Implementing Accessibility in the Workplace: Key Strategies and Best Practices

Going to the office, attending meetings, or reading company documentation are routine tasks for most employees. But for those with disabilities, they can be much more challenging. For instance, an employee with mobility issues may struggle if the elevator is out of order. Or someone who struggles with hearing might miss key information in a presentation for the lack of captions. These are just a few barriers employees with disabilities face in the workplace when there is a lack of accessibility.

Accessibility in the workplace isn’t just a legal requirement—it’s about creating an environment where everyone can thrive. It’s key to building an inclusive culture and should be central to your Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies. According to the WHO, 1.3 billion people—16% of the population—live with significant disabilities. Companies that overlook accessibility thus risk excluding a large portion of the workforce!

In this article, we’ll explain what workplace accessibility means, why it matters, and how to implement it in your organization.

What Is An Accessible Workplace?

An accessible workplace is one where employees, regardless of their physical, sensory, or cognitive abilities, can perform their jobs without unnecessary barriers. 

The Three Types of Accessibility

Accessibility can be broken down into three main types: 

• Physical accessibility: Adapting the physical workspace with ramps, elevators, ergonomic furniture, or equipment for remote workers, to ensure everyone’s comfort and safety.
• Digital accessibility: Ensuring digital tools and software are accessible to all through features like screen readers, high-contrast visuals, and captions.
• Attitudinal awareness: Fostering a workplace culture where employees are educated on visible and invisible disabilities, in order to promote empathy, openness, and inclusion.

The Benefits of an Accessible Workplace

Creating a truly accessible workplace offers numerous benefits. It helps attract and retain top talent, improves productivity, and fosters a more innovative and diverse team. According to the Pew Research Center, half of U.S. workers say working in an accessible environment is extremely important to them. Additionally, a Gartner study shows that gender-diverse and inclusive teams outperform less inclusive teams by an average of 50%! Ensuring accessibility in the workplace thus plays a key role in building loyal and high-performing teams.

How Can You Improve Accessibility in the Workplace?

Creating an accessible workplace doesn’t happen overnight. It requires a thoughtful approach, involving everyone in the organization and focusing on both immediate and long-term actions. Let’s dive into some practical strategies to help you get started.

Raise Awareness About Accessibility and Disability

The first step in improving accessibility in the workplace is raising awareness. Many employees may not fully understand what accessibility means. Creating a shared understanding of accessibility is thus essential to fostering an inclusive culture.

Begin by explaining that accessibility isn't just about physical modifications, like ramps or elevators. It also includes digital accessibility and ensuring everyone has the tools and support they need to thrive.

It’s also important to highlight that many disabilities are invisible. According to a Mercer study, while 7% of the workforce has a disability, only 1% of those are visible. This means conditions like mental health issues, chronic pain, or hearing impairments are often hidden. Raising awareness about invisible disabilities helps employees understand the diverse needs of their colleagues and encourages empathy.

Training is vital in building this awareness. Employees and managers alike should receive training tailored to their roles. For example, HR can focus on accessible recruitment, while IT ensures digital tools meet accessibility standards. Customized training equips everyone to contribute to a more inclusive workplace.

Assess Your Needs

After raising awareness, the next step is to assess your current level of accessibility in the workplace and identify areas for improvement. Start by evaluating what’s already been done. Are physical spaces accessible? Are digital tools compliant? Have accommodations been made for invisible disabilities? This review will highlight strengths and gaps.

Focus on the most pressing needs and quick wins that will have immediate impact, like ensuring digital tools are accessible or adding captions to video calls. Involving employees with disabilities and experts is crucial at this stage, as their experiences can help identify overlooked areas.

With their help, set clear, measurable and ambitious objectives, starting with short-term goals. OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are an effective way to do this. Here’s what it can look like:

Objective: Ensure all our digital tools are accessible.

Key Results:

• Conduct an accessibility audit by the end of month one.
• Implement updates in 80% of tools by month four.
• Achieve full compliance by month six.

