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JAN

MONTHLY WEBCAST SERIESCURRENT EVENTS IN JOB ACCOMMODATION

FEBRUARY 14, 20171:45 P.M. ET

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***This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

***>> LINDA BATISTE: Hello, everyone, happy Valentine's Day and welcome to the

Job Accommodation Network's accommodation and compliance audio and web training series I'm Linda Batiste and I'm here with Beth Loy.

>> BETH LOY: Hello.>> LINDA BATISTE: Beth and I will be presenting today's program called "Current

Events in Accommodation". But before we start the program as you know we're going to have to go over just a few housekeeping items. First, if any of you experience technical difficulties during the webcast please give us a call at 800-526-7234 for voice, hit button 5 or for TTY call 877-781-9403.

Second, toward the end of the presentation we'll have a question and answer period, time allowing. But you can send in your questions at any time during the webcast to our email account, question@askJAN.org or you can use our question and answer pod located at the bottom of your screen. To use that pod you just type in your question and then submit it to the question queue. Also on the bottom of your screen you'll notice a file sharepod that you can use if you have difficulty viewing the slides or if you would just like to download them. You can also download the resource handout that we have put together for today's program. And finally, I want to remind you that at the end of the webcast, an evaluation form will automatically pop up on your screen in

another window. We really do appreciate and use your feedback so we hope you will stay logged onto fill out that evaluation form

>> BETH LOY: Beth I think it's important to let the audience know today we're talking about "Current Events in Accommodation" and we'll address some of the new things we have at JAN and we do this webcast in kind of a different way.

>> LINDA BATISTE: Great. Yeah. And we always look forward to it especially your part when you show off new technology we like that part.

>> BETH LOY: And it's the exciting part about the technology is that a lot of this stuff isn't even on the market yet.

>> LINDA BATISTE: Yeah, secret stash of technology that you'll find somewhere.>> BETH LOY: It's going to be good so let's get started.>> LINDA BATISTE: All right. Let's start with the home front we have lots of

exciting news to report to you today and we're happy to report, first of all, that we've had another very busy year at JAN partly due to ongoing interest in the ADA and the many documents that Equal Employment Opportunity Commission published this year. And partly due to an increase in questions regarding reasonable accommodations. What we're seeing in our calls is employers are conditioning to focus on what's required under their duties to provide accommodations rather than with employees with disabilities we'll hear about retaliation and interference under the ADA, a big hot topic right now and the Association Provision of the ADA and then we'll look at leave as a reasonable accommodation.

We'll be talking more about these issues later on in the broadcast but for now I would like to report that we handled over 55,000 contacts last year. Very busy year. And most of those were from employers and individuals with disabilities. This was actually a record-breaking number for us. It kind of felt that way most of the year.

>> it sure did it definitely did but it certainly let us know what's hot, what's interesting to employers and what are employers worried about.

>> LINDA BATISTE: Exactly a lot of our contacts are taking advantage of all of the different ways there are to reach us now. But still half of the contacts came in the old-fashioned way through the toll free telephone lines the other half came in electronically through either our general email account our online tool called JAN on Demand, our live chat or our social network accounts such as Facebook, Second Life and Twitter. And speaking of Twitter for those who joined us last year, we noted we had close to 5,000 followers and hoped to reach 5,000 by the end of the year. Very happy to report that with your help we have almost now 5300 followers if you're not one of them please start following us we have a new lofty goal we want to reach 6,000 by the end of the year.

So join us, if you can.>> BETH LOY: Linda you know what's popular about these communication

methods is that people who ask the questions and have a record have a transcript of it.>> LINDA BATISTE: Exactly. We've had a lot of people say they like the new ways

of communicating better. Our Web site remained pretty popular, too, in the last year we received over 10

million page requests. And what I would like to do now is briefly mention some of the things we added to our site in case you're not aware of them we picked out some things we thought might be of interest to you.

Hot off of press are two new training modules related to building more inclusive workplaces. One is called the Value Proposition for Engaging People with Disabilities and the other is called Disability Awareness to increase your comfort confidence and competence.

>> BETH LOY: People like that one, that has been asked about many times in the last few months.

>> LINDA BATISTE: These training modules have been helpful. If you're not familiar with some of the other things we have we have a list here on the slide for you some of the topics are all about JAN in case you want to provide some information about what we want to do here, assistive technology, ergonomics, reasonable accommodations for people with PTSD, for brain injury, we have one about the ADA Amendments Act, one about the interactive accommodations process. And one called Bridging the Gap across Transition. All of these modules and their accompanying handouts are free and fully accessible and they can be used any time that's convenient for you for large, small, any size trainings. It doesn't matter. And if you schedule your training during JAN working hours which are 9 to 6 Eastern Time you can also schedule a live call-in with a JAN consultant if you want to have a question and answer session after viewing the modules you can find the modules by clicking the training tab right off the homepage and we provided the homepage in the resource handouts we provided for you.

Also new on our site are several archived webcasts including webcasts on such topics as assistive technology related accommodations related to safety in the workplace and our annual update.

