As employers tighten RTO mandates, workers with disabilities face new barriers

Résumé détaillé

HR experts say employers need to be more flexible with RTO policies including whether in-office requirements reflect the actual demands of different jobs

Return-to-office requirements are creating barriers for employees with disabilities, including some who say remote work is the only way for them to be employed.

Human resources experts say employers need to be more flexible with RTO policies to accommodate workers with disabilities, including whether in-office requirements reflect the actual demands of different jobs.

“[Employers] create policies to manage the majority,” says Paola Accettola, chief executive officer of True North HR in Toronto. “But [people with disabilities are] not the majority and we can’t treat it like a blanket policy when there are individual people involved that this has a real impact on.”

Employers have largely justified more in-office days by citing collaboration, team culture and professional development. However, returning to the office can introduce accessibility challenges that were largely absent when employees worked remotely.

For one worker we spoke with who has a visual impairment, working from home meant they could do their job without worrying about whether their workplace could accommodate their disability.

The Globe is withholding the employee’s name and their employer out of concerns about job security and workplace repercussions.

After their employer recently introduced a five-day RTO mandate, they’ve found work a lot more challenging. For instance, reading text on a regular-sized computer monitor is tough compared to the two oversized monitors with enlarged text capabilities they used when working from home.

When working from home, they purchased the special monitors on their own without having to put in a request for the equipment.

Their employer also operates on a “hot-desking” system, making it difficult to establish a permanent workstation with the equipment they need at the office.

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