Tools like Holaspirit can help you set and track accessibility objectives using the OKR framework, while also linking them to ongoing projects. This ensures everyone understands the impact of their work and how they’re contributing to your accessibility goals.

Clarify Expectations

Clearly define what’s expected from each team and individual regarding accessibility in the workplace. For your efforts to succeed, every stakeholder must understand their role.

For example:

• HR should ensure recruitment, onboarding, and internal processes are accessible.
• Management must lead by example, prioritizing accessibility in decision-making.
• IT services should ensure digital tools meet accessibility standards like WCAG.
• Legal teams must ensure compliance with accessibility laws.
• Communications teams should make sure internal and external content is accessible to all.

Holaspirit is a valuable tool for this. It helps define and assign responsibilities for each role, ensuring tasks are tracked and completed on time.Moreover, it allows you to highlight roles using colors of your choice, making role visualization easier for everyone, including those with color blindness.

This transparency ensures everyone understands their role, facilitating collaboration on accessibility projects. 

Make adjustments

Now, it’s time to implement some real changes to improve accessibility in the workplace! Here are key actions that can have an impact:

• Revise company policies: Update core policies, such as the employee handbook, CSR and diversity policy, to reflect a commitment to accessibility. Include a section on how employees can request accommodations.
• Adjust HR and business processes: Ensure recruitment and onboarding are inclusive, providing accessible formats for job descriptions and training. Make sure meetings offer features like captions and real-time transcription.
• Adapt the work environment: Ensure the physical environment supports productivity for all, such as accessible meeting rooms, restrooms, and assistive technology. For remote workers, provide ergonomic tools or specialized software.
• Check digital tools for accessibility: Check if your digital tools offer accessibility options like screen readers, high-contrast colors, 200% zoom options, and keyboard navigation without a mouse. These are features we’re currently developing at Holaspirit, in order to make our platform inclusive for all users.

💡Pro tip: as you roll out these changes, gather employee feedback to ensure the adjustments are having the desired impact and to identify areas for improvement.

Communicate Those Changes

Communicating change is just as important as implementing it! Here’s how to ensure success both internally and externally:

• Internally: Share accessibility updates through emails, team meetings, or publications on Talkspirit. Recognize employees involved, and ensure managers communicate how these changes benefit everyone. Use accessible formats like videos with captions, clear text, and high-contrast visuals.
• Externally: Highlight your accessibility efforts on your website, in job postings, social media, and newsletters. Showcasing these initiatives helps attract diverse talent and positions your company as a leader in inclusivity.

Also read: Internal and External Communications: How to Ensure Alignment

Encourage Continuous Improvement

Accessibility in the workplace is not a one-time effort—it requires continuous improvement. You’ll thus need to regularly review your progress, gather feedback, and make necessary adjustments over time.

Monitor the impact of changes and assess if they’re meeting employees’ needs. Set periodic reviews to track progress against your OKRs. Encourage employees to provide feedback and suggest improvements. Tools like Holaspirit can facilitate this by allowing employees to submit governance proposals for enhancing accessibility. Actively listen to these inputs and take prompt action when needed.

As new tools and standards evolve, keep adapting your practices to make sure they continue to meet employees' needs.

Also read: How Can You Improve Organizational Agility in the Workplace?

To Conclude

Creating an accessible workplace is key to fostering inclusion and enabling all employees to contribute effectively. By raising awareness, setting objectives, making adjustments, and encouraging continuous improvement, you pave the way for a more accessible and high-performing organization.

Accessibility in the workplace is an ongoing effort that involves your entire team. With tools like Holaspirit, you can clarify accountabilities, set measurable goals, and gather valuable feedback to keep improving. Plus, we're committed to enhancing the accessibility of our solutions over time 🚀. So if you’ve set yourself a goal on digital accessibility, we’ve got you covered!

We’ve also created a cheat sheet to help you evaluate the digital accessibility of all your digital tools. You can download it here 👇

Access Cheat Sheet

In this Cheat Sheet, you’ll find: a checklist of criteria to evaluate the accessibility level of your digital tools, best practices to ensure these criteria are met, as well as the key questions to ask your software provider.