The&nbsp;Assistive Technology Act of 2004&nbsp;defines assistive technology (AT) as &ldquo;any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities.&rdquo; Ultimately, AT can bridge the gaps between people&rsquo;s abilities and their job requirements.
Assistive technology can take on many forms, including low-tech devices such as canes and lever doorknobs, or high-tech devices, such hearing aids or motorized wheelchairs. Additionally, computer hardware and software, such as alternative keyboards, screen readers and voice recognition software, serve as forms of AT.
In many cases, while a device may not be considered AT by the mainstream public, it can often be considered so by people with disabilities. For a person with limited mobility, a simple back scratcher can become a reacher/grabber. For a person who is blind or low-vision, a cell phone loaded with appropriate apps can provide access to email, social media, transportation, public venues, and so much more.
Which AT solutions are designed for specific disabilities?
AT is not prescriptive, meaning not every tool will work for every person with the same disability. It is less about accommodating a specific disability, but more about accommodating the specific functional needs of a person with a disability. In many cases, one form of AT can accommodate many forms of disability. For example, voice recognition software can be a significant help for people with limited hand use, but can also be just as helpful for people who are blind/low-vision.
Is AT the same as an accommodation?
While AT can serve as a form of accommodation, it is not the same. Some accommodations, such as alternative work schedules, telecommuting, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dol.gov/odep/topics/personalassistanceservices.htm" rel="noopener" target="_blank">personal assistance services (PAS)</a>&nbsp;are examples of non-AT accommodations.
How do I find the right AT for my needs?
Finding the best AT can often be a process of trial-and-error. If you&rsquo;re seeking AT to assist you at work, the first step is to let your employer know about your disability (if you haven&rsquo;t already done so) and that you need AT to effectively do your job.
If you or your employer don&rsquo;t already have an idea about the best AT to meet your needs, it&rsquo;s best to connect to professionals that are either familiar with specific forms of AT or that are trained to match AT to specific needs. This can often include doctors, occupational therapists, rehabilitation professionals, speech-language pathologists, and other AT specialists. Additionally, many states and universities house AT lending libraries, which allow people to try out and borrow devices for various periods of time in order to determine its compatibility for specific needs.
After doing research or consulting with a professional, here are a few questions you can ask to determine whether a specific AT tool will meet your needs, either at work or elsewhere:
<ul>
<li>Does the tool address your specific needs and challenges?</li>
<li>Does it maximize your strengths?</li>
<li>Is there a simpler tool that would work as effectively?</li>
<li>Will it be easy to incorporate into your work?</li>
<li>How easy is it to learn to use the tool?</li>
<li>Will you receive support or training on how to use it?</li>
<li>Is the tool compatible with the existing technology you use? (For example, will it work on your existing computer or mobile device?)</li>
<li>How reliable is the device?</li>
<li>What technical support is available?</li>
</ul>
The above list was modified from Understood.org,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/assistive-technology/finding-an-assistive-technology/checklist-what-to-consider-when-looking-at-assistive-technology" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Checklist: What to Consider When Looking at Assistive Technology</a>.
Who pays for AT in the workplace?
If you identify as a person with a disability, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), AT can serve as a reasonable accommodation that your employer can provide to help you perform the essential functions of your job.
If tasks are non-essential functions to do your job, your employer does not have to provide AT. Keep in mind that your employer doesn&rsquo;t have to purchase the latest or most expensive version of a specific device or AT.&nbsp;Additionally, if they find another way to meet your needs without purchasing AT, they can do so.
The&nbsp;<a href="https://askjan.org/index.cfm" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Job Accommodation Network (JAN)</a>&nbsp;provides worksite accommodations solutions, among other services to increase employability of people with disabilities, and has proven that most accommodations cost less than $500. Ultimately, your employer cannot simply say they will do nothing because they can&rsquo;t afford to, unless they have explored all alternatives and can justify that the cost of the AT would cause undue hardship. When all options are eliminated, the next step would be to explore funding the AT yourself.
To learn more about AT funding sources, check out the Assistive Technology Industry Association&rsquo;s (ATIA)&nbsp;<a href="https://www.atia.org/at-resources/what-is-at/resources-funding-guide/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Funding Resource Guide</a>.
Where do I go to learn more?
Assistive technology continues to increase access to employment for people with disabilities. However, it&rsquo;s important to consider individual needs to determine which AT tools will be best to ensure long-term success. To learn more about assistive technology in the workplace,&nbsp;contact the CareerCircle team.
Contributions to this blog were made by Andra&eacute;a LaVant of Solutions Marketing Group.

Discover insightful articles on building inclusive work environments and fostering diverse talent communities.

What is Assistive Technology?

