommodations so they can retain valued and qualified employees. Number two, employers are reporting that accommodations are effective. Number three, employers experience multiple direct and indirect benefits after making accommodations. And number four, the last but not least, and probably one much our most important findings, that JAN customers have reported is that these highly effective accommodations cost little or nothing.
Now, employers who were interviewed said that slightly over half of the accommodations they had implemented following discussion with JAN had been at no cost. For those employers who did experience some cost, the median dollar value was 0. So this is good information.
Kendra:We have a tremendous amount of information in our accommodation and compliance series. So you name a disability or condition, we probably have a publication on it. Some of our newest publications deal with bleeding disorders. We also have information on how to request and negotiate a reasonable accommodation if you're an individual with a disability. My favorite part of our website is the JAN by Disability A. through Z. Literally, we have accommodations for every letter of the alphabet and can provide information about the condition and about accommodations. So there is a lot of training materials available for people to use and it's all free from our website.
Tajauna Dunning: Beth and Kendra, you guys are doing such a great job, we actually only have one question that has come in. And it is an individual who asked if an employee requests an accommodation and has a hidden or cognitive disability that cannot be seen, does the supervisor have the right to request documentation of the disability or is that against the law?
Beth L.: No, you're right. The supervisor does have a right to request medical documentation if the disability is not obvious or if the accommodation need is not known. So when I talk to managers, that's usually the first step in that accommodation process is to get medical documentation. So you know what this person's condition is and you know what the limitations are.
Kendra: and we have a really good publication about medical inquiries that kind of breaks that down step by step as to what you can ask and we even provide a sample form that managers and employers can modify to meet their own company needs. So we have a couple of things available and in the employer's guide that we have available on our website, that also provides a good breakdown. I think that's a good resource to download.
Beth L.: Definitely. You know, something I've also noticed when we're talking about medical I inquiries and especially the publication that we have is a form, it's so helpful because I talk to a lot of doctors that don't know exactly how to provide that information to an employer. Many doctors are concerned about giving too much information or saying the wrong thing or not providing enough information. So that form really helps the doctor focus on limitations rather than more medical-related types things or symptoms. And it also helps clarify issues related to major life activities that are at least my area of expertise that you may not see on many medical forms such as concentration, memory, sleeping, those kinds of things.
Tajauna: Another question we have is we have an individual who asks how do you or who continues to see that the accommodations continue to be used and the worker does not get lost?
Kendra: I think that's the worker's responsibility primarily. Hopefully you've got a manager that's on top of, you know, what's going on in that unit. In my situation, usually those questions don't come up until there is a performance issue and that's when people start wondering about did accommodation and whether it's effective. I always encourage individuals to be proactive and to let people know when you're starting to struggle or have trouble or if you need something else.
Beth L.: And from the other side of it, I always try to encourage managers to be good managers, whether it has to do with disability or anything else, just continue to communicate with your employees and let them know that they can come to you with these issues.
Tajauna: Okay. All right. The next question -- I heard rumors that for profit companies could benefit from tax incentives by hiring people with disabilities? Is this true? And are there any financial incentives for for profit and nonprofit companies?
Kendra: Yes, there are. We have information on tax incentives for private employers. Beth, you want to describe those?
Beth L.: Sure, one of them is called a disabled access credit, and there is more detail on our web side about the disabled access credit. Primarily, this is for architectural barriers. From is also architectural and transportation barrier removal deduction, and there is also the work opportunity tax credit, but I don't think that has been renewed yet for this year.
Kendra: That's something we need to check on.
Beth L.: And sometimes what the government does is they will renew that and then they will apply it backwards. But as far as budget negotiations and everything goes, the work opportunity tax credit is usually late in being finalized.
Kendra: And also for nonprofit organizations and federal groups, the Department of Labor has a program where they connect college students with disabilities to employers who are looking for internships. So you can get the use of a free intern for a period of a summer and kind of try somebody out in a situation or in a work environment and it's a good experience for the individual, the student who gets good work experience and a good fit for the employer to gets free help and that information is available on our website. And that program is called workforce recruitment program.
Beth L.: Or WRT for short. But if you go on our website and search on tax, you will see the tax incentives publication pop up.
Tajauna: Can you gives give your website again slowly. I understand that the captioning wasn't clear when you mentioned it the first time.
Beth L.: It is www.jan.wvu.edu.
Kendra: And JAN is J-A-N.
Tajauna: Another question is how would you advise a person who is slewing their sight and is afraid to request accommodations due to fear of losing her job? This is a big question that even our office gets quite a bit.
Kendra: Wow. Well, I deal with this issue a lot with -- not so much vision impairments, but individuals who have epilepsy and they don't want to disclose that basically until they have to. I guess my advice is always to be honest and open with your employer and to realize that you're entitled to accommodations and accommodations should make doing your job easier, not harder. Especially if you have a vision problem that is deteriorating, that's going to become obvious after a point in time and it's better to deal with the accommodations now and to get those things in place before your performance starts to be affected by that and to wait until you absolutely have to tell your employer.
Beth L.: And I probably take a little bit of a different perspective on this. When I talk with employees who call and have this issue, I say make it easy for your manager. Make it easy for your employer. Have your information together on what accommodations you need, what's happening, how you -- how much you enjoy your job, how you feel that you're being a productive employ year and you provide all that information in an informal or formal setting where it just makes it a lot easier for the supervisor or the employer --
Kendra: Do your homework and give that to your manager or supervisor.
Tajauna: Okay. Another question is do people with disabilities have to pay for accessible parking in private parking lots?
Kendra: If everybody else is phage for the parking space, then yes, you have to pay for that space, too. If nobody else is paying for a parking space, then no, you shouldn't have to pay for that space.
Tajauna: Okay. Can you talk more about the reasonable accommodation process? How would you describe the responsibilities of each in the negotiation and the time lines for providing the accommodations, et cetera?
Beth L.: Well, as far as time lines, there are no explicit time lines other than in a reasonable amount of time. And, you know, that leaves a lot up to interpretation, I would say. There is nothing that says two weeks or 30 days, but certainly as far as time lines, you say what is a practical time line for this employer to respond. Like say an individual requests a schedule change. If it's six months later after the person has requested this schedule change, that's likely too long. Now, as far as the accommodation process and who is responsible for what parts of that, you want to take the first, Kendra?
Kendra: The first step is the employee's responsible for disclosing that they need something and for asking for an accommodation. So, again, employer's need to make sure they have a process in place to do that and that people know what that process is. Once you've done that, then it's the individual's responsibility with the disability to ask for the accommodation and to make it known.
Beth L.: I mean the first part of this, if you need to define your situation. In other words, what's the employee requesting? What can the employer provide? The next step typically is that employers do request medical documentation.
Kendra: Right, and I encourage them to do this. They have a right to a limited amount of information.
Beth L.: And from the medical information you can find out specifically if the person has a disability, what the limitations are, if the condition is progressive, if the limitations are stable, and if there is other documentation that's needed. So then it would be up to the employee to provide that medical documentation.
Kendra: Right, and to do that within a reasonable amount of time.
Tajauna: Okay, well what about though if the employee -- because you had mentioned earlier that employee should know what they need for the accommodation, so on and so forth. So the employee goes in to their employer and says this is my disability, here is my medical documentation and this is what I need and the employer comes back and says, well, we don't think that's reasonable. And then the employee then calls you.
Beth L.: Right.
Kendra: Right.
Tajauna: So how -- can you let the listeners know how is reasonable defined? Who gets to define that?
Beth L.: That's a good question. Reasonable is difficult to define, but it is the employer's right to determine what's reasonable for them. An employees need to know that they're entitled to reasonable accommodations that are effective. It doesn't always mean the exact accommodation that they asked for. That's why this is a negotiation. That's why you need to go through the accommodation process because the employer may have an alternative idea to accommodate this employee that is just as effective and more reasonable for that employer to provide. And if that's the case, the employer has the right to choose that accommodation.
