Career site compliance and accessibility are hot topics for employers right now. We can see a lot of organizations are working hard to create an inviting culture for individuals with disabilities; however, many of these organizations are failing at the most basic level - the job application. We sat down two of our in-house experts on OFCCP Compliance and Website Accessibility to talk through this topic more. Listen as Jen and Ruth share tips and actionable takeaways for creating a career site that is not only OFCCP compliant but also accessible and appealing.
Career site compliance and accessibility are hot topics for employers right now. We can see a lot of organizations are working hard to create an inviting culture for individuals with disabilities; however, many of these organizations are failing at the most basic level - the job application. We sat down two of our in-house experts on OFCCP Compliance and Website Accessibility to talk through this topic more. Listen as Jen and Ruth share tips and actionable takeaways for creating a career site that is not only OFCCP compliant but also accessible and appealing.
Candee Chambers: Hello, and welcome back to the third episode of the DE Talk podcast. My name is Candee Chambers and I'm with DirectEmployers. Today we have two of our own employees on the podcast to discuss two topics that are very important to our organization.
Candee Chambers: Jen Polcer will be addressing compliance from the DirectEmployers' side, and Ruth Toombs from Recruit Rooster will talk to us about web accessibility and making the digital world more accessible to people with disabilities. Compliance and web accessibility both make the world a better place for all people, and we're so lucky to have two experts on the show to help us learn more. Now I'll hand it off to Jen Polcer. Jen.
Jennifer Polcer: Thank you, Candee, and hello everybody. We're super excited to be here today talking to you about some topics that are very near and dear to both Ruth and my heart. But first of all, my name is Jennifer Polcer. I am the VP of Learning and Development here at DirectEmployers. I have been on board for a couple years now. Prior to that, I was a member. Ruth, I'll let you introduce yourself.
Ruth Toombs: Thank you so much, Jen. I might like to say that you have a wonderful radio voice. I'm just going to point that out.
Jennifer Polcer: You do too, darling.
Ruth Toombs: Thank you so much. Yeah. My name is Ruth Toombs, and I'm a key account executive here at Recruit Rooster by DirectEmployers. I've actually been with the organization for over five years. I'm really passionate about career site technology and definitely sharing more about the accessibility piece. We've really, really started pushing that area as well.
Ruth Toombs: We're just going to get this started. I think we've had enough coffee, or maybe not, but to really set the stage, I want to let everybody know, our listeners, we're coming at this from two angles. Mine is going to be from a career side accessibility standpoint.
Jennifer Polcer: And my side of the house, which is super exciting, OFCCP career site compliance. That's my jam.
Ruth Toombs: Woo hoo! All righty, Jen. We're just going to jump into it. Share with our listeners and refresh me on what career site compliance really is. So, in a quick nutshell, then we can dig into the nitty gritty.
Jennifer Polcer: Yes. Nothing like talking compliance right off the bat, huh?
Ruth Toombs: That's right.
Jennifer Polcer: Well, I don't want to lose everybody in the first few minutes, so let me just summarize by saying that in my space, the world of federal contractor compliance, for a career compliant website among a few other technical pieces that we'll talk about, basically, it just provides an equal opportunity for all job seekers to apply.
Jennifer Polcer: So, if we think about this from a physical standpoint, we added curb cutouts back in the day to allow wheelchair access. And bonus, you know all of us that are pushing strollers or luggage benefited from these curb cutouts. But what if your website has a curb cutout or doesn't have a curb cutout? How are you offering help? The cool thing about talking about this topic is, is that I get to pose the question, and you get to supply some really cool answers, Ruth. Because you know a lot more about that than I do.
Ruth Toombs: Perfect.
Jennifer Polcer: So that said, you're up. What exactly is career site accessibility?
Ruth Toombs: All right, so we get to do the long, techie answer. A website or a career site in this case, it strives to ensure that there are no barriers preventing users from having equal access to the website's information and functionality.
Ruth Toombs: Essentially, sites that are designed with accessibility in mind, they're going to be compatible with disability-enabled software like screen readers and enabled audio devices, and it will allow those users to continue the online navigation process with reduced obstacles. So short answer, everybody can use it. That's the goal.
Ruth Toombs: We've always created our career site technology solutions with accessibility in mind. However, this year Recruit Rooster launched accessibility solutions for career sites. And I've got to say it has been really eyeopening, a really eyeopening experience. Some of the frustrations and barriers to employment for somebody, let's say that doesn't have a disability, so they don't have a link working properly or there's an expired job. Whereas, somebody with a disability utilizing the specialized software, a career site might not have the proper back-end development for them to even be able to access the jobs, let alone apply for any of the positions. And with the job search and application process, I mean, essentially, it's all entirely online now. So people with disabilities need to be able to use these technologies as easily as other applicants.