>> we often get the question related to these archives if we will provide a certificate for someone attending it or viewing it and the answer is sure you view it on the Web site give us a call send an email and let us know we'll send you a certificate for attending it we also have new additions of quarterly ENews food allergies claustrophobia and sensory processing disorders. Performance management new supervisors which is a big issue right now and harassment and bullying and information on products like sit-stand workstations and hands free telephones. Go to askJANorg/ENews. Email us at subscribe@askJAN.org and this link is on the resource handout if you need it. You can find our blog again right off the JAN homepage. Brand-new for those who haven't seen it is the JAN Accommodation Toolkit which is a collection of tools for managing the reasonable accommodation process. The toolkit offers sample accommodation policies and practices Sample forms for each stage of the Interactive Process three training

videos for handling disability disclosures and requests for accommodation.>> BETH LOY: I'll tell you what if I were training for a supervisor this toolkit is

where I would go it's free the videos and samples those are the types of things especially when you need when you first start out.

>> LINDA BATISTE: You can find this on the JAN webcast the sponsor agency, ODEP is in the news again. We would like to highlight some of the things ODEP has been doing for many years very important program we want to make sure employers are aware of it it's called Workforce Recruitment Program for people with disabilities ODEP helps manage this. These individuals tend to be very eager to prove their abilities in the workplace through summer or permanent jobs a lot of them turn into permanent jobs.

On the home front these are exciting times for us thank you for letting us share our news with you and you can stay tuned to the JAN Web site at askJAN.org for all of the latest news here is Beth with today's business news the JAN cost benefits report.

(Technical difficulties).>> BETH LOY: When I run the data the numbers are usually changing in very, very

small ways. I'm highlighting the results of a change from last year and you'll see there are very few changes.

So the first finding I would like to share is employers want to provide accommodations so they can retain valued and qualified employees.

So how do we know this? Employers who contacted JAN for accommodation solutions most were doing to retain or promote a current employee. That's 83%. On average, including those persons who had just been given a job offer or who were newly hired, the employees had been with the company about seven years. Had an average wage of about $14 for those paid by the hour or an average annual salary of about $51,500 a year. In addition the individuals tended to be fairly well educated with 54% having a college degree or higher. And these data didn't change from the previous year except from the average annual salary as we can tell these are not lowend jobs they include a variety of jobs from manufacturing, education, industrial jobs to service type jobs.

Let's look at a real example that we dealt with that highlights the points that I just discussed.

We had a situation involving a tax specialist with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Who had difficulty handling stress and controlling his emotions.

The employee's physician stated that these limitations were due to his PTSD and the side effects of changing his medication his job performance and attendance were declining so this is a problem. Now as a reasonable accommodation the employer allowed the employee to use a service animal.

Now, the benefit in this case is that from making the accommodation, the employee became much more effective. And the employer benefited from improving productivity

as well as attendance. And the reported cost of making this change, what was it, Linda.>> LINDA BATISTE: You say, $0, notta.>> BETH LOY: $0. It was a change in policy. Okay. So the next finding I want to talk about is that most employers report no cost or low

cost for accommodating employees with disabilities and this is probably the finding that you see most often cited in different articles or interviews or research papers.

Now, the employers in this study reported that a high percentage, 59%, of job accommodations cost absolutely nothing to make. This is up 1% from last year While the majority of the rest of the accommodations typically cost only $500 and these were one-time costs.

Now, this cost has actually remained the same as what it was last year. We didn't really have enough data for ongoing costs to calculate reliable numbers and again these results haven't really changed over the last four, five years or so. They have remained pretty consistent.

So let's look at another real life accommodation situation. We had a middle school teacher with hearing loss who had trouble communicating when there was excessive noise in her environment. Now, as a reasonable accommodation, the employer purchased noise abatement products for her classroom. The employer stated that the accommodation allowed the employee to return to the classroom and increased her productivity.

What was the cost, Linda? >> LINDA BATISTE: $140. Pretty low>> BETH LOY: Yeah, pretty low. The third finding I would like to share is that employers report that accommodations

are effective. And this is the one that I like. Because we're all in the accommodations field in one way or another and we like to know that what we're doing on the job is effective.

So of the employers who responded, 75%, and this is up 1% from last year, reported that accommodations were either very effective or extremely effective. And certainly we feel here at JAN that this is an important success rate for employers to know about.

So let's look at another real life accommodation situation. This was a situation involving a groundskeeper who wore hearing aids worked at a

school campus and having problems communicating with co-workers and during training because of hearing loss as a reasonable accommodation the employee requested what's called a Bluetooth streamer which the employer provided. Now, the employee was very happy with the accommodation stating it improved his ability to communicate.

The employer also stated it improved interactions with co-workers and the public. The reported cost.

