Promoting employment for people with disabilities

Andrés Soler Valero¹,Alberto Ferreras Remesal¹,Miguel López Torres¹, Carlos García Molina¹, Alfonso Oltra Pastor¹, Raquel Ruiz Folgado¹, Pedro Sergio Moyano².

¹Instituto de Biomecánica de Valencia

²AECEMCO: Asociación Empresarial de Centros Especiales de Empleo de COCEMFE, Madrid, 28002

This article presents an interactive advisor for ergonomic assessment and fitting of workplaces to persons with disabilities (physical, sensorial, and/or psychological). It has been designed to identify areas of mismatching between workplace demands and worker functional capabilities, in order to promote the access to employment, and labor integration for people with disabilities in the retail sector. The methodology includes the process of incorporation as well as the adaptive measures of workplaces by using reasonable adjustments.

INTRODUCTION

For everyone, work is one of the most important factors in social integration and personal stability. Labor integration is considered to be highly related to well-being, given that obtaining and retaining a job leads to benefits for the individual such as the personal feeling of usefulness and productivity, financial independence, personal autonomy, etc. This importance is greater still for people with disabilities, who may face additional difficulties when it comes to becoming involved in the labor market. Nevertheless, workplace integration experiences demonstrate that employing people with disabilities is beneficial and worthwhile for the employer in terms of both human and financial aspects.

The main objective of this project has been to promote employment for people with disabilities and encourage their integration in the workplace through the regular use of digital services via the internet. These tools, based on ICT and social networking, are key elements with strong potential for promoting employment.

An ICT service based on an interactive web platform has been developed for the retail sector, and then validated through pilot studies of its use. It aids the integration and adaptation of people with disabilities to the workplace. The tool provides guidance for users on how to successfully integrate people with disabilities, thanks to recommendations on how to adapt jobs according to the type of disability, ergonomic recommendations and information on the selection of positions or candidates, among others.

ADAPTAEMPLEO is the result of a project under the Avanza Plan run by the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, involving the Instituto de Biomecánica de Valencia (IBV – Biomechanics Institute of Valencia) and the Asociación de Centros Especiales de Empleo de COCEMFE (AECEMCO – Association of Special Job Centers).

DEVELOPMENT

Various techniques have been used to achieve the planned objectives and these have made it possible to collect, process and transfer information during the different phases of the project. The main tasks carried out are shown below.

1.     Characterization of the retail sector(work positions, tasks, environment) and the applicant:

♦ A questionnaire has been developed to collect information from specialists, managers and employees in the food retail sector, and a discussion group has been set up involvingprofessionals from the sector.

♦ An extensive bibliographic and document review has been carried out, focusing on the following aspects:

o   Problems with workplace integration, adapting to the workplace, ergonomic risks and psychosocial risks for people with disabilities.

o   Design of work conditions.

o   General and specific recommendations.

o   Best practices, examples, case studies and experiences.

o   Regulations.

♦ A procedure has been obtained for determining the capabilities (physical, sensory, mental) that a person with a disability may have that allow them to carry out certain jobs, and a procedure has been established for defining the demands that may be associated with jobs according to whether they are physical, sensory or mental.

♦  A review of ergonomic and adaptation studies has been carried out, which has helped define the possibilities for job adaptation that could favor successful integration.

♦ A panel of experts has been set up, moderated by the IBV, which has seen the participation of representatives from various special job centers and experts in adapting work environments to people with disabilities. As a result, a map or placement plan has been generated, which reflects the degree of suitability or mismatch between the characteristics (demands) of the jobs and the capabilities of people with disabilities.

2. Definition of the web application requirements. The functional design of the application (concept map), the functionality requirements and the main recommendations (usability, accessibility and esthetics) to be kept in mind when designing the service were described.

3. Design and development. This phase saw the completion of all the tasks related to programming the modules and developing the web environment.

4.  Pilot and demonstration experiences. These involved 3 companies from the retail sector (Lidl, Mercadona and Carrefour) and 19 employees from special employment centers and applicants from COCEMFE (Spanish Confederation of Disabled People). The procedure involved was as follows:

♦ Collect information about the workers, the tasks they perform and their difficulties by providing an initial questionnaire to the CEE (Special Job Centers) and SILES (Workplace Integration Services).

♦ Hold an initial meeting in Madrid with the participating centers.

♦ Conduct pilot studies. In every study the operation of the tool was explained to the user with the manuals and demonstration videos. Each participant visited the website and carried out a series of tasks (registration, free browsing, consulting adaptations, job creation, etc.). After completing these, their opinions were collected through an evaluation questionnaire that included questions relating to task performance (errors), difficulty, satisfaction, usability, functionality, accessibility and areas for improvement.

♦ It ended with a discussion group involving representatives from the participating centers.

With all this information, in addition to the technical review conducted during the development of the pilot tests, the initial prototype was redesigned to create the current version, incorporating improvements and new features in both the private area (companies, applicants) and the public area of the tool (new content).

5.  Dissemination of the results.Throughout the project there have been visits, conferences and information sessions to present the application to end users, companies, special employment centers, workplace integration services and other organizations.

The results obtained from the project are shown on a website that can be accessed using the following address: http://www.adaptaempleo.es

The content of this website is divided into two main areas (public and private):

♦ The public area includes tutorials and resources that may be useful for people with disabilities, companies, employment service and human resources specialists, such as reference materials, regulations and legislation and websites. It also includes a section where examples of the most frequent job positions in the sector can be seen and best practices can be consulted (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Public information area

♦ The private area includes the different modules of the interactive advisor and it is essential for companies or applicants to register in advance (for free) before they can access this area (Figure 2). These modules offer:

o Advice for people with disabilities about finding employment in the food retail sector: possible positions to be filled, necessary adaptations and adjustments according to the individual’s capabilities, ergonomic recommendations, etc.

o Advice for companies in the retail sector on employing people with disabilities, enabling these companies to identify when a vacancy may be filled by a person with a disability and, where appropriate, the actions (reasonable adaptations and adjustments) to be taken so that this person can occupy the position in question.

Figure 2. Private area: applicants

One of the results obtained is the comparison of the job with the selected capabilities profile (Figure 3). This shows information relating to difficulty in adapting the position, the mismatches map and direct access to look up the adaptations which would allow for successful integration.

Figure 3. Screenshot of mismatches map

The website also seeks to increase the interaction between its visitors by creating a user community where businesses and people with disabilities can exchange their integration experiences, start discussion groups and express opinions, etc., establishing fruitful relationships between these parties.

CONCLUSIONS

The tool provides a general overview for companies on adapting their jobs and allows them to discover whether people with disabilities (physical, cognitive, sensory) can fill these positions and, if they can, what adjustments should be applied in the workplace in order to achieve satisfactory performance of tasks. The development of this application benefits both individuals and companies, and experiences of using it have so far been very satisfactory.

The tool is aimed at the food retail sector. However, the next stages in its development mainly include extending it to new sectors or activities, adapting the application to different countries and languages, and incorporating new functionalities into the tool.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The project is taking place within the framework of the AVANZA Digital Citizenship sub-program, which is part of the Strategic Action for Telecommunications and Information Society (AVANZA Plan 2) financed by the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism (action TSI-040202-2011-13).