Jennifer Polcer: That's so true. I've spent so much time educating employers on OFCCP career site compliance and how best to navigate this territory. Long gone are the days of people walking into the HR office or human resource office to fill out an application and apply for a job. The world has gone virtual, baby. In order to be inclusive and business smart, you need to prove to job seekers with disabilities that you're cognizant of their needs and create an experience that is truly accessible to all.
Ruth Toombs: Oh absolutely. So I mean our entire team here has spent many hours undergoing training and additional education. We want to make sure that we're experts in this realm. We really wanted to understand the limitations that individuals with disabilities face so we can really properly convey to our clients how to improve the processes and procedures and really help lower the unemployment rate for individuals with disabilities.
Jennifer Polcer: Oh, perfect segue into some numbers. Okay, so let's pop quiz.
Ruth Toombs: Whoa, it's way too early for that.
Jennifer Polcer: True. Coffee, please.
Ruth Toombs: Coffee.
Jennifer Polcer: All right. Well, what do you think ... this is a scary statistic, but what do you think the unemployment rate is for individuals with disabilities?
Ruth Toombs: Okay, so that is a really tricky one. I mean, I know it's considerably higher than the national average, right?
Jennifer Polcer: Yeah, you've got that right. We report the monthly unemployment rates in our week in review, and beginning of November in our report there it was 6.9%, which versus the national average of 3.6%. That's nearly double. Yeah, so I really can't wait for the day when we don't have to point out such a drastic difference in those numbers.
Ruth Toombs: Absolutely. I mean, I hear you, and I know that we both have family members with disabilities so this really hits home. My mom was a preschool teacher for many, many years, and due to an injury became disabled. And within a six month window she went from being able bodied, having this full time job she was passionate about to literally unfortunately living off the system.
Ruth Toombs: So, it was really impactful. And during all of our research and training, we really dug into the stats and information to discover that approximately one in five people in the United States have a disability, whether it's visible or it's invisible, something we have to take into account as well. That's actually 65 million people. And of course, as the baby boomer generation continues to age, that number is only going to increase.
Jennifer Polcer: So true. It's really overwhelming to think about. And not just that aggregate number, but the the vast range of disabilities. My six year old nephew is on the autism spectrum, and he's non-verbal. And for me, learning to navigate this has really rocked my world. It's an entirely different experience from the experiences that my family faced with my brother who had muscular dystrophy and he was in a wheelchair.
Jennifer Polcer: So, I think I get the easy side of this discussion here because I get to talk about just the compliance piece, and it really is just a very broad approach, which is good. It starts the conversation, but I'm more passionate as I move into learning about your space and that's that accessibility side. From what I can tell, it seems like it's always going to be evolving and a moving goal based on the vast range of of disabilities out there. So, I'll start with some of what I call the easy stuff.
Ruth Toombs: Perfect.
Jennifer Polcer: Yeah, right? These would be what ... I've kind of pillared them as four major components to OFCCP compliant career site. So, we've got one through four. The first one is the required notices. The second one would be your accurate equal employment opportunity tagline. Then we've got an affirmative action policy statement and AAP availability. AAP meaning your affirmative action program. And then finally, what I consider to be the most important from again a basic humanity standpoint is number four, your accommodation procedures.
Ruth Toombs: Oh, I see. Well, we know we all love it when you enlighten us with regulations. You are the regulation queen. So, let's unpack those four components. You said number one is required notices, and what are those exactly?
Jennifer Polcer: Well, you know I do love my regulations. In fact, for those of you who may not have seen our DirectEmployers Facebook post last month, this geeky compliance girl dressed up as the actual code of federal regulations.
Ruth Toombs: It was fantastic. I loved it.
Jennifer Polcer: Complete with my highlighted tabs, and even I had a barcode on my rear. So, it was great stuff.
Ruth Toombs: I forgot about that.
Jennifer Polcer: Anyway, okay. So, I do take compliance seriously, but I like to have some fun with it.
Jennifer Polcer: But I think if we talk about this stuff enough, and we do make light of some of these things, we can start to realize or hopefully it can help people start to realize that many of these regulations are forcing people to do the obvious, and that's to help level the playing field for everyone.
Ruth Toombs: Exactly.
Jennifer Polcer: So, for federal contractors, and I'm specifying that here today because there are lots of other laws and regulations that may apply to various organizations, so please don't think this is the end all. But this is our niche and my niche, and so the focus of the regulations that I'm going to be referring to today, I'll get technical here for just a hot second.