>> LINDA BATISTE: 1,000 big ones.>> BETH LOY: And you're keeping a good employee. Probably a hard-to-find

employee. Someone who has been with the school for a long time. Kids know him. Teachers know him. Secretaries know him Everybody is happy with him. Now everybody can communicate. So $1,000 goes a long way. So the study results have consistently shown that the benefits that employers receive from making workplace accommodations far outweigh the low cost and to top off these results, we would like you to know you're always more than welcome to contact JAN with any need that you have. We think that -- well we try to do a good job in meeting your needs. We are measured here at JAN on the number of employers who say they would use our services again. So far we have 99% of employers who state they would use our services again. And we want to keep that. Certainly don't want it to go down on the watch that Linda and I are working on.

>> LINDA BATISTE: And it won't, either.>> BETH LOY: We want to keep it high. So when it comes to the business side of events, keep updates on this research

more off our A to Z topics page which is available from JAN's homepage you can go to either benefits or costs and you'll be able to find this updated report Now, with that let's head to a favorite topic for all of us, controversial but yet I guess you would say exciting politics, Linda?

>> LINDA BATISTE: Well as you know if you've been watching TV this year there are so many things we could talk about related to politics but we decided to play it safe and focus on our favorite legal topic and of course that's the Americans With Disabilities Act We'll be looking at some important issues, issues related to retaliation and interference under the ADA as well as the ADA's Association Provision. And I'll talk more about what those are in just a minute here.

In recently released enforcement guidance the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which as most of you know is the Federal agency that enforces the Employment Provisions at the ADA the EEOC provided information about retaliation. According to this guidance retaliation is the most frequently alleged basis of discrimination so preventing retaliation should be a major concern for employers.

And retaliation can occur very easily especially if you have a supervisor or manager on the frontline who doesn't understand what it is. Here is an example from the EEOC guidance.

Three weeks after a Federal employee sought EEO counselling regarding her complaint of disability discrimination, her supervisor posted the complaint on the agency's intranet where everybody, including co-workers, could read it. The supervisor also increased this employee's workload to punish her basically for that complaint.

Both of these supervisors' actions are going to be retaliation under retaliation law you can't retaliate under an -- against an employee like that.

>> BETH LOY: Why would you want to post a complaint that had personal information in it.

>> LINDA BATISTE: You know why, retaliation. So what is retaliation? And what does it have to do with accommodation. Retaliation occurs when an employer punishes an employee like the example we just gave who is engaged or may be planning to engage in protected activity under Federal EEO laws, equal employment opportunity laws that includes the ADA general protected activity means someone is trying to participate in an EEO process and that includes requesting an accommodation, filing a complaint, testing at a hearing, protected activity also includes opposing illegal conduct illegal under EEO laws and an example of that is standing up for yourself or standing up for a co-worker who you think is being discriminated against. In other words employers are not allowed to punish employees who assert their rights such as asking for an accommodation and employers are not allowed to punish employees who speak up for themselves or try to help co-workers whose rights are potentially being violated and that's assuming it's done appropriately for example you can't go up and slap your supervisor in the face in support of the co-worker because you think the supervisor is harassing the co-worker that slapping is wrong no matter why you did it that's not protected activity, it has to be reasonable response to what you're doing. Don't get any ideas, Beth.

>> BETH LOY: Okay.>> LINDA BATISTE: Also included in the flu EEOC guidance includes information

that's under the ADA and that's the Interference Provision. This provision is very similar to retaliation but a lot broader and it covers employer conduct that doesn't meet the standard required for retaliation so it's even easier to violate the Interference Provision than retaliation It basically says that an employer cannot interfere with ADA rights by doing anything reasonably likely to interfere with the exercise or enjoyment of ADA rights and the guidance provides additional information about what constitutes interference I'll give an example, coercing an employee to forego an accommodation she's otherwise entitled to, intimidating an applicant from asking for an accommodation by saying you're not going to get the job if you ask for that accommodation threatening an employee with loss of employment if he doesn't voluntarily submit to a medical exam that's illegal under the ADA. Issuing a policy that limits an employee's right to invoke ADA protection for example if you have a fixed leave policy that says you get this amount of time, no exceptions, that could violate this provision. Interfering with a former employee's right to file an ADA lawsuit by threatening to give them a bad job reference which I've seen a lot of employers do and submitting an employee to unwarranted discipline, demotion or other adverse treatment because he helped a co-worker request an accommodation. All of these things are prohibiting by the Interference Provision.

And let me give you a specific accommodation related example from the EEOC guidance that shows how broad this provision is when reviewing medical information

received in support of an employee's request for accommodation for her depression, the employer learns that although the employee's doctor had previously prescribed a medication that might actually eliminate the need for that accommodation, the employee decided not to take that medication because of its side effects So this employee said, no, I don't want to take the medication, you give me an accommodation instead.

The employer tells the employee if she does not go get on that medication and try it out first that he's not going to even consider giving her an accommodation.

The employer's actions constitute both denial of a reasonable accommodation and interference in violation of the ADA you cannot tell an employee she has to go take a certain medication or you won't accommodate her so you can see it doesn't take much to violate this provision just one sentence from a supervisor can do it.