Kendra: And I get that a lot of times with ergonomic chairs. An individual goes in with a specific type of ergonomic chair that is extremely expensive. The employer says we're not providing that chair, here is another chair that meets your limitations. Well, usually we get the call -- sometimes from both parties. If the lower cost chair meets the employee's limitations that the employee provided medical documentation on, then the employer has the right and can use that right to choose that lower cost chair.
Beth L.: That's right.
Tajauna: Okay. What would you advise or how would you advise a potential applicant what to do whenever they confront an illegal question on an application? We get that question quite a bit. An individual will be filling out an application and on the application it asks do you have a disability? And they'll ask how do we answer that?
Kendra: Boy, that's a good question and we get that a lot. Beth and I probably have different answers for that question.
Beth L.: Probably.
Kendra: I usually encourage people to not answer questions that are illegal questions to ask such as do you have a disability. And just simply state next to that that -- I would write this is a violation of the ADA or just ignore it altogether. What I do not encourage people to do is to lie on the application. That's a whole different situation. So my advice is not to answer questions that you know are illegal to ask.
Beth L.: No, I think we agree on that one.
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Beth C.: Well, that's just a sampling of what you'll hear if you listen to the full-length webcast. You can find the link to that at www.ada-podcast.com.
The Job Accommodation Network is a fabulous resource, and not just for employers, so be sure to check it out.
Until next time, this is Beth Case with the Southwest ADA Center Podcast.
The Southwest ADA Center is a program of Independent Living Research Utilization at TIRR - Memorial Hermann in Houston, Texas, and is funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. If you have questions about disability law or would like to request materials or training, please call 1-800-949-4232. The Southwest ADA Center Podcast is protected by the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivative-Works 2.5 License. For more information and transcripts, visit www.ada-podcast.com.
(music)
Hello, and welcome to the Southwest ADA Center Podcast. I'm your host, Beth Case.
In this podcast, we bring you highlights from the longer webcasts offered by the Southwest ADA Center. If you like what you hear and you want to hear more, you can go to our website at www.ada-podcast.com and find the link where you can listen to the full-length webcast.
Today's show is from a webcast entitled "The Job Accommodation Network: Making JAN Part of Your HR Toolbox". In this webcast, Tajauna Dunning interviewed Dr. Beth Loy and Kendra Duckworth, both Human Factors Consultants with the Job Accommodation Network. This originally aired March 1, 2006.
Kendra Duckworth: We provide information to callers throughout the United States, even though we're located in this one office in West Virginia. We still provide information about jobs and job accommodations, the Americans with Disabilities Act and for people with disabilities, we provide information about small business and self-employment options.
For employers, we also provide information about other D. O. L. related programs such as EARN, the Employer Assistance and Recruiting Network. EARN is also a network that connects quality employers with skilled job candidates. So we can help if you're looking for an employee and we can also help you once you've hired somebody with a disability.
One of the best things about our service is that it's still a free service. Since we're heading up on tax time, we're still totally free and very easy to use. You can call us on our toll free line or you can E-mail us or you can provide -- or find information on our website that Beth keeps up to date every day. So we're still cheap and easy to use.
And Beth is a perfect example of things that are cheap and easy here around the Job Accommodation Network.
Beth Loy: Well, Kendra, thank you for that introduction. There are some other words that Kendra and I like to use to describe our services. While both of us were born and raised in West Virginia, and we've watched JAN grow over the last decade to a somewhat different, but also very consistent service.
So, first, our services are personal. Meaning, we answer our phone. Also meaning that we discuss accommodation situations one on one with each caller. Our services are often prompt. We are aware that accommodation information needs to be provided quickly so we try to get answers for our users the same day that we talk with you or if we need to research your question, as soon as we can find the information.
JAN's staff is courteous to callers. We want callers to call back. We want you to feel free to call us about any accommodation issue, even very controversial issues. We feel that we are knowledgeable. This refers to the longevity of our staff. Like Kendra and I mentioned, we have over 25 years of experience in the disability field.
Professional refers to the education level of consultants. All of us have at least a masters degree and several of us have other advanced degrees in business and law and some other education-related fields.