Jennifer Polcer: The Executive Order 11246, VEVRAA, which is our protected veterans, and then Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, so our individuals with disabilities. Okay, so those required notices, the first one is the equal employment opportunity is the law. This was revised in 2009. And then the second one is the supplement to that poster, which came out when the regulations were updated to include protected classes of sexual orientation and gender identity back in 2014. And then the third one that contractors need to have on their website is the pay transparency notice, which came out in 2016.
Ruth Toombs: Okay, so I think ... okay, I know I've seen the EEO is the law poster hanging in our break room.
Jennifer Polcer: Yeah, girl.
Ruth Toombs: So that's the same thing right? Except you're supposed to be utilizing that on your website as well.
Jennifer Polcer: You are spot on.
Ruth Toombs: Got you, okay.
Jennifer Polcer: That's exactly right. So, most employers have these posters hanging in their break rooms or maybe in the kitchen or in the HR office, and that's because these laws highlight things that are applicable to current employees as well. So that's why it needs to be visible to everybody there.
Jennifer Polcer: But back in the day, we kind of talked about it, it was sufficient to hang these posters in HR assuming that all job seekers would walk in to apply. So they would be able to see the poster and read the applicable laws like I'm sure so many people did.
Ruth Toombs: Absolutely.
Jennifer Polcer: Right? But like I mentioned earlier, what employers need to realize is that their career sites are now like a virtual HR office. So anything that an applicant should be able to see needs to be there because they're no longer walking into your office in most cases.
Jennifer Polcer: A lot of companies have embraced this concept, and as you know, Ruth, in your space, have worked really hard to make some outstanding career landing pages very informational and creative. However, in all of this turn to moving to the creative side we've lost a lot of the legal notices, in many case, people ... it just kind of fell off the radar that that was something they need to do.
Ruth Toombs: No, I get that. So obviously yes, I spend a lot of time working on the designs of career websites, and although that's super important, not everyone wants their site plastered with legal notices. So, do you have any suggestions about that?
Jennifer Polcer: Yes, and I totally agree and I get it. What I like to do is encourage people to use the hyperlink to the OFCCP webpage because that one link will host all the required notices. I say do this rather than having each notice as an individual PDF. And there's a few reasons for that. Not alone just the appealing side of lower real estate, but if there are updates to the laws or the supplements, eventually they will be merged, then you don't have to worry about putting a new link out there.
Jennifer Polcer: The other cool thing is if you go to the main OFCCP link, the notices are listed in several different languages. So, that's a easy bonus there. And as mentioned, by having just the one link you save on space on your website.
Jennifer Polcer: So, what I do like to point out here though is I definitely recommend and/or encourage companies to not, I repeat not, do not bury that link somewhere on your website. I've spent a lot of time hunting through our websites to help people get this right, and I notice a lot of them put it under a small legal notice or EEO info. And you have to keep in mind that the general public doesn't use the term EEO like we do OMG, right? It's just not something people walk around saying, like EEO.
Jennifer Polcer: And you don't want a job so you're digging into to look into legal notices to verify that you're providing a workplace free of discrimination. If anything, I think this should be showcased with as much pride as you do your benefits and the other great reasons why you're such a wonderful employer to work for.
Ruth Toombs: Totally makes sense to me. Speaking of funny lingo, let me next drill you on what a tagline is. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?
Jennifer Polcer: For sure. So, this isn't a regulatory term but rather it's one of those terms that we've come up when we've been working in this space, and it's basically like an indication or similar to a stamp that an employer is a federal government contractor and therefore they do not discriminate based on the various protected classes that each statute protects.
Jennifer Polcer: So, federal contractors are required to indicate on, and I'll quote here, "All solicitations or advertisements," and basically what that means is every job description. So, every job description anywhere that you're advertising an open position, you need to include the information that you're an equal opportunity employer. The OFCCP has approved a few abbreviations to this, so if you don't want to list out all of the the nine protected classes among those three statutes, then we commonly refer to that as an EEO tagline.
Ruth Toombs: So what is the actual tagline then?
Jennifer Polcer: If you're covered by all three regulations, the executive order, Section 503, and VEVRAA, you would include a tagline something along the lines of EOE, standing for equal opportunity employer, and then including disability and veteran. I see many companies that have the old terminology or slang almost of females/minorities, and this just isn't correct.
Ruth Toombs: I've been seeing a little bit of that myself.
Jennifer Polcer: Yeah, yeah. It's very common, and the reason why is that the executive order was broadened in 2014 to include sexual orientation and gender identity. So, although we commonly refer to that executive order as females and minorities, it's just no longer accurate. It's just a broader group of people protected. So, this is when I'm teaching to my recruiters and the people in the compliance space, I like to get a little jingle in there to help them remember. So, are you ready for it?
Ruth Toombs: I'm so ready. Lay it on me.