What can employers do to help reduce the chances of being hit with a violation of retaliation or interference I mention EEOC shares recommendations I'll give an overview but there's more detail in the guidance the EEOC having written employer policy training for management providing anti-retaliation advice and support for employees, managers and supervisors.

Doing proactive follow-up with people that are alleging violations and improving actions to ensure EEOC compliance if you haven't looked at the new EEOC guidance you might want to review it because it contains really important information and we provided you with a link to this on your resource handout.

I just want to mention another provision of the ADA we have been getting a lot of questions about lately and that's called the Association Provision. Most of you I'm sure know Title I prohibits employers discriminating against people with disabilities and requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations. But not as many of you may be aware that the ADA prohibits discrimination against some employees who do not have disabilities.

That's the type of discrimination addressed by this Association Provision, so what is this provision according to the guidance the Association Provision prohibits discrimination against an employee whether or not he has a disability, it doesn't matter, it prohibits discrimination because of this employee's relationship or association with a person with a disability.

This means that an employer is prohibited from making bad employment decisions based on unfounded concerns about the known disability of for example a family member. Or anybody else the person has a relationship with.

The ADA doesn't actually require a family relationship in order for this provision to apply The key here is whether the employer is motivated by the employee's relationship or association with someone who has a disability.

Let me give you some examples from the guidance. These are things that would constitute violation of the Association Provision. Refusing to hire an individual who has a child with disability based on the

assumption that the applicant will be away from work too much or will be otherwise unreliable because of that child firing a chef who has a family member with AIDS based on the assumption that the chef will get the disease and then transmit it to customers through food.

Denying an employee health care coverage available to other employees because of the disability of an employee's dependent. All of those violate the Association Provision.

So again, you may be asking, what does all of this have to do with accommodations? Well the biggest question we get about the Association Provision is whether employers have to provide accommodations to employees who do not have disabilities but they need the accommodation due to the association they have with somebody with a disability. For example, would an employer have to provide extra leave time for an employee to take care of a daughter who has cerebral palsy? Well, the answer is no. Only qualified employees and applicants with disabilities get reasonable accommodations. So in our example, the ADA would not require the employer to modify its leave policy for this employee who needs time off to take care of a child with a disability.

>> BETH LOY: But here is the important part.>> LINDA BATISTE: Yes, but, keep in mind, the employer has to avoid treating that

employee differently than everybody else. This means that if the employer gives leave to other employees, extra leave to care for family members orchids without disabilities, then it's going to be discriminatory not to grant this employee the same to care for that daughter with a disability.

In other words, employers must give the same benefits and privileges of employment to all benefits but they dot no have to give more to employees who have family members or associations with people with disabilities.

If that's a little confusing and you want more information, take a look at the link we put on your Resource Guide to the publication called questions and answers about the Association Provision of the ADA.

It's a very good handout and it will explain this in more detail. And just so you know, there might be other laws related to caring for family

members. We get that question a lot, too. And we put another link on your handout to another publication from EEOC about that issue.

So the ADA is making headline news at least in our world here. And we think it will continue to do so for a long time stay tuned to the JAN Web site for all of the breaking political news and now I'll give it back to Beth to talk about my favorite part of this presentation and that's exciting developments in the world of technology.

>> BETH LOY: Wait until you hear some of the words I'm going to try to pronounce>> LINDA BATISTE: Good luck.>> BETH LOY: Well, this is a pretty exciting section and it's interesting for me to do

this year. This is a product that really it's like silly putty. I don't know if anybody got silly putty by I used to take silly putty and put it over top of the cartoons, the comic strips.

>> LINDA BATISTE: That's not like play-doh it's different it actually copies stuff.>> BETH LOY: Yeah. So this is a moldable silicone rubber. And as you can see in

the two pictures that I provided, it will turn a regular handle on a tool into an ergonomic handle.

>> LINDA BATISTE: Cool, does it stay sticky? >> BETH LOY: It does. It sets up -- it cures, so to speak, in 24 hours. >> LINDA BATISTE: Wow so it just stays on there like that. That's cool>> BETH LOY: Yeah so you mold it how you want it and in 24 hours it gets hard. It

can stick to wood, metal, glass, plastics and even fabrics.>> LINDA BATISTE: Nice. >> BETH LOY: I have no idea what's in it.

(Chuckles).>> LINDA BATISTE: You may not want to know.>> BETH LOY: It's relatively cheap. You can get an 8 pack for $22. And the Web

site is available on your slide there, it's called sugru.com. Next we're going to talk about a more traditional type of technology, these are

alternative mice. These are two different types of new mice. One is the Swiftpoint Z and the other

one is the Swiftpoint GT. Let's talk about the GT first. It's the first on the right-hand side of the slide. It's probably the one that we would use the most in an office setting. It combines different types of intuitive touch gestures and it has a certain

percentage -- precision in it where it can almost read the mind of your hand you can swipe or flick your hand using a natural finger or wrist action without having to reach for your screen. You don't operate the mouse with a click or you don't use different types of scroll bars. It works like an ergonomic pen, has an ergonomic pen grip on it, it's wireless, operates by Bluetooth or USB receiver. And the gist of this mouse is it operates on truly natural touch gestures as if you're gesturing like when you're speaking to move something on your computer monitor

