By Fredericka Argent and Hannah Edmonds-Camara

Part 1 of our accessibility series explored the importance of businesses deploying accessible IT to recruit and retain employees with a view to reducing job polarization and inequality. Part 2 described how national equality laws are imposing affirmative obligations on businesses to make “reasonable accommodations” in the workplace for employees with disabilities — which may include ensuring that IT devices and services are enabled with accessibility functions.

This third instalment in our series looks deeper into the compliance landscape, at global rules and standards in the U.S., EU and beyond. Although many of these standards currently apply to public sector entities, rather than private entities, we expect this to change as technology transforms the nature of the workplace — not only within back offices and factories, but also on the front-line for customer-facing operations, in sectors such as the hospitality industry and retail.…

Continue Reading Accessibility In The Workplace: What Businesses Need To Know: Part 3

By Fredericka Argent and Hannah Edmonds-Camara

As we noted in Part 1 of our series, there are strong business incentives to invest in accessible IT in order to recruit and retain employees with disabilities. However, aside from the business imperatives for ensuring workplace accessibility, businesses should also consider the compliance landscape — especially national equality laws. These too argue in favor of deploying accessible IT.

The compliance landscape

In many jurisdictions, equality laws place affirmative obligations on private companies, as employers, to protect their employees from discrimination on the grounds of a disability. Equality laws (and their equivalent, anti-discrimination laws) expect employers to make “reasonable accommodations” or “reasonable adjustments” in the workplace for employees with disabilities.…

Continue Reading Accessibility In The Workplace: What Businesses Need To Know: Part 2

By Fredericka Argent and Hannah Edmonds-Camara

In our increasingly hyper-connected, technology-reliant society, it is important to ensure that the information technology (“IT”) that we use is accessible for all individuals. “Accessible IT” refers to technology that individuals with disabilities can navigate, perceive, understand and interact with and that enables them to consume and create content independently. It is incumbent on businesses, in particular, to provide their employees and customers with accessible IT so that nobody is left behind. This is not simply a matter of good business ethics; it is also reflected in the legal and compliance landscape. For example, in the U.S., regulators have recently taken strides to increase the accessibility of IT for persons with disabilities and to harmonize IT accessibility standards with those in other countries through the adoption of new rules pertaining to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (“Section 508”). Section 508 requires all IT developed, procured, or used by federal agencies to be accessible to federal employees and to the public, except where unduly burdensome.

Compliance with the new Section 508 standards was required as of January 18, 2018. In order to mark the coming into effect of the new version of Section 508, this blog is running a short series highlighting the importance of accessibility, especially in the workplace. We will look at the business imperative for providing accessible IT to employees and customers, the legal and compliance landscape, the role of standards in the U.S., EU and Australia, and offer some practical guidelines for meeting accessibility goals.…

Continue Reading Accessibility In The Workplace: What Businesses Need To Know