And many of us, like Kendra, have traveled all over the United States to speak with our users. Kendra does a lot of traveling and speaking for our service. And finally, our services are confidential. We never discuss one caller's case with another caller or release any information about a caller.
To give you an idea about the volume of services we provide, JAN receives over 32,000 accommodation inquiries per year. And that has stayed pretty steady over the last few years.
Although we are getting more and more questions about E-mail, most people still call us. So when you call JAN, an information assistant will ask you a few questions so she or he can direct your call to the right consultant. And Kendra, do you want to explain our routing and team system and how that's developed over the last few years?
Kendra: I sure will. When I started at JAN, we didn't even have a complicated phone system. Our system was there was a phone on your desk and when it rang, you answered it and addressed the question on the other end of the line. Because we got so many calls, we finally developed a system that works for us.
So we use several of what we call information assistants who will answer the phone and ask you several questions about what is the nature of your call. Is it a call about the Americans with Disabilities Act or a call about an accommodation request? What is the nature of the disability or limitation of the person, either yourself that you're calling about. And we do this because we want to route your call to the most effective and most knowledgeable person in that area.
So we have four different teams. We have our sensory team that deals with issues related to hearing and vision and other sensory issues such as allergies and fragrance sensitivity.
Beth L.: Respiratory, HIV/AIDS, diabetes.
Kendra: Yeah, those kinds of things. We also have the cognitive team of which I'm a member of. And we provide information on accommodations and disabilities ranging from brain injury to learning disabilities to psychiatric impairments, attention deficit disorder, epilepsy, anything that's related to the brain or the neurological system.
We have the motor team of which Beth is a member of, and they kind of get everything else. They deal with all the arms and legs, all the motor- related issues such as paraplegia, MS, carpal tunnel syndrome, ergonomic-related issues.
Beth L.: And if it's related to something that moves on your body, it usually comes to us.
Kendra: Right. And if it happens in your head, then its comes to me. And finally, we have our small business team, and that is a small team that provides information to callers who are interested in starting their own small businesses. And they can provide information about the resources available for them.
So we provide information to callers on a variety of accommodation issues. We can provide information on assistive technology, so if you're looking for a specific type of chair or speech recognition system -- anything of a product that's going to accommodate somebody, we have information that can accommodate that person and we're happy to provide that to you. But our service isn't limited just to product-related accommodations because I deal with a lot of hidden disabilities and disabilities that aren't necessarily accommodated by purchasing something out of a catalog. We can provide information on other types of accommodations and I'm going to talk more about this in a little bit. But things like providing flexible schedules and adjusting supervisor methods. So we have a lot of information on accommodations that you're not going to find in a catalog somewhere.
Beth L.: While working for the motor team, JAN maintains a database on over 10,000 products because many of the calls we get involve questions about assistive technology and other products. These vary depending on the situation. We may get a request for a chair that goes from sitting to standing. Even a product to identify colors or maybe cellular telephone amplification which I just recently purchased for my parents. And like Kendra does, they continue to ignore me, but at least I know now that they can hear me.
So other questions that involve accommodations that aren't AP-related like Kendra mentioned could relate to modifying work schedules, work from home, job restructuring, changing management styles and even managing personal means in the workplace.
Almost all of our accommodation questions from HR professionals involves the Americans with Disabilities Act, and some of the toughest accommodation calls involve issues you may not think of off the top of your head. And Kendra gets many of these types of questions from HR professionals. Probably some of the most difficult cases we've ever dealt with involve one of these issues, don't you think, Kendra?
Kendra: Definitely. There are a lot of issues that I deal with that you just can't describe on a daily basis, but I handle a lot of issues related to absenteeism, inappropriate or erratic behavior and even lately, what do I do if someone threatens to commit suicide in the workplace. So we have people here that are skilled in handling those situations and providing you with some solutions.
Beth L.: And we even get some really difficult questions that cross over disability areas. Depression happens a lot with motor-related cases such as cancer, back conditions -- so sometimes those can be very difficult, too.
As Kendra and I were putting together this presentation, we were debating the most frequent questions we get from HR professionals. Some of the broad categories of ADA issues we deal with from an HR professionals call cover the why, the how and the what of the accommodation process.