>> LINDA BATISTE: That's really neat.>> BETH LOY: So you get rid of the clicks and the scroll bars Almost like a smart

mouse I guess.>> LINDA BATISTE: Yes.>> BETH LOY: Cost of it, $149. Now the Swiftpoint Z mouse, the one on the left, this is the world's -- claimed to be

the world's first mouse to pivot, tilt and roll. And this will actually do many things. It's often used for gaming. But it gives you a new way of clicking buttons. You can access dozens of different button actions without really moving your fingers This mouse can

sense how hard you click. It gives you options of different speeds and forces and it provides tactile feedback through the operations that you make on the mouse.

So it knows when you need to make a deeper click versus a lighter click>> LINDA BATISTE: That's neat, too. >> BETH LOY: It has an accelerometer.>> LINDA BATISTE: Like a car sort of.>> BETH LOY: It has a gyroscope and forward sensor and tactile feedback and all

of that works to help learn how your hand operates using the mouse. The cost of this, $229. And you can get it from Swiftpoint.com.

This is an X-Ar exoskeletal arm support. And this actually attaches to your arm. It provides sort of a dynamic support through your natural range of motion it doesn't make you do odd things it just kind of supports the natural motion of your arm. It actually bears the weight of your arm while giving you the freedom to move it around like you usually would. And it means you can work with your arms outstretched with less fatigue and discomfort because you can stretch out your arm but you don't have to hold your arm up.

Exoskeletal arm support will hold the arm up for you. It assists with a wide range of activities, the first thing I thought of growing up on a farm was welding. You're always in strange places and positions. You have to weld for a very long period of time sometimes. Overhead work, different types of assembly tasks, soldering which is a fine motor task which takes a toll on your shoulders and arms, the price of this is between 2,000 and $3,000 and you can get it off the Web site, Equipois.

Next we have a piece of technology that's used for communicating this is Ava it's a communication device that provides real-time captions and this comes along to be a more effective accommodation it connects to peoples' SmartPhones and it will actually connect one SmartPhone to another SmartPhone.

It captures the audio from a conversation and translate the speech into text. >> LINDA BATISTE: Wow.>> BETH LOY: It's free if you want to use it up to five hours a month which really

isn't a lot when you're talking. It's $29.99 a month for unlimited use. >> LINDA BATISTE: Wow that's really neat. Okay. -->> BETH LOY: Next product these are called SignAloud Gloves developed by two

undergraduate students at the University of Washington. These gloves can translate American Sign Language into speech or text.

It actually won a $10,000 student prize that MIT was associated with for the invention now each of the SignAloud Gloves have sensors in it that records the movements you're doing and the gestures and transmits the information wirelessly to a central computer, the computer then looks at the data and if it matches a gesture, then the associated word or phrase is spoken through a speaker.

>> LINDA BATISTE: Wow that's cool. Can you buy that now? >> BETH LOY: No.>> LINDA BATISTE: It's not out yet? Wow I've got to have one of those I'm sure it

will be expensive.>> BETH LOY: But it's still a prototype>> LINDA BATISTE: Wow that's going to be neat.>> BETH LOY: Think of the applications for this type of device.>> LINDA BATISTE: I am thinking, I know>> BETH LOY: Okay switching gears a little bit we'll talk about this mobility aid.

Now, this is called UPnRIDE. You can get it from the UPnRIDE Web site It's made for indoor and outdoor use. It's auto balancing which would be good for you, Linda

>> LINDA BATISTE: Yeah.(Chuckles).

>> BETH LOY: It's a wheeled robotic device it provides upright and seated mobility both for wheelchair users and for anyone who is unable to or has difficulty standing and walking so it operates like a segue or an electric scooter kind of a combination of those two and it allows for mobility in either sitting or standing positions. Now the price of this.

>> LINDA BATISTE: What's that -- how much is that one.>> BETH LOY: 20,000 to $35,000.>> LINDA BATISTE: That's a little bit higher.>> BETH LOY: But you can see the applications for this.>> LINDA BATISTE: Oh, yeah.>> BETH LOY: To go from sitting to standing Pretty amazing. Next this is an old

one do you remember this>> LINDA BATISTE: It climbs stairs>> BETH LOY: Yes and it went off the market and now it's coming back thanks to

Toyota.>> LINDA BATISTE: Oh wow I like this one. >> BETH LOY: So Toyota and DEKA R & D are designing this next generation

iBOT it's going to come back and runs on four wheels and a little taller than a traditional wheelchair it's adaptable and can maneuver in a way that allows a user to climb up and downstairs. It goes on uneven terrain which is a big deal in West Virginia. It can move up and down hills. Now, one of iBOT's maneuvers it allows the user to rearrange the wheels in a vertical way and by doing so the person is elevated to a walking position.

