Putting to rest myths about employing people with disabilities is an important part of the job that Nayla Farah and her team at the Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work (CCRW) deal with on a regular basis.

The value of accommodation to employers—and to workers with disabilities—far outweighs any costs involved. In fact, those costs are often insignificant in light of the contribution employees with a disability usually bring to an organization.

An increasingly important benefit in gaining know-how in accommodation is the ability to retain a more mature workforce. And, once again, the benefit is two-fold: to the employer and employee.      

Amid the close to 2,500 evaluations conducted for employers annually by Farah, her staff and 150 experts contracted by the CCRW’s Job Accommodation Service (JAS),  many misconceptions arise about obligations and, conversely, the rights of employers.

For example, it’s essential that employers don’t apply precisely the same accommodation strategy to each worker, based solely on the kind of disability they may have, Farah says. An accommodation needed by one person who is hard of hearing may not necessarily work for another with a similar hearing impairment.

A typical wrong approach to such a situation might be “I got a new person who is hard of hearing, so what I will do is duplicate the accommodation that already exists for my first employee.”  That is a big mistake, Farah says emphatically.

“On the other side of the coin,” she says, “the person has all the job accommodation and is still not performing at all at their reasonable level. And because that person has a disability, I can’t fire her.” That, Farah says, is another typical myth.

Such misconceptions about employers’ obligations often result in them not hiring people with disabilities for fear they can’t be let go if they’d don’t perform well, and means a lost opportunity for both parties.

“We explain to them what the legislation entails and what ‘duty to accommodate’ means,” Farah says.

Employers do have that duty to accommodate, short of undue hardship, but if the employee has been provided with all necessary accommodation and is not performing at a rate that’s considered reasonable, then the employer is entitled to take corrective action through a “performance improvement plan.”

But there are often grey areas that need to be looked at.

“We’re not always in a position to tell the employers ‘this is a reasonable level of performance’.” This is why the cases may go to court, for a judge to decide if an employee being short 25 percent in their performance puts undue hardship on the employer.

The principal role of the JAS is to advise employers how to accommodate challenges experienced by an employee with a disability and have the employer and employee work together in implementing a plan. “This is the kind of role we play as experts in this field,” she says.

Nowadays, with a growing labour market shortage in Canada and many baby boomers approaching retirement, those mature workers who want to remain on the job are starting to show special needs that require accommodation, even if they aren’t legally disabled. (See Freedom 85 is the new ‘freedom 55’, Diversity! September 2007)

“Given the aging factor, boomers are acquiring some more limitations with regard to vision, dexterity, hearing, mobility, and yet they have all that knowledge and expertise,” Farah points out. “So it makes way better business sense to keep your employees, thereby avoiding a gap in service and retraining, which leads to huge expenses.”

Investing in accommodation for those older workers can give huge returns, she adds. “And many of our clients are starting to understand the value. It’s a small investment that results in big returns for the company.”

When a commitment exists throughout organizations, from the CEO down to recruiters, people managers and entry-level employees themselves, inclusion and diversity becomes part of the organization’s culture, Farah believes. “You can move very fast in becoming an employer of choice,” she says.

For example, a chartered bank that contracts accommodation services from the CCRW has made “incredible moves forward” in being an inclusive employer, working at removing not only physical barriers, but system barriers related to training and attitudes and with “lot of ongoing education.”