So why should employers respond to an accommodation request? Well, as many of the listeners today probably already know, legally, employers with 15 or more employees are required to provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Also, many states have similar laws that apply to employers with less than 15 employees.
In addition, evidence that the employer made a good-faith effort to comply with the ADA may reduce the amount of damages against the employer if the situation ends up in a legal judgment. Evidence that the employer engaged in an interactive process can protect an employer from having to pay punitive and compensatory damages. So a lot of times, it comes down to money.
But from a practical standpoint, responding to an accommodation request can lead to a successful accommodation. And Kendra and I have seen it happen many times over the years. And this can provide a significant benefit to employers. You're saying, well, how can this save me money? How can this save my bottom line?
Well, a successful accommodation can save an employer money by retaining qualified employees. How many people out there listening today have spent time recruiting new employees after an experienced staff member leaves? Successful accommodation can save money by saving the cost of training new employees. How much effort do we put into a good training process? I know for Kendra and me, it takes years to learn this type of job.
Kendra: It does. It takes at least a year to train a new consultant to the point where they're really effective.
Beth L.: A successful accommodation can also save workers' compensation or other insurance costs. How many people have dealt with rising workers' comp and insurance costs? For example, say we have an employee with a back condition who is out due to an injury. The best way to increase our overall productivity is to get the person back to work and accommodations can get that person back to work.
Now, let's not forget we can enhance workplace diversity. There is simply no down side to bringing diversity into a workplace and creating what we call a corporate culture that reflects our society. I think this is one thing that Kendra and I agree on, that this is just simply good business.
One of the tools JAN now has available for your HR toolbox is that we've been doing some follow up research. JAN has been completing a follow-up survey with employers that have used us. We contracted with the University of Iowa Law Health Policy and Disability Center to conduct an updated study of employers, individuals and others who have used our services. So JAN consumers are being interviewed about the effectiveness of our service, the types of accommodations being implemented in the workplace, and last but not least the accommodation cost and effectiveness.
Although our data collection is ongoing, these preliminary findings have been of interest to HR professionals who use JAN. The findings to date indicate that a broad spectrum of business types use our services. And the data revealed that accommodations have low cost and high impact.
Now, these findings are summarized in the publication on our website. Our website, which hopefully many of you have visited, is www.jan.wvu.edu. The publication that I'm discussing is called Workplace Accommodations -- Low Cost, High Impact.
Now, I'll just share four important policy findings with you. We have number one, employers want to provide accommodations so they can retain valued and qualified employees. Number two, employers are reporting that accommodations are effective. Number three, employers experience multiple direct and indirect benefits after making accommodations. And number four, the last but not least, and probably one much our most important findings, that JAN customers have reported is that these highly effective accommodations cost little or nothing.
Now, employers who were interviewed said that slightly over half of the accommodations they had implemented following discussion with JAN had been at no cost. For those employers who did experience some cost, the median dollar value was 0. So this is good information.
Kendra:We have a tremendous amount of information in our accommodation and compliance series. So you name a disability or condition, we probably have a publication on it. Some of our newest publications deal with bleeding disorders. We also have information on how to request and negotiate a reasonable accommodation if you're an individual with a disability. My favorite part of our website is the JAN by Disability A. through Z. Literally, we have accommodations for every letter of the alphabet and can provide information about the condition and about accommodations. So there is a lot of training materials available for people to use and it's all free from our website.
Tajauna Dunning: Beth and Kendra, you guys are doing such a great job, we actually only have one question that has come in. And it is an individual who asked if an employee requests an accommodation and has a hidden or cognitive disability that cannot be seen, does the supervisor have the right to request documentation of the disability or is that against the law?
Beth L.: No, you're right. The supervisor does have a right to request medical documentation if the disability is not obvious or if the accommodation need is not known. So when I talk to managers, that's usually the first step in that accommodation process is to get medical documentation. So you know what this person's condition is and you know what the limitations are.
Kendra: and we have a really good publication about medical inquiries that kind of breaks that down step by step as to what you can ask and we even provide a sample form that managers and employers can modify to meet their own company needs. So we have a couple of things available and in the employer's guide that we have available on our website, that also provides a good breakdown. I think that's a good resource to download.
