University Business - May 2010 - (Page 24)

HUMAN RESOURCES Creating an accommodating work environment for disabled employees By Carol Patton Full of Potential S A SUCCESSFUL WOOD cut artist, Sheila Pitt taught at the University of Arizona for roughly 20 years when tragedy struck. In February of 2008, the experienced horsewoman became a quadriplegic after breaking her neck in a riding accident. But her physical condition didn’t stop her from doing what she loved best: teaching and creating art. e university provided her with two assistants—one to help her demonstrate art techniques in the classroom and another to work in her home studio so she could continue researching art techniques, producing art, and exhibiting her work. “If the university didn’t do this, I deﬁnitely wouldn’t be as successful as I am now,” says Pitt, noting that one of her pieces is now in a traveling art show while another is being judged in a national competition. “My studio assistant is above and beyond what I expected. [ e university] has been incredibly accommodating.” Although the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 provides broad protection for employees with disabilities, it’s simply a guideline for many institutions. eir focus has moved away from the disabilities themselves and toward creating an accommodating work environment. ey’re designing accessible buildings, creating ﬂexible jobs and workspaces, and oﬀering adaptive technologies. Such changes not only enable schools to recruit the best talent, but also help them prevent brain drain and realize a higher return on employee investment. A good example is a U of A employee who was responsible for binding the library’s journals. Due to a brain injury, 24 | May 2010 A A central accommodations fund helps avoid supervisors linking hiring the disabled with higher costs. the multiple-step process became too diﬃcult for the individual, recalls Alan Strauss, assistant director of the school’s Disability Resource Center. After reviewing the employee’s job description, Strauss came up with an idea: the employee could perform the process one step at a time for all journals, instead of completing the entire process for one journal, then moving on to another. “By structuring the job diﬀerently, the person was able to do that work,” he says. “It was not looking at the person who had a condition that needed an intricate accommodation; it was ‘let’s look at the workplace and ask why is it we have a complex process for [binding] journals.’ ” Over the past decade, the U of A has supported a central accommodations fund to avoid supervisors linking hiring the disabled with higher costs. While departments still make routine purchases, the central fund picks up the diﬀerence between a standard oﬃce chair, for instance, and a more expensive chair that accommodates an employee’s disability. “We don’t view this as an additional expense,” Strauss says. “It’s part and parcel of doing business to create an accessible campus. e more accessible it is, the more usable it is.” Strauss says it would have been very easy for the university to walk away from Pitt, telling her she was no longer qualiﬁed to perform her job. But it’s her talent and skills that the school values, he says, not her physical abilities. So the university made some modiﬁcations to her oﬃce, such as widening the doorway and purchasing a new desk. Add the wages of her two assistants, and her accommodations were still less expensive than a job search for a new tenure track professor. ADVANCE THINKING Approximately 2 percent of the 28,000 employees at e Ohio State University are disabled, yet new construction and renovations exceed state building codes and ADA standards, says L. Scott Lissner, the university’s ADA coordinator. Consider that 5 percent of individual workstations in new buildings must be accessible. Two other buildings, the college of architecture and recreational sports, also have inclined hallways at a 5 percent slope that connect ﬂoors. is offers another option besides elevators, provides an alternative emergency route, and saves energy since there’s better air ﬂow between ﬂoors. Another building was Carol Patton is a Las Vegas-based freelance writer specializing in HR issues. universitybusiness.com http://www.universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - May 2010

University Business - May 2010
Contents
Editor’s Note
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Behind the News
Viewpoint
Human Resources
Money Matters
Models of Efficiency
Fast, Friendly Fix-its
Go With the Flow: Campus Traffic and Parking Solutions
What’s New
Community Colleges
End Note

University Business - May 2010