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When University of Washington rehabilitation researcher Mark Harniss, PhD, set out to create a decision tool that would help people with disabilities think through whether or not to request a reasonable accommodation from an employer, he knew he was dealing with a tricky subject. Even though that right is guaranteed to them under the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), many people with disabilities say they fear making an accommodation request because it could look like they are asking for special treatment or that they aren’t really capable of doing the job.
Harniss wasn’t surprised by that. In fact, it was one of the reasons he wanted to create a decision guide. But one thing he didn’t expect to find was that many people who have acquired a disabling condition through illness or injury don’t see themselves as “disabled” at all, and so the idea that they could ask for an accommodation like a standing desk or a flexible schedule wouldn’t even occur to them.
“Some people come to disability late in life and they don’t think of themselves as a person with a disability. They think that losing their ability to do things is just something they have to deal with when they get older or have a chronic illness,” says Harniss, Clinical Associate Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at University of Washington (UW) in Seattle. “They may not understand they have rights under the ADA.”
That was one of the important findings that came out of focus groups and interviews with people with disabilities, vocational rehabilitation counselors and corporate human resources executives conducted as part of Harniss’s project, which started in 2018. His work is one of the projects funded by a $4.3 million five-year grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) to the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research (CROR) at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago. The ultimate goal of his project is to create and test a decision aid that can be used anywhere in the country by people with disabilities, human resources managers and vocational rehabilitation counselors.
"Mark's decision-support tool will provide job seekers and workers who want to maintain employment with a valuable resource to request reasonable accommodations. People don't know what they don't know,” says CROR Director Allen Heinemann, PhD. “The tool will help people proceed step-by-step in considering the pros and cons of disclosing a disability and making accommodation requests."
As they went about their research, Harniss and his co-investigator, UW Assistant Professor Heather Evans, PhD, discovered that there was a difference in willingness among focus group members to request an accommodation depending on whether they had an apparent disability such as using a wheelchair or a cane, or a non-evident disability such as early-stage Parkinson’s disease or multiple sclerosis. Those who had both kinds of conditions often requested accommodations only for the apparent ones. Harniss and Evans also found that people with fluctuating or degenerative impairments were frequently reluctant to update, change or expand their accommodation requests once they received them even if their conditions had worsened. Almost all the focus group participants with disabilities indicated they would much rather “self-accommodate” than make a formal request.
Other feedback indicated that workers felt more comfortable asking for accommodations if their employers had genuinely signaled that they embraced a culture of workplace inclusivity. It was also helpful if someone else at their workplace had already sought an accommodation through the process and was openly making use of one. “There’s a need for role models,” Harniss says.
Instead of jumping into the decision-making process, the tool Harniss and Evans are creating will start off with a section to help people determine if they have a disability that entitles them to request an accommodation. “They learn about the legal definition of disability,” Harniss says. “Then we ask them to reflect on their impairment status and the essential functions of their job.” Users are walked through the potential benefits and risks of requesting an accommodation and they learn how to identify specific tasks that are either challenging or time-consuming without an accommodation. They also explore the types of accommodations that are often used with specific impairments.
The question of what is “essential” to a job is more complicated than it might appear, Harniss adds, because many people take on additional duties over time that sometimes have nothing to do directly with the job they were hired for. “We all do things that aren’t essential to our jobs,” he notes. Fortunately, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has definitions of what constitutes an essential function so people don’t have to start from square one. At the end of section one, users will be asked to write a statement of how they qualify under the ADA. “We don’t want it to be daunting so the tool really walks you through all the steps,” he says.
The second section focuses on making an accommodation request and the precise information someone needs to make a strong case. It also provides templates for having an accommodation conversation with an employer or HR professional and has tips on navigating potential stumbling blocks.
The third section covers what happens after a request is made. It lays out the options if an accommodation request is denied or a different accommodation is offered rather than the one an employee proposed. It also talks about managing supervisors’ expectations after disclosure and even provides strategies for dealing with co-workers who may be wondering why a peer has received a standing desk while they have been denied one. By the time users reach the end, the tool will generate a report that can be a template for requesting a specific accommodation for a specific impairment.
The decision aid was reviewed and tweaked by a team of advisors and colleagues earlier this year. The researchers plan to test the interactive tool by late spring or early summer. Users’ notes and responses to short surveys will be saved in a personal account file, which will allow them to return to the tool and pick up where they left off. They also can revisit the tool when their accommodation needs change. Evans, who has multiple sclerosis, has gone through the process of requesting accommodations multiple times on her own. “It has taken me about three months to put in an accommodation request,” she says. “That’s why I’m so excited about this tool. I think it’s going to be genuinely helpful.”