Beth L.: Definitely. You know, something I've also noticed when we're talking about medical I inquiries and especially the publication that we have is a form, it's so helpful because I talk to a lot of doctors that don't know exactly how to provide that information to an employer. Many doctors are concerned about giving too much information or saying the wrong thing or not providing enough information. So that form really helps the doctor focus on limitations rather than more medical-related types things or symptoms. And it also helps clarify issues related to major life activities that are at least my area of expertise that you may not see on many medical forms such as concentration, memory, sleeping, those kinds of things.
Tajauna: Another question we have is we have an individual who asks how do you or who continues to see that the accommodations continue to be used and the worker does not get lost?
Kendra: I think that's the worker's responsibility primarily. Hopefully you've got a manager that's on top of, you know, what's going on in that unit. In my situation, usually those questions don't come up until there is a performance issue and that's when people start wondering about did accommodation and whether it's effective. I always encourage individuals to be proactive and to let people know when you're starting to struggle or have trouble or if you need something else.
Beth L.: And from the other side of it, I always try to encourage managers to be good managers, whether it has to do with disability or anything else, just continue to communicate with your employees and let them know that they can come to you with these issues.
Tajauna: Okay. All right. The next question -- I heard rumors that for profit companies could benefit from tax incentives by hiring people with disabilities? Is this true? And are there any financial incentives for for profit and nonprofit companies?
Kendra: Yes, there are. We have information on tax incentives for private employers. Beth, you want to describe those?
Beth L.: Sure, one of them is called a disabled access credit, and there is more detail on our web side about the disabled access credit. Primarily, this is for architectural barriers. From is also architectural and transportation barrier removal deduction, and there is also the work opportunity tax credit, but I don't think that has been renewed yet for this year.
Kendra: That's something we need to check on.
Beth L.: And sometimes what the government does is they will renew that and then they will apply it backwards. But as far as budget negotiations and everything goes, the work opportunity tax credit is usually late in being finalized.
Kendra: And also for nonprofit organizations and federal groups, the Department of Labor has a program where they connect college students with disabilities to employers who are looking for internships. So you can get the use of a free intern for a period of a summer and kind of try somebody out in a situation or in a work environment and it's a good experience for the individual, the student who gets good work experience and a good fit for the employer to gets free help and that information is available on our website. And that program is called workforce recruitment program.
Beth L.: Or WRT for short. But if you go on our website and search on tax, you will see the tax incentives publication pop up.
Tajauna: Can you gives give your website again slowly. I understand that the captioning wasn't clear when you mentioned it the first time.
Beth L.: It is www.jan.wvu.edu.
Kendra: And JAN is J-A-N.
Tajauna: Another question is how would you advise a person who is slewing their sight and is afraid to request accommodations due to fear of losing her job? This is a big question that even our office gets quite a bit.
Kendra: Wow. Well, I deal with this issue a lot with -- not so much vision impairments, but individuals who have epilepsy and they don't want to disclose that basically until they have to. I guess my advice is always to be honest and open with your employer and to realize that you're entitled to accommodations and accommodations should make doing your job easier, not harder. Especially if you have a vision problem that is deteriorating, that's going to become obvious after a point in time and it's better to deal with the accommodations now and to get those things in place before your performance starts to be affected by that and to wait until you absolutely have to tell your employer.
Beth L.: And I probably take a little bit of a different perspective on this. When I talk with employees who call and have this issue, I say make it easy for your manager. Make it easy for your employer. Have your information together on what accommodations you need, what's happening, how you -- how much you enjoy your job, how you feel that you're being a productive employ year and you provide all that information in an informal or formal setting where it just makes it a lot easier for the supervisor or the employer --
Kendra: Do your homework and give that to your manager or supervisor.
Tajauna: Okay. Another question is do people with disabilities have to pay for accessible parking in private parking lots?
Kendra: If everybody else is phage for the parking space, then yes, you have to pay for that space, too. If nobody else is paying for a parking space, then no, you shouldn't have to pay for that space.
