People With Disabilities and Remote Work | Disabled Person
The above picture is of a man sitting at a desk high-fiving a woman in a wheelchair and smiling.
The above picture is of a man sitting at a desk high-fiving a woman in a wheelchair and smiling.
The switch to a remote work culture since the COVID-19 pandemic has benefited many people, especially those with disabilities. Now there’s more flexibility for employees working remotely whether or not they have a disability, but there are several ways in which people with disabilities benefit from this work culture. It opens up a world of opportunities to them that they had not been presented with before, even with the ADA act.
The ADA act was signed into law in 1990 to ensure that disabled people can have equal opportunities, participate fully, live independently, and be economically self-sufficient. However, even today, there’s still a large number of people with disabilities that have been underemployed or unemployed because of their disability.
However, the shift to a remote work culture since the pandemic means that the work trend with disabled people may change.
With remote work, disabled people can work from their homes, enjoy more accessibility and flexibility, save more time in commuting and expenses, and also have the privacy to address their medical situation in a way that can’t be addressed in the workplace.
Generally, employees have been more productive since the move to remote work. They’ve also enjoyed more flexibility, commuting time and expense savings, and increased work-life balance. Employers have also benefitted from this new trend because it allows them to boost their employee’s morale, increase employee retention and recruitment, and increase their bottom line through cost savings. It also allows them to access new talent pools they have been restricted from for several reasons, such as geographical restraints.
The pool of disabled people is one of such pools that they may have been restricted from. Disabled people mostly suffer unemployment because they can’t get accessible transportation to their workplaces or the workplace is inaccessible.
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With the rise of remote work, there’s a potential to raise more awareness about the presence of disability prejudice in many workplaces today. This isn’t limited to the negative attitude they may get from employees and coworkers but can also be pity, benevolence and paternalism. These prejudices can limit the career and professional development of disabled workers. Hence, it’ll lead to lower salaries and lower quality of their work lives.
According to research published by essay help, the greatest employment barrier for disabled people is the prejudice and discrimination they suffer in workplaces from current and prospective employers, not that they lack the qualifications or skill to work in that capacity.
Unfortunately for prejudiced employers, their unwillingness to employ and retain workers with disabilities is self-defeating because they’ve been found to have better attendance and work more reliably than non-disabled employees. Also, companies that hire disabled workers generally have better bottom lines and higher profit margins than those that don’t. Also, apart from being excellent companies, a recent poll showed that 92% of customers preferred a company that hired disabled workers to those that didn’t. So, the increasing work opportunity that remote work provides benefits disabled workers and their employers.
However, it’s unfortunate that many courts still deny disabled employees remote work requests, even though the ADA act gives them the right to reasonable accommodations if they’re capable of performing the important functions of their job.
In 1990, when the ADA act was enacted, and when it was amended substantially in 2008, there were not as many technological advancements as we have today. Now there are several digital collaboration and videoconferencing platforms, such as Zoom, which facilitates coworkers’ meetings seamlessly, regardless of their work. At the height of the pandemic, more than two-thirds of the working populace logged into work from home. Employers can now access computer programs that allow them to supervise employees remotely and ensure that work is done. Also, recent advances in data protection ensure that workplace documents can be secured remotely.
The rise in remote work culture makes any legal reasoning for courts to deny qualified disabled employees their work requests unjustifiable. All that should matter is that the employee can prove they’re capable of maintaining productivity, efficiency, and confidentiality as they work remotely. Also, if the employers can adequately supervise the employees, there’s no reason not to grant their remote work request as a reasonable accommodation.
Although it’s true that not all workers, whether with disabilities or not, would love to work from home, many jobs cannot be done remotely. However, the ADA act must consider the increasing opportunities for working remotely for disabled people. Offering remote work as one of the options for employees increases job opportunities, and for those with disabilities, this is a reasonable accommodation. Furthermore, it furthers ADA’s primary goal to promote economic self-sufficiency and employment of disabled people.
Conclusion
For so long, disabled people have been sidelined from several kinds of work, and the courts have not been able to uphold their rights to work. However, the advent of remote work options has leveled the playing ground a bit and is increasing for disabled workers. Now they have more opportunities to work remotely and participate fully.
