Examining information systems use to facilitate the workplace accommodation process

What is it about?

About 80 percent of the world’s population who live with a disability are of working age. A diverse and inclusive workforce, including people with varying abilities and talents, is critical in driving innovation and creativity through different ideas and perspectives. Disabled people, however, face enormous barriers to employment including an often complex, unclear, and slow accommodation process, with almost no organizational support. This research examines how Information Systems (IS) have been used to facilitate the accommodation process. Through empirical research with disabled employees from various organizations, this study discovers different levels of IS use and their effects on accommodation performance. An IS used in the workplace accommodation process consists of electronic request form, accommodation checklist, special budget, specific role, ancillary service, formal policy and procedure. The high-level IS use often results in a better accommodation performance than the low-level IS use, including high efficiency, high effectiveness, and low emotional tolls. Nevertheless, the high-level IS use often uses a specific, inflexible template as well as disregards human elements in the accommodation process. This work provides implications that future IS design should raise awareness of disability and accommodation, account for individual differences, involve multiple stakeholder inputs, as well as address the fundamental social issues in the accommodation process.

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Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash