ALDA

Learning Disabilities in the Workplace

Employers and Learning Disabilities:

  • Not aware of Learning Disabilities (inside or outside the business)
  • Do not understand what they are or what to do with them
  • Access restricted to physical access
  • LD still a hidden disability
  • Fiscal bottom line more important despite willingness to hire LD workers
  • Employers want LD workers to advise them on how LD affects their work and on what can be done about it

LD Issues at Work (According to LD Workers)

  • Written communication (50%)
  • Information processing (42%)
  • Reading comprehension (37%)
  • Time management (30%)
  • Organizational skills (25%)

Dealing with Learning Disabled Employees in the Workplace

  • Become knowledgeable about LD
  • Be patient
  • Be flexible
  • Be empathetic
  • Ensure optimal job-person fit
  • Utilize LD strengths
  • Accommodate LD weaknesses

ADHD Employee can have employment-related Strengths

  • Energy
  • Creativity
  • Resilience
  • Able to see the “Big picture”
  • Good intuition

Language LD Employment-related Strengths

  • Ability to cope in situation where available information is limited
  • Good visual memory
  • Creativity
  • Tendency to overcompensate for poor organization

NLD Employment-related Strengths

  • Good at learning and using rote material
  • Good verbatim memory
  • Good spelling
  • Good auditory perception
  • Good ability to following instructions

LD and Workplace Competencies

  • Initiative, effort
  • Good work ethic
  • Integrity
  • Conscientiousness
  • Compliance, team-player
  • Customer service orientation
  • Thinking “outside the box”
Work Performance Factors and LD

O = Opportunity/Relative Strength - - C = Challenge/Relative Weakness

Performance Factor LLD NLD ADD

Job specific task proficiency

Non job – specific task proficiency

Written and oral communication

Maintaining personal discipline

Facilitating peer and team performance

Supervision/Leadership

Management/Administration

Choice to perform

Level of effort

Persistence of effort

C-O

O

C

C-O

O

C-O

C

O-O

O

O

C-O

C-O

C-O

O

C

C

C-O

O-O

O

O

O

O

C-O

C

O

O

C

O-O

C

C

Flexible Job Design

  • Restructure job duties as needed
  • Change when and how a task is completed
  • Switch assignments with another employee as needed

Flexible Scheduling

  • Flexible working hours
  • Telecommuting
  • Unpaid leave to accommodate counseling/tutoring
  • Job sharing
  • Self-paced work schedules
  • Modified breaks and rest periods

Other helpful HR practices

  • Train and provide supportive supervisors
  • Educate coworkers about LD
  • Include LD support in EAP
  • Assist with child care, transportation, etc
  • Provide realistic job previews
  • Provide learner-centered, partially individualized training
  • Modify or accommodate selection testing (extra time, quiet room)

Examples of LD Accommodations

  • Improve information exchange
  • Easy access to information
  • Minimal memory demands
  • Break down tasks and goals into small steps with individual deadlines
  • Use known LD employees as coaches
  • Use other employees as coaches
  • Change supervisors if necessary
  • Color code files, reports, desktop, etc
  • Customized message pads
  • Provide text-speech software
  • Provide colored overlays (Irlen overlays) for reading tasks
  • Confirm verbal instructions in writing
  • Send reminders for upcoming events or meetings
  • Avoid abbreviations
  • Create a “who, where, what” database
  • Use of pin boards to display needed information

Typical self-management strategies used

  • Setting goals and priorities (60%)
  • Time management strategies (55%)
  • Using Time outside work to complete tasks (32%)
  • Quiet working environment (35%)

Dealing with ADD in the Workplace

  • Handle paper work only once
  • Limit number of projects undertaken to two at a time
  • Set strict deadlines
  • Avoid complicating things to make them more stimulating
  • Leave ample time for transitions between tasks, meeting, etc.
  • Delegate
  • Prioritize
  • Take walking breaks
  • Work standing up

Reasonable Accommodation

  • Duty of an employer to put in place modifications to meet the needs of LD employees

Pressure to accommodate varies depending on:

  • Financial cost to the employer
  • Disruption of existing collective agreements
  • Impact of lowered morale on other employees
  • Flexibility of workforce and facilities
  • Magnitude of risk for workers and the public

Reasonable Alternative

  • Employer must show that no reasonable or practical substitute exists for the discriminatory practice
  • May involve adopting individual testing against a more individually sensitive standard

Legal Means for Nondiscriminatory Employment Practices

  • Constitutional law
  • Human Rights Legislation

“It is a discriminatory practice directly or indirectly,

a) to refuse to employ or continue to employ any individual, or

b) in the course of employment, to differentiate adversely in relation to an employee, on a prohibited ground of discrimination.”

For example

  • Religion
  • Age
  • Sex
  • Marital status
  • Family status
  • Mental or physical disability (including previous or present drug or alcohol dependence)
  • Enforced through human rights commissions and assumes that victims of discriminatory practices bear a responsibility to file complaints with the commission
  • Usually requires an employer to remedy only a specific complaint

Employment Equity Legislation

  • Requires organizations falling under its jurisdiction to set up employment equity programs aimed at eliminating unequal treatment in the workplace
  • Usually require a major overhaul of recruitment and selection practices
Labor Law and Employment Standards Legislation
  • Main impact on learning disabilities arises from collective agreements that specify internal selection and internal movement of employees
Adverse Effect
  • Occurs when an employer, in good faith, adopts a policy or practice that has an unintended negative impact on members of LD population
Adverse Impact
  • Occurs when the selection rate for an LD group is significantly lower than a relevant comparison group
  • Commonly accepted lower selection rate is one that is 4/5 the comparison rate

Bona Fide Occupational Requirement (BFOR)

  • Procedure used to defend a discriminatory employment practice on the grounds that it was adopted in good faith and that it enables efficient and economical job performance without endangering others.
  • An employer must show that a given selection standard is reasonably necessary by demonstrating that it is impossible to accommodate an LD individual without imposing undue hardship on the employer.

Sufficient Risk

  • Employers are required to provide reasonable alternatives up to but not beyond a certain level of risk

Risk considerations include:

  • Nature of employment
  • Likelihood of employee failure (in empirical terms)
  • Seriousness of the harm arising from employee failure

Predictors of Employment Success

Employee Predictors

  • IQ level, particularly verbal aptitude
  • Clear understanding of the specific disability
  • Setting realistic goals
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Emotional control
  • Motivation and perseverance
  • Judicious use of available support systems which range from friends and family to professional service providers
  • Occupational and educational status of parents

Employer predictors

  • Availability of job accommodations
  • Supportive supervisor
  • Sensitivity to human rights legislation
  • Enlightened HR practices
  • Workplace diversity
  • Size of the organization
  • Training opportunities available

 
© copyright ALDA - Adult Learning Development Association 2010
Please click here to return to main page