Jennifer Polcer: All right. So if you list all nine you'll be fine, or go with three and be scot-free.
Ruth Toombs: That's perfect.
Jennifer Polcer: Nice.
Ruth Toombs: I can actually remember that. That's good.
Jennifer Polcer: That's what I said. List all nine and you'll be fine, or go with three and be scot-free. And by scot-free, I mean that you won't be cited for violations here, so that's the important part.
Jennifer Polcer: But some other takeaways from this tagline that I've seen a lot of people do incorrectly is the term veteran. It can be abbreviated but only as short as vet, V-E-T. So you can't just have the letter V on there. And the other one is disability. That has to be completely spelled out. So no capital D or D-I-S. And again, think back to this like the reason why we're doing all of this is many of us fall into these protected classes, but I necessarily wouldn't walk around knowing that I'm an M/F/D/V, right?
Ruth Toombs: No, that's so true, and that's why you look at that and you just go, what exactly, I mean, there's so many things that it could stand for, right? I didn't necessarily pick up on that.
Jennifer Polcer: Exactly.
Ruth Toombs: Yeah.
Jennifer Polcer: So, think about what you're actually doing and the information you're trying to get across, and that's the tagline that you want to have on all your job descriptions.
Ruth Toombs: That sounds like that ties into this third item you mentioned, and this is a mouthful, the EEO policy AAP availability.
Jennifer Polcer: Alphabet soup, baby, right?
Ruth Toombs: Exactly.
Jennifer Polcer: Every industry has it. So, yeah. This is kind of the final regulatory compliance piece and it goes back to your career page being your virtual HR office. So, the other item that applicants need to have access to is your EEO or your equal employment opportunity policy statement. This is a broader statement from your CEO or top representative, basically committing your company to this cause, this action. In addition to that, you also have to allow them to know when, if someone wanted to view your written affirmative action plan, when and where they could do that.
Jennifer Polcer: So for instance, they could see it in the HR offices between the hours of 8:00 and 5:00 Monday through Friday or whatever worked for your organization. I recommend just combining these two elements into one statement. So, your EEO policy statement has very specific requirements and they're all laid out in the regulations. So once you have those requirements in there, I typically recommend and have seen where you just kind of close out the statement from your CEO with a little line about when and where the plan is available for viewing.
Ruth Toombs: All right, so you also mentioned accommodations, and this is where I think a lot of people are confused. They interchange accommodations with accessibility.
Jennifer Polcer: Absolutely. And I'm totally guilty of that as well, at least until I started working in this space. As you know, that was one of the main reasons that we wanted to chat today to help people understand the difference so they stop flipping those two words and realize that they do actually mean two very different things.
Jennifer Polcer: So I'm going to conquer the accommodation term, and then you get to talk about accessibility.
Ruth Toombs: That sounds great. So, tell me what you mean when you say federal contractors have to provide reasonable accommodations to job seekers.
Jennifer Polcer: Yes. So, I'm putting my Halloween costume back on. Yes, I am fully dressed as the code of federal regulations, and the actual verbiage is that if you use an online application system, which nowadays most employers do, you must, quote, "Provide necessary reasonable accommodations to ensure that an otherwise qualified individual with a disability who is not able to fully utilize that system is nonetheless provided with equal opportunity to apply and be considered for all jobs."
Jennifer Polcer: If we go back to our example of providing a curb cutout to accommodate a wheelchair, curbs are not the only barrier out there. And you're going to be able to elaborate on this a lot further, but electronic devices can be extremely wonderful or extremely limiting.
Ruth Toombs: Absolutely.
Jennifer Polcer: So as such the current federal regulations for federal contractors is that they recognize this. And that's really my point here is recognize that your website may not be 100% accessible, and just like your building might. So what you need to do is have some way for somebody to reach out and say, "Hey, you know what? I need help filling out your application."
Ruth Toombs: Okay, got you. So from the OFCCP side of things, the requirement is that they've got to indicate a way for a person to reach out to accommodate the individual, and that makes total sense and you're right, I can't wait to tell you more in accessibility. But before we jump there, I think the next obvious question I would have is, okay I've got that language on there, contact HR at whatever email address or phone number, but then what? What do you do when someone calls or emails? I mean, that's not necessarily a simple way to respond to that, right? Unless somebody is really educated on that piece.
Jennifer Polcer: Exactly, and that is such a common question and it's one we get all the time. I think it's one of the major reasons why employers may hesitate to put that language on there because they don't know what to do. If someone reaches out, they don't know how to respond. That's the fear of the great unknown. But however like anything, the more we learn and experience the less scary the unknown becomes. And we could talk for days on what it means to give reasonable accommodations, but for the sake of our chat today I want to leave our listeners with a few good partners of ours that are truly subject matter experts in this space.
