Affiliations: Department of Educational Foundations and Special
Services, Kent State University, 405 White Hall, P.O. Box 5190, Kent, OH
44242-0001, USA. Tel.: +1 330 672 2929; Fax: +1 330 672 2512; E-mail:
dunger1@kent.edu | Virginia Commonwealth University, Rehabilitation
Research and Training Center on Workplace Supports, Richmond, VA, USA
Abstract: Increasingly, employers are providing a variety of accommodations to
applicants or employees with disabilities. However, little is know about the
resources that employers access to identify and develop accommodations in the
recruitment, hiring and retention of employees with disabilities. Human
resource professionals and supervisors were surveyed to determine the extent to
which businesses were aware of, and utilized, the vast array of workplace
supports available. Findings indicated that employers have limited awareness of
workplace supports and rely primarily on their own organizational resources in
identifying and securing accommodations. Yet, business professionals expressed
confidence in their ability to meet and support the needs of employees with
disabilities despite many supervisors indicating that they did not have the
authority to secure accommodations for workers with disabilities.
Keywords: reasonable accommodations, workplace supports, employees with disabilities
