How to Create an Accessible Workplace: 10 Accessibility Guidelines for Employers

1. Know about your legal obligations

There is a strong business case for creating a more disability-friendly, accessible workplace. People with a disability generally take fewer days off, less sick leave, and they tend to stay in jobs longer than other employees, to name just a few benefits. But employers also have legal obligations concerning accessibility and non-discrimination. Here are the main laws and regulations to be aware of:

• Disability Discrimination Act 1992
• Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986
• Fair Work Act 2009
• Disability (Access to Premises – Buildings) Standards 1986.

In addition to these federal laws, there is also state and territory anti-discrimination legislation, which may apply to your organisation.

2. Make reasonable adjustments

The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 requires employers to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to remove barriers at work that prevent people with a disability from performing their job. Employees can request adjustments to be made to the physical workspace, work arrangements, job duties or processes, and the attitudes of colleagues.

As an employer, you are required to make the adjustments unless you can prove that it would cause ‘unreasonable hardship’ to your organisation. For more information about making reasonable adjustments, you can visit the Australian Government’s Comcare website.

3. Conduct an accessibility audit of your organisation

Auditing your organisation’s accessibility can help you to identify which areas need improvement. Areas that you can assess in your audit include:

• policies
• procedures
• training
• disability diversity in the workplace.

It is important to consider a range of disabilities in your audit, not just the most visible ones. These could include:

• sensory impairments, such as visual and hearing impairments
• cognitive, learning and neurological disabilities
• motor disabilities
• speech and language disorders.

You can conduct the audit yourself or you could enlist the services of an access auditor. They could identify potential work that needs to be done to improve access, as well as provide costing estimates and give advice about compliance with the law.

4. Create an accessibility action plan

After conducting an audit of your organisation, the next step is to identify the actions required to make improvements. Here are some examples of actions that you could include in your action plan.

• Make all facilities wheelchair accessible.
• Create an inclusiveness checklist for all events in the organisation to ensure that they are inclusive.
• Develop a recruitment strategy to increase hiring of people with disabilities.
• Adapt information and promotional resources to meet the needs of people with vision and hearing impairments.

It is helpful to prioritise actions based on impact and feasibility. Setting realistic timelines and assigning ownership and accountability for each action can help to ensure your actions are implemented. It is also a good idea to regularly review and update your plan.

5. Make your premises physically accessible

Ensuring that everyone can access your premises – employees, customers and visitors alike – makes good business sense. Beyond that, making your building physically accessible is also a legal requirement in Australia. People with a disability have a right to access any premises that other members of the public can freely access. Some things to consider include:

• lifts and ramp access
• accessible car parking spaces
• adequate lighting
• clear markings on steps
• accessible signage with visual, audio and tactile cues
• accessible toilets.

When you are thinking about how to enhance the physical accessibility of your organisation, you might find it helpful to review the Disability (Access to Premises — Buildings) Standards 2010 (for guidelines on the application of the standards, you can visit the Australian Human Rights Commission website). These standards offer guidance on providing public access to buildings for people with a disability. When constructing or renovating your premises, you may also want to consider the principles of universal design. 

It is also helpful to think about your organisation’s overall accessibility. This includes, for example, how far your building is from public transport, whether there is a safe drop-off area for taxis with clear access to the building, and whether there is adequate lighting on external pathways.

6. Consider your organisation’s digital accessibility

Digital accessibility is about designing technology products and environments so that they can be used by people of all abilities without any barriers. Ensuring digital accessibility in your workplace involves considering all the touchpoints for employees from the job application process to the company website, internal communications and even social media posts. Consider doing the following:

• equipping all intranets, recruitment portals, employee portals and company websites with assistive technology, such as screen readers and Braille displays
• ensuring alternative input methods are supported. These may include keyboard-only navigation, speech dictation and switch control
• testing the accessibility of your digital products. You can do this by working with internal resource groups or external agencies to have digital platforms accessed to identify areas that need to be refined.

7. Implement universal design principles

The concept of universal design is about incorporating inclusiveness into design. The idea is that products and environments should be accessible to most people, regardless of their age, disability, background or any other characteristics. Universal design can apply to a wide range of domains, from buildings and open spaces to products, services, digital applications, websites and documents. Briefly, the 7 principles of universal design are:

1. equitable use
2. flexibility in use
3. simple and intuitive use
4. perceptible information
5. tolerance for error
6. low physical effort
7. size and space for approach and use.

These principles provide a set of accessibility guidelines which can help to enhance the design of your physical spaces, products, services and digital resources.

8. Host inclusive and accessible events

Company events are opportunities for your teams to interact and connect. Ensuring that everyone can participate in these events equally can help to enhance employee engagement and foster a company culture of inclusion. Here are some key factors to consider when organising an inclusive event.

• Choosing a venue that is accessible – for example, with wheelchair ramps and accessible toilets – and close to accessible transport. Every attendee should be able to move around the venue easily.
• Providing an accessibility map, which clearly shows accessible routes and facilities.
• Ensuring inclusive communication. For example, you could provide real-time captioning of panel discussions and seminars, hire sign language interpreters and provide signage that is readable for people with visual impairments.
• Making sensory adjustments to help neurodiverse attendees to feel included, for example, by creating quiet zones or low-sensory spaces and minimising the use of flashing lights or loud noises.

9. Provide employee awareness training

An important part of being an accessible, disability-friendly workplace is creating an inclusive workplace culture. Providing all employees with awareness training can help them to understand the importance of accessibility and learn how to promote it in their roles. Some topics to consider including in your training are:

• the impacts of unconscious bias
• the role of assistive technology
• broader societal issues for people with disabilities
• the importance of providing accessible solutions.

10. Develop inclusive recruitment processes

Building a more diverse workforce through an inclusive recruitment process can enhance your employer brand while helping to fill skills shortages. Other benefits include more innovation and productivity, and lower employee churn.

Actively employing people with disability also helps them to feel seen and represented, and it sends a powerful message about your organisation’s values and commitment to inclusivity and equity. And with a considerably lower labour force participation rate for people with disability (53.4%) compared to people without a disability (84.1%), hiring people with disability can also help to close this employment gap.

Here are some ways you can adapt your recruitment process to make it more inclusive:

• set diversity targets in your recruitment strategy
• write job descriptions with clear, specific and behaviour-based role requirements
• conduct inclusive, structured interviews, using skills-based assessments to help your recruiters make evidence-based decisions
• include a statement in your job advertisements, which lets applicants know that you are an equal opportunity employer that is prepared to provide reasonable accommodations for neurodiverse employees and employees with disability.

Final thoughts

Creating an accessible workplace is important, these accessibility guidelines should give you a good starting point. The investment of time and money is well worth it when you consider the payoff – a welcoming, diverse and inclusive workplace with happy and productive employees.