Posts Tagged ‘Americans with Disabilities Act’

More on the ADA

Friday, November 5th, 2004

Michael Fox from Jottings by an Employer’s Lawyer points us to a useful resource from the EEOC: How to Comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act: A Guide for Restaurants and Other Food Service Employers. And if ADA compliance has slipped off your radar screen lately, you may want to read Michael’s report about a recent $1.3 million jury judgment in a Louisiana disability case which involved the ADA.
And speaking of the ADA, Rafael Gely at LaborProf Blog pointed us to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Digest. The current issue of the Digest features an article entitled Did the ADA Reduce Employment of the Disabled? This study refutes the notion that declines in employment of the disabled in the 1990s is related to the ADA as has been suggested:
“Jolls and Prescott infer that, apart from a short-term effect of the ADA’s requirement of special accommodations, the ADA was not causally linked to declining disabled employment over much of the 1990s. This conclusion, based on the relative effects of the ADA across states with different pre-ADA state-level regimes, stands in contrast to recent empirical work using national-level data. In light of their findings, Jolls and Prescott conclude that that the apparent negative employment effect of the ADA through much of the 1990s plausibly reflects not the impact of the ADA itself, but rather other contemporaneous changes disproportionately affecting individuals with disabilities.”

Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance

Wednesday, October 20th, 2004

How do you hire the right worker for the right job but avoid violating the ADA in the process? Michael at George’s Employment Blawg has done stellar work in unearthing some great Web resources on the topic so we are going to pass on the fruits of his labors and offer thanks for the pointers.
First and foremost, every job should have a written job description that describes the essential functions of the job. The job descriptions section of the Job Accommodation Network is an excellent resource to help in building descriptions that are ADA compliant.
Another unique set of tools that could be useful in developing job descriptions are 450 career videos available from America’s Career InfoNet. These short clips depict people performing the job, and describe the nature of the work involved in the job. In addition to being useful for developing job descriptions, they might also be helpful in planning return-to-work assignments.
Interviewing prospective employees is the next step in hiring. Michael points us to a good resource on asking the right questions to ensure ADA compliance. And to test your compliance quotient, take this quiz to see how successful you are at avoiding improper interview questions.
More information:
Job Accommodation Network
U.S. Department of Justice Americans with Disabilities Act Home Page