>> LINDA BATISTE: Oh, okay. Wow. >> BETH LOY: So it becomes again similar to a segway there's no price on this yet

but they are saying they are shooting for less than a $25,000 price tag than the original iBOT because that's really the problem was with the original iBOT nobody could afford it so we'll see if Toyota can put that into motion.

Next we have what's called Touchable Ink. And this embosss printed areas so they

are recognizable to the sense of touch. It takes a normal printer and you can produce words and images that can be read by touch with this type of ink it has Braille paper using normal printers of normal and it's now being tested in Thailand.

You heat it with a normal household heating device like a microwave or hair dryer and the ink will dilate and give embossed effect again this is another one that's not quite available yet but Samsung is involved and they look to get it on the market before too long.

>> LINDA BATISTE: That's cool.>> BETH LOY: Next we have something called HandSight. This one, too, is still in

a prototype so I don't want to get you too excited(Chuckles).

>> BETH LOY: This came out of the University of Maryland. It augments a sense of touch to help people with visual impairments access more the physical surroundings. It has tiny cameras and what's called microhaptic actuators mounted on one or more fingers and it has machine learning algorithms to support like how you use your fingertips and hands and also has a SmartWatch for powering -- it will read the layout of your newspaper. It will read the newspaper to you and identify the colors of your clothes in the morning. It will even like help you to control your mobile phone. If you can't see it

>> LINDA BATISTE: Wow, a lot of cool stuff coming out.>> BETH LOY: Next these are smart glasses. And this is also still a prototype. It

was developed by the University of Utah. And these are liquid based lenses that automatically adjust the focus of what you're seeing Whether it's far away or close up.

So -->> LINDA BATISTE: You need these.>> BETH LOY: Yes

(Chuckles).>> BETH LOY: But these can be used where -- or you could use them and you can

just hand them to me and they would automatically adjust. It has glycerin in it. And they work like flexible rubber like membranes and what it does is it has these mechanical actuators in it that move the membrane back and forth like a piston and it changes the curvature of the liquid lens and changes the focal length between the lens and the eyes and this is what corrects your vision

>> LINDA BATISTE: Wow.>> BETH LOY: It adjusts in 14 milliseconds. It's not like you put it on and 5

minutes later you can see.>> LINDA BATISTE: How much is this one? >> BETH LOY: Still a prototype.>> LINDA BATISTE: Oh. >> BETH LOY: Next we have Extended Visual Assistant. EVA. This is a voice

controlled eyewear primarily for people who are visually impaired. It's made in Hungary and it has an artificial intelligence application. And it recognizes objects, text, signs and it verbally describes what it sees.

So it scans your surroundings and tells you what's happening. And the SmartPhone converts to images -- converts the images and converts it to audio and you use a set of headphones to hear what's going on in your surroundings from these glasses.

And it's an unknown timeframe. They are having problems with the battery life.>> LINDA BATISTE: Oh that's the problem>> BETH LOY: Right so they are working on that. And last we have one that is on

the market this is the Orcam somebody asked about this this is a tiny wearable computer that attaches to glasses it uses audio feedback to relay visual environment if you point the computer is able to understand which information you're looking at and it relays auditory feedback through an earpiece and the price of this, 2500.

>> LINDA BATISTE: Wow.>> BETH LOY: And that's it for technology and you can find updates on our

Searchable Online Accommodation Resource of askJAN.org.>> LINDA BATISTE: Very nice. Very interesting stuff. Now we're moving into the living section of our broadcast and this year we'll be

talking about disability and leave time that is needed because of an employee's disability. This last year the EEOC issued a publication all about leave as an accommodation under the ADA. We have been waiting for this for a long time. It's not a lot of new stuff but it puts everything the EEOC has on leave into one really nice publication and we use this every day so we thought we would share this information with you and we provided a link to it on your resource handout.

In our experience, leave is a frequently requested accommodation and one that employers tend to struggle with figuring it out.

A lot of the employers are now starting to just turn over all of their leave issues to a third party company that specializes in processing and managing leave requests. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how knowledgeable the third party vendor is. Leave time is very important to a lot of the employees with disabilities that we talk to, especially employees who have periodic flareups or they need to take leave in order to regulate their medical condition to attend medical appointments. So this can be a really tricky issue for the individual who has to do this in order to work. Also for the employer who is trying to get work done.

So it's going to be really important for everybody to understand what the ADA says about leave as an accommodation.

One of the main questions we get from employers is how much leave has to be provided for an accommodation.

Is there a specific amount spelled out in the ADA? And if not, is 12 weeks that's

under the FMLA, the Family and Medical Leave Act, is that enough? And if it's not enough, how are we going to determine how much is enough? Well the answer to the first question is pretty easy, no, there is no set amount of leave required under the ADA. It's a case-by-case determination.

The answer to the second question is also easy, the 12 weeks allowed under the FMLA is not automatically considered enough leave under the ADA. They are different laws. And again, the ADA is a case-by-case determination.

The third question is not easy to answer. But we're going to look at some of the factors employers can consider when determining how much leave has to be provided. Or if they have to provide leave at all. And remember, we're talking about leave beyond what the employer gives to everybody else. Employees with disabilities should get at least the amount of leave everybody else gets. We're talking about leave beyond that.