Jennifer Polcer: One is JAN, the Job Accommodation Network. Their website is amazing, and we work with them regularly. They're often at our annual conference. But it's set up so that you can literally type in the type of disability somebody has and it will populate a handful of reasonable accommodations.
Ruth Toombs: That's amazing.
Jennifer Polcer: Yeah.
Ruth Toombs: That does take a little bit of the fear out of it right? I mean, it does, because you actually have something in writing, something tangible that you can go from.
Jennifer Polcer: Yeah exactly. It's designed brilliantly. So, definitely JAN is one place to start if you're new in this space. And then the other partner of ours is Higher Potential, and they also have a ton of great resources in the individuals with disability space, but they actually provide this as a service so you can utilize one of their reasonable accommodation representative experts to work as the middleman and guide you through some of those conversations until you get comfortable with them.
Jennifer Polcer: But there are these tools out there and these resources, and I can't help but just go back to the basics. You and I, living in our space, being around individuals with disabilities, and just getting through life. I think the most important thing for people to remember is that these are people. And when you encounter an individual that needs some sort of assistance, the best process is, and this is a regulatory term but it's real life, is the interactive process. Imagine that. Interact with the person.
Jennifer Polcer: So, for anyone that's ever worked in a customer service role knows this and is probably doing it a hundred times a day without ever realizing that they're having a quote unquote "interactive process." But you know what it starts with? How may I help you?
Ruth Toombs: So simple.
Jennifer Polcer: Right? Shocking.
Ruth Toombs: It's very simple. Yes.
Jennifer Polcer: All you need to do is ask. More often than not, a person that needs assistance will be able to provide some sort of example of what they need that will help them accomplish that task.
Ruth Toombs: At the end of the day, it is so much more than providing simple digital access. It's really humanizing that experience.
Jennifer Polcer: Exactly, exactly. All right, so I got through the easy stuff. You just need to have your career site lined up with these four major components, work on getting the accommodation, the training for your team if you don't have that in set place already. But this is the stuff that I'm super excited about. So you're up, Ruth. So, contractors have to have a way for job seekers to reach out like we just talked about. But let's talk about more about what this accessibility is in the digital space.
Ruth Toombs: My pleasure, Jen. So envision it this way. People need to be able to complete the online task, whatever that may be. If they're shopping online, can they purchase it? If they're setting an appointment, can they successfully enter the criteria? And in this situation, can they access and apply for a job?
Ruth Toombs: So, the solutions that we provide at Recruit Rooster really give them a digital access ramp. Kind of like what you described with the curb cutout. Envision it like a physical sense, like we've referenced a wheelchair ramp or a guide dog or a cane. So, only these are online tools, but if anything, they're not just crucial for quality of life, they may even be more crucial with the online space as it is and evolving.
Ruth Toombs: So we offer things like providing scalable format. We make sure that on your career website the information doesn't lose clarity when the content is reduced or enlarged. We make sure it's screen reader compatible, meaning that alternative text for images and full text to speech, close caption friendly for the hearing impaired. Color contrast is a big thing to ensure text and images don't blend into the background with somebody with certain sight impairments like colorblindness, and making sure font sizes expand and contract as needed for those with sight impairments.
Jennifer Polcer: Wow, this is so fascinating. So, it's really just creating an online experience that mirrors tools that people would need in their everyday physical life.
Ruth Toombs: Oh, precisely. So we help employers discover, for lack of a better term, missing pieces in their career site infrastructure.
Ruth Toombs: For example, let's say a person is using a screen reader. They may only hear words like image instead of a description of what the picture is actually displaying. The top navigation may not have headings, so they become really unsure of where they should go on the screen. Their assistive technology they have on their mobile devices isn't compatible. So, imagine having low vision and trying to pinch and squeeze the screen on your cell phone. I've even seen career websites that don't allow a person with motor impairments, so they're using their keyboard navigation only, to even access the job content at all. So we use a myriad of software scans and manual devices, actual tools used by individuals with disabilities like jaws and talk back to discover all of those issues and work to fix them. We also build accessible career site experiences from the ground up.
Jennifer Polcer: Wow. It's so cool knowing that you and the Recruit Rooster team are making a difference in so many lives. I have to say you're like super roosters ... eliminating barriers one website at a time. You go, girl.
Ruth Toombs: Wearing my cape.
Jennifer Polcer: Yeah, exactly. Well you know, last year for Halloween in honor of the launch of Recruit Rooster here, I-
Ruth Toombs: That's right. You really take Halloween seriously. I forgot.
Jennifer Polcer: I do, and I love what I do, so I dressed up as a rooster last year. And so now that you guys have taken on accessibility, I may need to bring that costume back out next year. But I am going to add a cape.
