Five concrete commitments for your next accessibility plan

Since our launch, Untapped has helped 18 organizations write their accessibility plans. An accessibility plan should tell the story of the organization’s work to identify, remove, and prevent barriers. This requires information gathering about the accessibility work to date, and engaging people with disabilities to identify barriers.

For many organizations, the most challenging part of writing an accessibility plan is choosing commitments that are meaningful, specific, and operationally manageable.  From our extensive experience developing plans, I can share some common actions that apply to most organizations. 

Team accessibility training

When we conduct barrier identification exercises with disabled employees and community members, we hear a lot about attitudinal barriers. These include ableist assumptions about what disabled people can or can’t do, as well as how people with disabilities are treated. Attitudinal barriers are at the root of many access issues, impacting:

• How policies and physical environments are designed
• How clients receive service
• How employees experience the workplace

Providing training about accessibility is an important tool for addressing attitudinal barriers. Teams that have a common language and understanding of accessibility can begin to surface their assumptions and bring to light unexamined biases.

But we know a training session alone doesn’t solve attitudinal barriers. Accessibility needs to be woven into the culture of the organization. Senior leaders must model accessible practices and bring accessibility into the organization’s decision-making. None of these actions are possible without education and skill development.

Commit to measuring disability representation in your workforce

I was at a procurement tradeshow recently and a staff representative at one of the tables responded to my introduction by telling me, “we don’t have any disabled people working here.” I don’t need to run an employee survey to know that he’s wrong. Most recent StatsCan data tells us that at least 27% of Canadians in the workforce have at least one disability. Any workplace in Canada will have disabled employees, even if it’s not obvious. It’s even true if folks haven’t yet shared their disability.

Tracking disability representation is important. Organizations with a mandate to serve the public should reflect the diversity of the communities they serve. Many organizations are already tracking representation of equity deserving groups. A relatively simple extension of this work is to join the Pledge to Measure.

In its sixth year, the Pledge to Measure is a national initiative that helps employers survey and report publicly on disability representation in their workforce. For organizations already tracking this data, the step of publicly sharing these numbers can create positive tension and motivation to improve.

Build a disability inclusive talent pipeline

Disability employment service providers like Open Door Group help employers to attract, recruit, and retain top talent – including disabled talent. Their services are funded by various levels of government, making them free to employers.

With these services, employers can get advice from disability employment experts to widen their candidate pool.

While Untapped’s support for employers addresses accessibility across your enterprise, Open Door Group’s specialized support is a great fit for Human Resource teams.

Consult disabled people about the accessibility of your services

Many initial accessibility plans focused on employment practices. This makes sense because employment is one of the standards areas named in our provincial and federal legislation. Many organizations also equate accessibility with accommodations – and assigned compliance responsibility to Human Resources.

But service delivery is another priority area that your plan should address. Federally, ACA-regulated sectors must prepare for compliance with a two-part Accessible Service Delivery standard. In BC, a Memorandum of Understanding between the BC Government and Accessibility Standards Canada means we can expect the BC service delivery standards to work in harmony with the federal version.

If your organization delivers services to the public, your next plan may need to widen consultation to include members of public with disabilities. This group of stakeholders can provide important feedback about barriers and help you prioritize what to address first.

If your organization doesn’t serve the public, consultation may feel more challenging. But just because your organization has a business-to-business function, don’t assume your key audiences are nondisabled. Disabled people own businesses and have decision-making power within the companies you sell to.

Untapped can help you consult with your disabled suppliers or customers. This consultation can inform the development of your plan, or be a next step noted in this plan.

Allow anonymous accessibility feedback

The Accessible Canada Act and Accessible BC Act require organizations to develop ways to receive feedback about accessibility. Neither is specific about what these channels must look like. In theory, a simple email address or mailbox is all you need. But unless you offer a way for folks to share their thoughts anonymously, you might be missing out.

People with disabilities may have had negative consequences for sharing feedback in the past. For this reason, they may be hesitant to share frank feedback if it’s attached to their name or email address.

We’d recommend you keep the feedback channels you already have and consider adding an anonymous survey option. We think the WorkSafeBC feedback mechanism is a strong example that offers a variety of ways to provide feedback. 

Want more help identifying your accessibility commitments? Reach out to us.