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Accommodation ADA Technical Requirements Options for Employers

Options for Employers

Job restructuring
For existing facilities, non-work areas, and dedicated user workstations, employers might consider restructuring the jobs using technical requirements as a guideline. This may be the best strategy for smaller organizations. Suppose you manage a law office and you have a legal clerk that must continually access hard copy from an bank of standard four or five drawer filing cabinets.

The first criteria would be to determine whether that person could approach the filing cabinet either directly or by rolling up along side of it. If the only access is forward, then the next question would be whether that person would ever have to access files in drawers that are higher than 48 inches or below 15 inches in height.

If so, then one accommodation option would be to rearrange the files so they are reachable. Another might be to reassign that person's client assignments to clients in the accessible drawers.

After defining that you must accommodate the individual, the law leaves the employer considerable leeway in deciding how to accommodate. While restructuring tasks and assignment would not be much of a problem for smaller organizations, companies that have these types of scenarios playing out numerous times will probably want different solutions.

Restructuring the environment
Rather than continually restructure jobs around the limitations of the environment, another option would be to install a flexible environment that could be accommodated easily to the needs of employees. If you have engaged in new construction or alterations since January 26, 1993, including adding new filing equipment that is accessible according to the above technical requirements. Automated storage and retrieval systems, which enable individuals to file and retrieve the equivalent of up to 47 drawers of filed information help ensure compliance and accommodation at just about every level.

Filing systems of this type are increasingly popular in government offices, health organization, insurance companies, and manufacturing firm, especially in highly regulated industries requiring frequent storage and retrieval of hard copy documents. Some of these filing systems are more accessible by disabled workers than others. If you consider this route, however, be sure to include the following criteria in your evaluation, especially since the most accessible systems cost no more than other systems.

You'll also want to think ahead as to how many of these systems you'll be installing and where they'll go, to be sure that you allow the 2.5 feet by 4 foot clearance space which the ADA feels is necessary for wheelchair access.

Beyond accommodation
By implementing automated filing solutions that are easily accessible by handicapped individuals you will be accomplishing much more than making disabled workers comfortable and protecting yourself from future claims. These filing systems have proven to increase productivity of all workers and typically pay for themselves in a short period of time based on productivity savings alone.