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🖥 Remote work as a reasonable accommodation is not a privilege. Remote work is a vital component in facilitating the inclusion of many disabled employees in the workforce around the world and is a reasonable accommodation under the #ADA Americans with Disabilities Act. Remote work enables employees with disabilities or children with disabilities to meet their unique and dynamic needs. How much are companies allowing for the needs of their hard working employees? For employees with disabilities, the rise of #remotework has brought significant benefits by removing physical barriers and providing more inclusive work environments. Remote work eliminates the need for commuting, which can be a significant challenge for many disabled employees. Remote work is a necessity for many disabled employees. #DisabilityInclusion Before covid it was a reasonable accommodation. It is most certainly a reasonable accommodation now. Are you leading a distributed team with members spread around the globe? Health Insurance by Insured Nomads provides a flexible and custom built solution so that you can cover locals, cross-border team members, contractors and international assignees and it includes much more than medical with unlimited virtual physician consults with no per call fees, unlimited mental health sessions, unlimited Priority Pass access, Global Nomad Pass membership, McAfee cybersecurity and our #dutyofcare suite of crisis response, alerts and benefits so that you are caring for your workforce well.

Remote work as a reasonable accommodation is not a privilege, a mere preference, or a concession for laziness. Remote work is a vital component in facilitating the inclusion of many disabled employees in the workforce. Remote work enables employees with disabilities to meet their unique and dynamic needs. Remote work supports employees in remaining highly productive without compromising health or exacerbating symptoms. Remote work is a necessity for many disabled employees. It was a reasonable accommodation before covid. It most certainly is a reasonable accommodation now.

Why aren’t we recognizing the value of hiring part time professionals?? While remote is integral for someone with disabilities - and we are so so lucky to have someone like Julie advocating for this - it’s not that huge of an improvement when the worker still needs to be at their desk for specific hours. Personally, I wish actually that employers would recognize job sharing or part time as a legit form of work. There are a lot of skilled professionals who have disabilities in some form who pushed through the early part of their career - simply because they were younger with more energy - and then struggle as they get older to continue working full time. These are not just people looking for a job, these are skilled pro’s with the work experience so many companies desperately wish they could hire. So many small companies could afford to hire people that could really take their product places - on engineering or product or design - if they were open to part time positions. Then as their company grew they could hire that second hire as a junior and have the pro they hired first train them up. That is a much healthier way to build the foundations of your product than having juniors plan and build it from day one because their full time salary was all that was in budget. I am one of those people that now need part time work and it’s been very difficult to even *find* any part time positions to apply to. Which is really unfortunate because honestly in my professional experience most of my product management work was done out of hours and didn’t take very long. The vast majorly of on the clock time is wasted in unnecessary meetings and if the software project were run more efficiently - assuming the PM only works on one project - it would be quite possible to have a part time product manager. Similarly a part time but highly experienced engineer who has previous experience running and/or working in larger cross functional teams as a companies first engineer, working with a product manager, would not only set a new product up well but will move faster and cost much less over your first couple years than hiring a full time junior engineer. Pro’s not only move faster but they have years of experience learning what not to do and learning how to scale. I believe it’s time for a shift. You want professionals? Are you struggling to find professionals in your budget? Maybe you should think about finding a professional who just can’t do standard schedules anymore. Maybe you should think about finding a professional who for them your part time contract will be their full time job. For what it’s worth if you are open to hiring an experienced professional - on a permanent part time contract - reach out to me. I know quite a few people in the same position as me ranging from engineers, to facilities managers, to project coordinators, to yes product managers (me, lol) who are looking for somewhere that can offer them a shorter more flexible work week.

Excellent points made here. For some individuals, who make a conscious choice to work hybrid or remotely, it could make the difference between being able to balance home/life and deceasing stress or being stretched to their limit. I can certainly say, I’m much more productive when the stress of driving a long commute is cut out. I support workers having choices. Being the most overworked nation takes its toll. 1 and 5 people in the US suffers from a mental illness. Let’s not assume that individuals who work from home are abusing the system, when in fact it could be a healthier option for the individual and produce a more productive and happier team.

Another perspective on the value of remote work — this time considering how beneficial this option is for people with disabilities. This post has garnered a great discussion in the comments section! We recommend checking it out. • • • • • • • • #remotework #remoteemployment #hybrid #humanresources #hr #hrm #disabilityawareness #disability #inclusion #workfromhome

The current trend of trying to force workers back into a physical office is elitist and ablest. Not everyone can make it into work every single day and perform at their full capacity, and setting that expectation is dehumanising to workers with disability, or have to spend large amounts of their earning on public transport/driving costs. All research shows that hybrid and remote work models benefit everyone, reducing stress and fatigue for employees, and costs for employers. There is literally no reason to work in an office unless you're working with materials and resources that can only be accessed on site.

I couldn't agree more with Julie Harris Personally, my disability has recently gotten worse and it is affecting the joints of my coccyx, even making sitting down on anything other than a squishy sofa excruciating. Even codeine doesn't help with the pain lol. Imagine someone thinking you have to travel anywhere between 30 minutes to 2.5 hours one way is reasonable for up to 5 days a week when you can't do it pain-free. Would you consider that reasonable let alone practical? The answer is no. Why is it then that every disabled person (including myself) is expected to compromise on our health further when simple accommodations could be put in place? In my lived experience and professional opinion as an ex-support worker for people with disabilities: Society doesn't like disabled people, the stereotypes of us being lazy are everywhere and quite frankly it shows in every aspect of our society not just work structures as we are left out of every decision always. I have seen people unable to have a mammogram because the new machine that was designed didn't consider wheelchair users and they were told a self-exam would suffice. If that was true why insist women have mammograms to catch cancer early? What that said loudly was it doesn't matter if you all get cancer because you're not as important. #disabilities #disabilityawareness #reasonableadjustments #disabled

So true. Employers who view remote work as a “privilege” are outdated and alienating an entire workforce population who have seen the tangible and intangible benefits of a hybrid or remote workforce. Sure, remote work can be used as an incentive, however, viewing it as a privilege is dangerous to your viability as an employer who is hopefully attempting to recruit and retain talent. If you don’t want talent, then continue to operate with an outdated and inflexible business model.

Another perspective on the advantages of remote work