New Website Helps Businesses Follow the Americans with Disabilities Act
Small business owners or managers who have questions about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) can find answers in a new website created by the Northeast ADA Center, which is based in Cornell ILR’s Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability.
The site, Small Business at Work: Understanding the ADA and your business, is based on two research studies conducted by the Northeast ADA Center.
The overall project was led by Wendy Strobel Gower, executive director of the Yang-Tan Institute and director of the Northeast ADA Center. Other researchers included Hsiao-Ying Vicki Chang, previously a research associate at the Yang-Tan Institute, and Sarah von Schrader, director of research and program evaluation at the Yang-Tan Institute. The studies helped the Northeast ADA Center staff understand what to focus on as they created the site.
“This website offers practical tools for small business as they implement the ADA,” Strobel Gower said. “We are proud to support the efforts of small business to welcome community members with disabilities, both as customers and employees.”
To introduce the site, the team offered a webinar, “Welcoming Customers and Employees with Disabilities.” A recording of the webinar is available.
The team also created a series of social media images, a sampling of which are shown below. The images have been showcased on the Northeast ADA Center’s Facebook page.
Sample Social Media Posts
The Research Studies
The first study used interviews and a survey to investigate the challenges faced by small employers when implementing Title I of the ADA and to identify effective ways to educate and support them so they can more easily follow ADA employment regulations. The study focused on employers in the area served by the Northeast ADA Center – New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The second study examined over 1,800 questions fielded by the ADA National Network hotline over a five-year period from 2016 to 2021 about topics related to Title III of the ADA, which focuses on disability-related requirements for businesses that serve the public.
Welcoming Employees
The website is divided into two “toolkits.” The Welcoming Employees toolkit is aimed at managers and supervisors who want to both follow the law and ensure that employees with disabilities are appropriately included at work. It offers information and advice about hiring and when an accommodation is needed. Several interactive scenarios bring up disability-related concerns and explain effective, ADA-compliant ways to resolve them.
The toolkit also discusses the definition of disability from the ADA’s standpoint, and notes that “many people – including your customers, employees, and applicants – have disabilities that you can’t see.”
Welcoming Customers
The second toolkit, Welcoming Customers, points out that over 50 million people in the U.S. have a disability, making it the third largest market segment in the country.
Strobel Gower emphasized that the toolkit provides “practical tips on serving customers with disabilities, including tips on what to say, service animals and when and how to offer assistance.”
Jennifer Perry, an access specialist at the Northeast ADA Center, said “As more and more businesses have a presence online via websites and social media, accessibility of these features is critical to reaching customers with disabilities, as is communicating effectively and respectfully. For example, the toolkit points out that the term ‘accessible parking’ is now considered more appropriate and helpful than the outdated ‘handicapped parking.’”
The toolkit also discusses a common misconception about “grandfathering.” This misconception is that buildings from before the ADA was signed into law in 1990 are allowed to remain completely inaccessible. The toolkit explains that “regulations allow a business in an older building to improve accessibility at a reasonable pace and price.”
About the Northeast ADA Center
The Northeast ADA Center is a member of the ADA National Network, funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR). It is hosted by the Yang-Tan Institute. The goal of the Northeast ADA Center is to educate and empower all ADA stakeholders throughout New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to increase their knowledge of the ADA and to support them to include people with disabilities in local communities and to implement the ADA in their own lives, workplaces, businesses and communities.
About the Yang-Tan Institute
Providing practical information to policymakers, employers, educators and others who assist people with disabilities is a core focus for the Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability, which is part of Cornell’s ILR School. The institute’s mission is to advance knowledge, policies and practices that enhance equal opportunities for all people with disabilities. Its research, training and technical resources expand knowledge about disability inclusion, leading to positive change.
The institute leads many grant-funded projects, including the Employer Assistance and Resource Network (EARN) and the Autism Transition to Adulthood Initiative. The institute also receives funding via a New York state legislative appropriation to assist with a variety of disability-related initiatives, and it offers a variety of professional education opportunities.