When looking at whether extra leave must be provided at all under the ADA the first thing you ask is whether the employee has a disability if you need information on how to make the determination we have information in our ADA library that can help you. That's right off our homepage the second thing you'll look at is whether the leave will actually help the employee be able to perform their job at some point in other words is there any indication that giving the employee leave will help them come back to work eventually. According to the EEOC employers do not have to grant indefinite leave or leave where the person is never going to return to work as an accommodation.

Accommodations are about finding ways for employees with disabilities to do their jobs. So if the employee is never returning to work, leave is not going to be an effective accommodation under the ADA.

>> BETH LOY: Have you ever talked about leave during a luncheon session? >> LINDA BATISTE: Oh my gosh, no.>> BETH LOY: I always feel like I'm going to get food thrown at me>> LINDA BATISTE: I would never do that.

(Chuckles).>> BETH LOY: Because some employers want tangible answers to this.>> LINDA BATISTE: Yeah a lot of them do and there aren't any So we're not saying that employees have to give an exact date they will be able to

return but they have to at least show there's some indication that they are going to return.

So let's look at how to determine whether leave will pose an undue hardship. The following factors are the kinds of things that employers can consider when an employee has requested leave beyond what the employer's policy allows.

First the employer will be able to look at whether they can ensure there are enough employees to get the work done. And that's going to depend on what the job is, how many people do it. Who is doing the work while the person is out. Things like that. Another thing an employer can look at whether they can meet work goals and serve

customers and clients adequately again this will depend on the job and what's happening with the work while the person is out.

The third thing employers can look at is really just the burden that's placed on other employees and we're not talking about morale here like I don't like doing this little bit of extra work. We're talking about actual effect that having to do all of the extra work the extra burden and the problems that the employees are going to have getting their own work done so it's actually what is it that they are having to do and how is it affecting them and you can look at the costs associated with paying temp workers if you hire them, paying overtime to co-workers and of course the employer can look at the amount or length of the leave required how often leave is needed whether there's any flexibility with respect to the days the leave is taken and whether the need for leave is predictable or unpredictable.

What about an employee who calls off a lot, typically they don't give any advanced warning, well these same factors are applied to that type of situation the employer can look at whether the work can be done whether clients and customers are being served, the burden placed on other employees and the costs involved. Under the ADA employers generally do not have to accommodate repeated instances of tardiness or absenteeism that happen a lot, they happen over a long period of time. And they happen with advanced notice. Those are the kind of things typically that give an employer a valid undue hardship claim but keep in mind each situation is different and should be looked at on a case-by-case basis another question we get a lot related to leave is whether or not an employer can keep the employee at work instead of allowing the leave and the answer is yes under the ADA. Keep in mind that if the employee qualifies for FMLA, the employer must allow the leave and can't require the employee to work with accommodations instead but if it's just ADA then the employer has the right to say well let's look at accommodations that are going to allow you to stay at work.

What about the -- can an employer insist a employee take leave instead of providing accommodations the answer is no I think this is a little bit tricky but the answer is no because the EEOC has stated that unless the employee requests leave, leave is not going to be considered as effective as our accommodations. Because leave is not going to allow the person to work. And also an employee who has to take leave will lose things like accrued leave time work related opportunities, social events, et cetera.

So taking leave is not going to be the accommodation an employer should choose unless an individual asks for it.

All right. And just a couple other things that I want to mention that come up a lot in our calls the first is whether leave as an accommodation will be paid or unpaid.

This goes back to what I said earlier. Employees with disabilities should get at least what other employees get. So the leave has to be paid up to the point other employees get paid for leave and then after that it can be unpaid.

What about benefits like insurance? Do benefits have to be continued while an

employee is taking leave as an accommodation? Same rule. Only if the employer continues benefits for other employees who take leave.

I know that was a whirlwind tour of leave as an accommodation. But if you need more information about leave, you can call us any time at JAN and we'll try to talk you through that we also have a web page dedicated to leave issues it has the publication that I mentioned from EEOC as well as several other publications to help you sort this out.

We've learning disability our JAN page on leave on the current slide. And again you can find that right off the A to Z by topic section of our Web site

So that's the news about living and disability and work. Stay tuned to the JAN Web site for all of the latest news. And back to Beth to round out the show with the world report.

>> BETH LOY: Well, Linda, for our world report, we're going to show our new JAN outreach video.

>> LINDA BATISTE: Great.>> BETH LOY: And hopefully after talking about all of that technology, the

technology is going to work. (Chuckles).

>> BETH LOY: This is something that Linda and I put together and we produced here at JAN. And in this you have individuals again who are first line supervisors or doing disability training we think this would be something good for you to use. If you're unfamiliar with everything that we do do, we hope this outreach video will shine some light on that. You can get it from our YouTube and that's learning disability on our resource handout.

So here we go. >> Welcome to the Job Accommodation Network, a free service of the U.S.

Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy, and the nation's premiere workplace accommodation resource.

We are JAN! Our comprehensive services include technical assistance, training, publications and research on workplace accommodations, and the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Anyone can use our services but our biggest customers are employers and individuals with disabilities

People can access our services by calling us, using our Web site, emailing and texting. We are also available on several social networks.

Prior to 1992, JAN averaged 630 accommodation contacts per month. But in 1992 when the ADA went into effect for employers, these soared to over 1600 per month and now reach more than 4200 per month.

Annually JAN consultants handle over 50,000 inquiries via telephone and electronic services and 8 million customers visit the JAN Web site as you might imagine many of

the questions we get are about technologies to improve workplace productivity for employees with disabilities.

As computers, tablets, SmartPhones, wireless communication and similar technology become common in workplaces, employees with all types of impairments need to be able to use the technology. JAN consultants have in-depth knowledge about all types of technologies, and we'd like to show you a few examples. Here you see Taye using speech recognition software to interact with his tablet this technology allows him to use his voice to perform all the functions he could perform if he was typing at his keyboard. This technology is useful for employees who have limitations related to fine motor, sensory or learning. Here is Byron using a wearable device. A wearable device may be controlled by movements of the eyes, neck or other parts of the body, which can be useful for employees with various disabilities.

There are thousands of other products available and JAN can help you identify one that works for you.

And here's Ming showing another example of a accommodation that can improve the probability of an employee with a disability Ming is using a service animal to assist with an emergency evacuation this type of accommodation can help employees with conditions that cause mental, sensory, cognitive, and mobility limitations.

JAN is also strongly committed to serving our Spanish-speaking workforce. JAN's outreach efforts include consultation and technical assistance in Spanish. Here is Jose translating for a Spanish-speaking customer. One of the exciting things JAN is doing is researching the cost and benefits of accommodations. Fearful of high costs? Well you don't need to be. Initial JAN data show that most workplace accommodations cost nothing. When there is a cost, it typically ranges from 500 to $600.

For example, telework, flexible scheduling, access to a personal assistant, parking and workstation access are accommodations that can cost very little.

>> JAN provides all of this technical assistance and information free of charge. Get one-on-one technical assistance or find out more in JAN's blog and newsletter all communications are confidential and available to anyone interested in workplace accommodation. We would like to leave you with one message, many of you may know the term job accommodation. But we like to think of it as increasing workplace productivity. Often for everyone, by investing in our workplace. Let's do the math. Over half of all accommodations cost nothing. When there is a cost to a job accommodation, it typically falls between 500 and $600. And 75% of all employers who contact JAN report that accommodations are effective. Make the investment. Start with JAN. We're here for you.

>> BETH LOY: For those videos and any more videos that we hope to continue to produce you can stay tuned at our Web site at askJAN.org. And we do have a couple of questions here we're going to try to squeeze in.

First Linda would requiring medical information from an employee's doctor before

we approve on accommodation fall under the Interference Provision.>> LINDA BATISTE: Absolutely not. If you're allowed to do something under the

ADA then it's not going to violate the Interference Provision and employers have the right to get certain medical documentation before approving an accommodation So as long as you're falling within the rules for what's allowed related to documenting an accommodation, then you're not going to have any problems under the Interference Provision.

>> BETH LOY: Next question, are there any cost effective alternatives to obtaining interpreter services? I'm going to say yes to this, depending on the situation. What I would like for this individual to do is to contact the office. Talk with one of our specialists. Depending on the situation there are other things that can be done to improve communication. Sometimes interpreter services are needed. It just depends.

Next question, can you rent this mobility aid? And would it work in a pharmacy setting? Of course it depends on the setting.

>> LINDA BATISTE: That was one of your products that you showed? >> BETH LOY: Yeah and it's for the mobility aids, whether you can rent it, I do not

know the answer to that. That would have to come from the company.>> LINDA BATISTE: Good question.>> BETH LOY: The last one we'll squeeze in here what if an employee is already

on leave and is released with accommodations that the employer cannot accommodate, can the employer say no and ask the employee to remain on leave?

>> LINDA BATISTE: And the answer is yes. If the employee asks for an accommodation that you're not able to provide and there's no effective accommodations that would allow the person to return to work then and perform a job then yes you can say no and say but we can offer you more leave until you are able to return to work with or without accommodations to do your job so the answer is yes.

>> BETH LOY: And with that, we do appreciate you all showing up today. And spending some time with us. Remember you can contact us at any time We're happy to take questions that you might have. And understand that we are here for you. And even though we had a limited time together today we are available as much as we can be to give you additional information or discuss an accommodation or ADA issue with us. So feel free to contact us. We do thank you for attending and thank you, also, to Alternative Communication Services for providing the net captioning. We hope the program was useful. As we mentioned earlier, as Linda mentioned earlier an evaluation form will automatically pop up in your screen in another window if you don't have popups blocked as soon as we're finished otherwise it will be sent to you later we appreciate your feedback so we hope to take a minute to complete the form. This concludes today's webcast.

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This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

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