Ruth Toombs: Absolutely.
Jennifer Polcer: So you guys don't have to convince me that an accessible website is plain and simple the right thing to do. I just can't even think about not wanting to reach out to this massive group of individuals which we all may become a part of if we're not already. But anyway, however not everyone is going to come to this conclusion on their own. And let's face it, when we talk about making any type of improvement on any organization that comes down to money.
Ruth Toombs: It's always the dollar sign, right? It's always like, okay where do I find this budget?
Jennifer Polcer: Exactly. What other reasons can you tell us about from your perspective as to why an accessible website is more than just the right thing to do?
Ruth Toombs: Oh my gosh. There are so many reasons. Obviously preventing barrier to employment, top of mine. But let's also keep in mind that it expands your market, your pool of talent demographics. We have obviously a low unemployment rate for individuals that don't have disabilities. So, here's a few stats for you.
Ruth Toombs: Individuals with disabilities don't necessarily want to live on the system, as quite often it means poverty. So with that being said, some numbers for you, 18.3% of individuals with disabilities ages 21 to 64 are unemployed, 12% hold a bachelor's or higher, and 29.7% have college or an associate's. That is a huge pool many employers are missing out on, and we can talk about the almighty dollar being an issue and budget constraints, but these are talented individuals that are educated that have the ability to come in your organization and make a difference. So, definitely tapping into that untapped resource makes a lot of sense.
Ruth Toombs: Another area would be it creates usability employer brand. It truly does give you a competitive advantage. Employees, and studies show especially millennials, care about being a part of something bigger than themselves, a company that expands on diverse culture. Another area a lot of companies, and something I didn't think about until we really moved into the space a lot, it improves search engine optimization. Google likes to pay closer attention to websites with lots of robust content, the alt text for images, navigation descriptions, and the like. Lastly, proactive versus reactive. If you do it right the first time, it is much more cost effective. So building something with that accessibility in mind and not everybody has that opportunity, but that's obviously going to be the most cost effective way to go about it.
Ruth Toombs: But there are lots of resources to ensure that your career website is accessible even if you have to make the changes moving forward.
Ruth Toombs: Another area is reduces potential legal risk for discrimination. That's always a scary one, right? But it's something to be aware of. Throughout our research, we found the number of web accessibility lawsuits to have really exploded. It's grown exponentially since 2017. In fact, these lawsuits increased from 814 in 2017 to 2,285 in 2018.
Jennifer Polcer: Wow.
Ruth Toombs: Right? And that's something. That's a massive jump, and I only see it just becoming more and more of an issue. All these cases were brought forth under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Jennifer Polcer: That's a great point that you bring up, the ADA, because that's beyond our scope of conversation today. But as this legal landscape plays out, we'll certainly have to talk more about it.
Jennifer Polcer: Hopefully in the meantime, these companies can start thinking about this. So, what are some of the barriers to consider when you are making some of your career site changes?
Ruth Toombs: There's a lot, but there are four main categories of access an employer really needs to consider. There's the visual access, so these are candidates who may be blind or have low vision, or candidates with colorblindness. Then there's audial access, candidates who are deaf or hard of hearing. Motor ability, these are candidates who for whatever reason aren't able to use a mouse, and they live with limited fine motor control or slow motor response time. And then cognitive ability. This refers to candidates who may live with a range of cognitive disabilities, including learning disabilities, distractibility, impaired memory functions, and inability to focus on or retain large amounts of information.
Jennifer Polcer: So, I hear a lot of people say about this alt text. Alt text, what exactly is alt text?
Ruth Toombs: So when you have an image, if somebody is using a screen reader device, when they actually scroll across that image, alt text is actually going to be alternative text for the image. So it's a description of what the image is. Instead of just image or nothing being displayed, it might be like, image of children laughing on the playground, right? So it gives them something visual even if they're not seeing it.
Jennifer Polcer: Okay.
Ruth Toombs: If that makes sense.
Jennifer Polcer: It's those acronyms.
Ruth Toombs: Right.
Jennifer Polcer: What the heck?
Jennifer Polcer: All right, so what are some of the trends that you're seeing in career website accessibility?
Ruth Toombs: I'm definitely seeing not just the need to be digitally accessible due to the legal ramifications, but I'm seeing a desire to really create an inclusive online experience.
Jennifer Polcer: Woo hoo! That makes me happy to hear. That makes me so happy to hear.
Ruth Toombs: Right? People are excited about it. I think it's just becoming something that's much more showcased. I think people are becoming more aware. I think a lot of us are ... and a lot of individuals, if we don't see it, it's not there. If we don't know it, we don't realize it. So, people are becoming more educated on it. And employees want to be a part of organizations that are inclusive and they're doing their part to create this space.
