April 01, 2008
Will Technology Accessibility Issues be the Make or Break Factor for Your Current or Next Job?
As an accessibility evangelist, a major overall goal of mine is to ensure that technology is made reasonably accessible to us so that we may be afforded equal opportunities to participate in education and employment alongside our sighted peers. While I have found improving social attitudes regarding blindness in the human resources process, it has become crystal clear that a new barrier is threatening our ability to claim our qualifications for continued or new employment.
In February 2006, I learned that the customer support project on which I worked would be switching to an inaccessible Siebel CRM implementation. Though the problems could have been fixed by spending approximately an hour of developer time in order to make a "standard mode" implementation available for me, without affecting other employees, the client ignored all requests to do so and my employer was not in a position to compel action by the client due to the outsourcing arrangements in place. I was to have been laid off in two weeks. Obviously, I did not find this eventuality to be something I was just going to lie down and quietly accept without a fight, if necessary.
Time went by while all of us investigated other possibilities for my continued employment on another project and I began the job search process once again. At the same time, I also began a relatively quiet process of advocacy utilizing the contacts I had established directly with the client as a result of the high quality of service I provided their customers. The client in question has thus far done absolutely nothing to address the accessibility of its products, while conducting tens of millions of dollars worth of business with the United States Federal Government. It ultimately took me writing a professional yet rather strongly worded letter to a person in the company's senior management team, making references to obligations under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and the accompanying potential loss of government business in order to turn my situation around in a dramatic fashion. Two days later, I learned that I would be reassigned to their knowledge base team, where I continue to succeed today as the employee creating both the highest quality and quantity of new content. Two years later, I continue to enjoy gainful employment I would have certainly lost had I not chosen to advocate.
A close friend is experiencing a similar issue. He is a totally blind database developer for a major state university. The entire development environment is about to be switched to an Oracle PeopleSoft implementation that is known to be inaccessible with all currently available screen reading solutions. He has a wife and two children. Unfortunately, he does not quite seem to view advocacy in the same light as do I. Instead, he appears to be looking into a couple of other possibilities outside the university without taking a more proactive stance.
As I evangelize accessibility through the Blind Access Journal, I hear from others who are dealing with similar barriers they feel are holding back the advancement of their careers. In all such cases, advocacy is always highly encouraged. If you find yourself in a position where you believe you may lose your job over an accessibility issue outside your control, consider taking one or more of the following steps:
- Ask the company's information technology (IT) department or other appropriate staff to provide as much detail as possible about the new "inaccessible" hardware or software. Relevant details include manufacturers, model numbers, operating systems, versions, etc. Sometimes, that which appears to be inaccessible might turn out to work with a form of assistive technology about which you may not yet be aware.
- If the issue persists or the worst has happened, contact your friends and colleagues in the blind community for additional assistance.
- Communicate with your supervisor and others in management as appropriate, letting them know that you do not feel it is acceptable to suffer the consequence of job loss due to a factor completely outside your control. Follow up all verbal communication with written correspondence. Save copies of all relevant e-mail.
- Escalate your concerns to higher levels of management when you feel you are being ignored or the relevant parties are failing to take you seriously. Don't be afraid to directly ask for written follow up to all communication.
- If the work environment can't be made directly accessible, open your mind to the possibility of reassignment to another job in the company where the barriers are eliminated or sufficiently reduced to make it possible for you to execute the duties. Consider job swapping some tasks with another co-worker. Job swapping and reassignment are classified as "reasonable accomodations" under the Americans with Disabilities Act and other similar legislation around the world.
We must all ask ourselves one critical question: Is it acceptable for blind and visually impaired people to lose their jobs due to a circumstance completely beyond their control? Should someone lose their health insurance and their house over a piece of technology that can't be made to function with a screen reader? Let's all make sure we're doing our best with self-advocacy, so that we do not accept a situation that places us at an undue disadvantage or financial hardship through no fault of our own due to an accessibility barrier that may be eliminated or otherwise reasonably accomodated to meet the needs of all concerned.
Review the following short list of organizations and other online resources you may find helpful should you encounter a job related technology access challenge:
- American Council of the Blind
- Blind Access Journal
- Blind Community E-mail Discussion Lists
- Job Accomodation Network
- National Federation of the Blind
- Tenacity, Inc. - Accessible Digital PBX and Telephone Systems
Have you experienced a job loss over an accessibility issue or saved your job from such a demise? We would love to hear from you! Please consider adding your testimonials as a comment to this article, or feel free to e-mail me directly at editor@blindaccessjournal.com for additional assistance and information.
Posted by Darrell Shandrow at 11:57 PM | Comments (17)