Tajauna: Okay. Can you talk more about the reasonable accommodation process? How would you describe the responsibilities of each in the negotiation and the time lines for providing the accommodations, et cetera?
Beth L.: Well, as far as time lines, there are no explicit time lines other than in a reasonable amount of time. And, you know, that leaves a lot up to interpretation, I would say. There is nothing that says two weeks or 30 days, but certainly as far as time lines, you say what is a practical time line for this employer to respond. Like say an individual requests a schedule change. If it's six months later after the person has requested this schedule change, that's likely too long. Now, as far as the accommodation process and who is responsible for what parts of that, you want to take the first, Kendra?
Kendra: The first step is the employee's responsible for disclosing that they need something and for asking for an accommodation. So, again, employer's need to make sure they have a process in place to do that and that people know what that process is. Once you've done that, then it's the individual's responsibility with the disability to ask for the accommodation and to make it known.
Beth L.: I mean the first part of this, if you need to define your situation. In other words, what's the employee requesting? What can the employer provide? The next step typically is that employers do request medical documentation.
Kendra: Right, and I encourage them to do this. They have a right to a limited amount of information.
Beth L.: And from the medical information you can find out specifically if the person has a disability, what the limitations are, if the condition is progressive, if the limitations are stable, and if there is other documentation that's needed. So then it would be up to the employee to provide that medical documentation.
Kendra: Right, and to do that within a reasonable amount of time.
Tajauna: Okay, well what about though if the employee -- because you had mentioned earlier that employee should know what they need for the accommodation, so on and so forth. So the employee goes in to their employer and says this is my disability, here is my medical documentation and this is what I need and the employer comes back and says, well, we don't think that's reasonable. And then the employee then calls you.
Beth L.: Right.
Kendra: Right.
Tajauna: So how -- can you let the listeners know how is reasonable defined? Who gets to define that?
Beth L.: That's a good question. Reasonable is difficult to define, but it is the employer's right to determine what's reasonable for them. An employees need to know that they're entitled to reasonable accommodations that are effective. It doesn't always mean the exact accommodation that they asked for. That's why this is a negotiation. That's why you need to go through the accommodation process because the employer may have an alternative idea to accommodate this employee that is just as effective and more reasonable for that employer to provide. And if that's the case, the employer has the right to choose that accommodation.
Kendra: And I get that a lot of times with ergonomic chairs. An individual goes in with a specific type of ergonomic chair that is extremely expensive. The employer says we're not providing that chair, here is another chair that meets your limitations. Well, usually we get the call -- sometimes from both parties. If the lower cost chair meets the employee's limitations that the employee provided medical documentation on, then the employer has the right and can use that right to choose that lower cost chair.
Beth L.: That's right.
Tajauna: Okay. What would you advise or how would you advise a potential applicant what to do whenever they confront an illegal question on an application? We get that question quite a bit. An individual will be filling out an application and on the application it asks do you have a disability? And they'll ask how do we answer that?
Kendra: Boy, that's a good question and we get that a lot. Beth and I probably have different answers for that question.
Beth L.: Probably.
Kendra: I usually encourage people to not answer questions that are illegal questions to ask such as do you have a disability. And just simply state next to that that -- I would write this is a violation of the ADA or just ignore it altogether. What I do not encourage people to do is to lie on the application. That's a whole different situation. So my advice is not to answer questions that you know are illegal to ask.
Beth L.: No, I think we agree on that one.
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Beth C.: Well, that's just a sampling of what you'll hear if you listen to the full-length webcast. You can find the link to that at www.ada-podcast.com.
The Job Accommodation Network is a fabulous resource, and not just for employers, so be sure to check it out.
Until next time, this is Beth Case with the Southwest ADA Center Podcast.
The Southwest ADA Center is a program of Independent Living Research Utilization at TIRR - Memorial Hermann in Houston, Texas, and is funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. If you have questions about disability law or would like to request materials or training, please call 1-800-949-4232. The Southwest ADA Center Podcast is protected by the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivative-Works 2.5 License. For more information and transcripts, visit www.ada-podcast.com.