Jennifer Polcer: Absolutely. Like I said, I'm probably the number one Recruit Rooster fan here. I love what you guys are doing, and I love that I get to be a part of that. It makes my heart happy.
Jennifer Polcer: So, what are some of the small steps that an employer can do to correct some things on their careers website if they're not looking to do a full overhaul?
Ruth Toombs: No, absolutely. It can be a daunting task, right? This is a lot of information. We're trying to make it as simple and easy to understand, and just helping these employers navigate all of these changes. There's a ton they can do. There are some amazing organizations that provide education, onsite training. I know that you had mentioned the accommodation network and even some simple software scans to at the minimum just get a baseline of discrepancies with your career site. I really like WebAIM.org as a starting point, and naturally, anybody who's listening here can chat with one of us Recruit Roosters about it too.
Jennifer Polcer: Woo hoo! The super roosters to the rescue.
Jennifer Polcer: All right, Ruth, well thanks for all that clarity. That was a lot of information but very interesting. So with the limited amount of time we have left, I feel like we have to do our due diligence and squash some of these ignorant myths surrounding disabilities. So, how about I read a myth and you can educate our audience on what the correct information actually is.
Jennifer Polcer: So, myth number one, disabilities occur only at birth.
Ruth Toombs: That is false. People can develop a disability at any point in life. Think things like cataracts or injury or hearing loss, loss of vision. I mean, it's something that we don't necessarily ... nobody wants to think about, but it can happen to any one of us.
Jennifer Polcer: It's so true. When I teach about this when I'm talking compliance, I let my recruiters and such know that having a disability is a protected class that you could join in the blink of an eye.
Ruth Toombs: Right.
Jennifer Polcer: But you can also leave. We have people in remission from cancer or overcoming these disabilities. So, that's why when we gather this information I'm going to put my compliance hat back on, but for the federal contractors having to gather self identification for individuals with disabilities, the form if you're paying attention to it, you're not only asking if you have a disability, but you're also asking if you have had a disability. So as you pointed out earlier, this is a large group. And it's in fact our largest minority group.
Ruth Toombs: Wow.
Jennifer Polcer: All right, so myth number two. All deaf people can read lips.
Ruth Toombs: False. I mean, have you ever tried to read lips?
Jennifer Polcer: Oh my gosh.
Ruth Toombs: I've attempted it. People all speak in an annunciate words differently, so it's next to impossible to really gather full sentences and follow the conversation 100%. Also, there is a phenomenal short film showcase on YouTube, it's called What It's Like To Read Lips. It's about four minutes. It is such an amazing inside look into what reading lips is actually like, and I urge you all to check it out.
Jennifer Polcer: It is super cool. I definitely recommend that myself. And I may date myself a little bit here, but there's actually a really funny Seinfeld episode about this. Hopefully somebody in the audience remembers and can giggle about it, but it does nail this point exactly that it's super challenging to read lips.
Jennifer Polcer: Okay, myth number three. Certain jobs are just better suited for people with disabilities.
Ruth Toombs: This is a big false. So, this myth really stems from the general lack of knowledge around providing reasonable accommodations. Thereby, it really limits individuals with disabilities to certain jobs. When you consider the average accommodation cost a company spends, it's approximately $400 to $600, there is no solid rationale for limiting what any person can do. It's just an unintentional bias. Sometimes we just assume that an individual with a certain disability is going to only be able to perform certain tasks, and that's obviously not the case.
Jennifer Polcer: So true, and I know we're going to talk a little bit more about that here after these myths. But okay, myth number four. People with disabilities have a hard time getting to work.
Ruth Toombs: False, right? So, Uber, Lyft, public transportation, they open up the same work opportunities for individuals with disabilities as they do anybody else, and to be more self-reliant.
Ruth Toombs: I have a couple of friends in fact that have disabilities and they have their vehicles modified. Not that that's an option for everyone with a disability, but just putting that limitation saying how are they going to get to work is crazy. We have so many different ways to do so.
Jennifer Polcer: To be honest, it's none of our business how anybody gets to work.
Ruth Toombs: There you go.
Jennifer Polcer: Yeah. Disability or not. I think back to recruiter training 101, and asking if somebody has reliable transportation is just not somewhere you go in an interview. So, this falls along the same lines.
Ruth Toombs: Right.
Jennifer Polcer: Okay, so myth number five. The ADA requires employers to hire individuals with disabilities whether they are qualified or not.
Ruth Toombs: Absolutely false. So, job seekers who are not qualified for a job cannot claim discrimination under the ADA.
Jennifer Polcer: Yeah, and I always tell recruiters, your job is to hire the most qualified individual for the job, period.
Ruth Toombs: That sounds like best practice, period.
Jennifer Polcer: Yeah, Absolutely.
Ruth Toombs: With so many misconceptions, I truly believe that one step employers can take to show they're inclusive and working towards a diverse culture is with their career site. For me, one of the biggest aha moments in this educational journey was our trip to Bosma Enterprises.
Jennifer Polcer: Yes, I'm really excited for you to talk about this. But for those of you that aren't local to the Indianapolis Metro area, Bosma is a close partner of ours that assists with people who are blind or visually impaired. And not only do they assist others in this space, but they run an organization from top down with individuals who are blind or visually impaired. Their offices and warehouse, it's just mind blowing. Anyone who has ever had a hesitation of how a blind or visually impaired person could work in their organization would be instantly humbled when you step foot into their work environment.
Jennifer Polcer: They also have amazing programs from helping with job readiness to independent living, because as we mentioned before losing your sight could happen at any time for a variety of reasons. So having this organization to help you navigate this is exceptional.
Ruth Toombs: And actually, that is their tagline, navigating blindness. So earlier this summer, our team spent a full day at the Bosma facility. We were fully immersed not only in their programs, but also taking time to interact with their clients and see how accessibility tools like screen readers and screen magnifiers work, really get a sense of what the job seeking experience is like for somebody with visual impairments.
Ruth Toombs: Just to see these tools in use gave me an entirely new perspective on how a person with a visual impairment would interact with a website or any online content for that matter. And just listening to some of the stories of individuals who are actually learning literally from zero to 60 what it's like to learn how to be alone in your own home after losing your sight, to work in a job, to doing online experiences, all of those different pieces, just watching that. And these were individuals who, and if I'm not mistaken and maybe you can clarify that, I believe that Bosma works with individuals who have lost their sight later in life, not that they were born with a sight impairment.
Jennifer Polcer: Yeah, absolutely.
Ruth Toombs: So these are individuals we met, individuals that were landscape architects, professors. We met all of these people who had lost their sight unexpectedly and had to literally start over. So it's an awesome organization. And I never realized how much a person with a sight impairment relied on their phone. So anything from text to speech to buying a Coke at a vending machine that had a QR code with braille next to it, it was crazy.
Jennifer Polcer: It really is incredible to think how far we've come with technology. The last time I was at Bosma, I was given a tour by one of the representatives there and it was ... again, it was so amazing. We were watching people work in the warehouse putting together random various items and stuff going to production. Everybody was either blind or sight impaired. And when we got to the ... we did the full tour of the office. As we came back through the lobby, there is a big picture of the woman who gave us the tour, and she was blind, and she had said, "We're going to stop here and I'm going to point out this picture," and we're looking ... it's a beautiful picture of her. It's very large. She kind of laughed and she said, "I'm told this is a picture of me."
Jennifer Polcer: It was just one of those, oh my gosh, another aha moment. I said, "Yes." And you know what I told her? I'm like, "And you know what? It's a beautiful picture of you. It's a really great picture." She smiled. But it was again, quite humbling.
Jennifer Polcer: So, I was thrilled to see that your team was able to go and have that experience as well and come back with such a sense of passion and drive for what you do. And hearing you talk about that experience, it just reiterates everything we've said. Employers must recognize the need for and the results of digital accessibility, and hone in on how they can better reach all audiences.
Jennifer Polcer: So, I mean clearly you and I could, and we often do, go on and on about this topic. We're very passionate about it. But rather than talk about what should be done, I know we both prefer to actually help employers dive in and get their websites compliant and accessible.
Ruth Toombs: Absolutely. And you know what, Jen? I think we're coming in on the closing hour.
Jennifer Polcer: No, it's been so fun.
Ruth Toombs: I know, and I've had this wonderful cup of coffee, but it's time for round two. So we appreciate you guys tuning in for this and listening, and don't hesitate to reach out to Jen or myself. We can easily discuss your career site and provide some feedback on how you can improve your processes and become more inclusive.
Ruth Toombs: I can be reached by email, ruth@recruitrooster.com and Jen can be reached by emailing compliance@directemployers.org. So please let us help you through your accessibility journey because you truly have the power to shift the employment outcome for individuals with disabilities and reach so many amazingly talented people by just making small adjustments along the way. Thanks so much.
Jennifer Polcer: Awesome. Thank you, Ruth. This has been fun.
Ruth Toombs: It has, Jen. Thank you.
Candee Chambers: So, thank you again for tuning into another episode of the DE Talk podcast with so many great topics to cover. Be sure to follow DirectEmployers on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the DE Talk podcast to be sure you're the first to receive notifications of new episodes available each month. Thanks for listening.