<h1>Auditing Your Recruiting Process for Accessibility </h1>
 There is an ethical &mdash; and often legal &mdash; imperative for your company to be accessible in all areas. It&rsquo;s also the case that by welcoming a more diverse employee base, your company stands to benefit from a richer and more innovative culture. As such, you may have made changes to create a hiring process supporting greater diversity in recent years. However, this doesn&rsquo;t necessarily mean your practices are as accessible as they could be. Alongside adapting your hiring approach, you must ensure your recruitment process is accessible. Many business leaders use the terms interchangeably, but there are key differences between hiring and recruitment. While the former is a more passive way to fill a vacant role, recruitment is an intentional effort to seek out top talent and attract them to your company. If you&rsquo;re not effectively recruiting in an accessible way, you&rsquo;re likely missing out on a significant portion of the talent pool.
Let&rsquo;s take a look at what you should be focusing on when auditing your recruiting process for accessibility.
<h3> Reviewing Your Target Demographics</h3>
One of the key areas to audit is your target recruitment demographic. This should reflect the accessibility of your recruitment practices. Too often, the approaches companies use to look for the best and brightest in the field are hampered by looking for specific characteristics &mdash; characteristics that don&rsquo;t take into account the hurdles of those living with disabilities. As such, there&rsquo;s a tendency for unconscious bias to creep into decision-making here.
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A way in which this often presents is by targeting professionals with specific types of experience. It may seem desirable to look for workers who have worked with top brands in key roles. However, as stringent as your recruitment accessibility standards might be, those other brands may not share your commitment to a diverse workforce. 
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Indeed, their workplaces may not go beyond the <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/publications/ada-your-responsibilities-employer#:~:text=Under%20the%20ADA%20%2C%20workers%20with,by%20you%20for%20your%20employees." rel="noopener" target="_blank">basic accessibility required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)</a> and, therefore, key roles and experiences aren&rsquo;t filled by those with disabilities. Your focus on recruiting people with certain types of employment history may result in inadvertently overlooking talented professionals that happen to live with disabilities. 
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There&rsquo;s a similar issue that arises when your recruitment strategy only targets a demographic from traditional education backgrounds or degrees from top universities. Too many businesses at the moment are not open to recruiting those who have taken online courses. Yet, this results in a recruitment strategy actively excluding those who utilize distance learning for accessibility reasons. Consider how you can open your recruitment to those with disabilities and target the best talent with more varied experiences.
<h3> Considering the Impact of Your Culture</h3>
Your company culture influences the holistic wellness of your business. After all, it underpins everything from how workers interact with one another to the ethical decisions they make. It also increasingly comes into consideration when auditing whether the best talent is attracted to your business. Therefore, it&rsquo;s vital to understand where there may be hurdles to accessibility within your culture.
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This has to begin by understanding to what extent <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/candidate-experience-blog-series-part-3-how-to-a" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">unconscious biases toward people with disabilities</a> are a feature in your company. This can be problematic not just from the actions of recruiters, but it may make a toxic working environment for a valuable professional living with a disability. It&rsquo;s important to gain perspectives from both current staff and experts in the field. Conduct surveys to ask about employees&rsquo; opinions and experiences in this regard and be open to consultants running audits in this area.
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Another vital part of your workplace culture is the company&rsquo;s attitude and commitment toward mental wellness. A recruitment strategy that seeks to be fully inclusive isn&rsquo;t going to succeed if your workplace doesn&rsquo;t take mental health seriously on a cultural level. 
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If <a href="https://thepapergown.zocdoc.com/how-your-job-can-impact-your-mental-health/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">employees experiencing mental health challenges</a> don&rsquo;t have the support or resources they need, this can affect their health, productivity, and potential to resign. It&rsquo;s important for everyone involved that your company offers access to tools like mental health screening and subsidized therapy. Take the time to assess these elements. Then, make adjustments to ensure you&rsquo;re creating a supportive culture for those facing various challenges.
<h3> Evaluating Safety and Security</h3>
Safety and security are not obvious considerations for a recruitment strategy. You may only include these components for dangerous or sensitive roles. Yet, these elements play a vital role in making your process more accessible.
&nbsp;
Firstly, this is relevant from the perspective of ensuring your company is a safe space for those with disabilities. It&rsquo;s important to frequently evaluate not just whether your workspace is accessible for both candidates with physical and mental disabilities but also how this is communicated during the recruitment process. Look at whether your recruitment processes offer invitations for candidates to make requests about the environment they&rsquo;re interviewed in or for assistance to be provided.
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In addition, make certain the information regarding candidates' individual needs is protected from potential leaks and security breaches. This is sensitive data that must be treated respectfully. It&rsquo;s vital, therefore, to ensure your recruitment process&rsquo; cybersecurity protocols are tight. Understand the various information technology <a href="https://businessdegrees.uab.edu/blog/it-security-and-why-businesses-need-to-know-the-risks/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">(IT) risks your business could be subjected to</a>, from malware attacks to phishing attempts. Make sure you have tools like intrusion detection software in place. Your staff &mdash; particularly recruiters &mdash; should also be trained in cyber-secure behavior.
<h3> Conclusion</h3>
While your hiring practices may be geared toward accessibility, it&rsquo;s important to also make sure your recruitment processes have the same commitment. Take the time to audit aspects such as your choice of target demographic for potential hurdles to accessibility. Review how supportive your culture is to people with a range of accessibility challenges. Explore how your safety and security practices might impact your ability to recruit talented staff living with disabilities. Your attention here isn&rsquo;t just an ethical imperative. With additional effort and scrutiny, you can ensure both employees and your business benefit from greater accessibility and inclusivity.&nbsp;&nbsp; Learn more about CareerCircle, our mission, and how to ensure that you are creating an inclusive recruiting process and workplace. Content Contributor:
Ainsley Lawrence is a freelance writer from the Pacific Northwest. She is interested in better living through technology and education. She loves traveling to beautiful places and is frequently lost in a good book.
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Recruiting and Accessibility | Getting HiredAuditing Your Recruiting Process for Accessibility

Recruiting and Accessibility

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Diversity at Merck <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/companies/merck-co-inc-8568e34b-df56-40d7-a296-690d47fb3182" rel="follow">Merck</a> is a partner of CareerCircle, and they have made strides as being a premier research-intensive biopharmaceutical company in the world. They have been inventing medicines and vaccines for many places around the world that struggle with the most difficult disease. We wanted to highlight their story about what it means to be a Veteran and working at Merck. Here are some of their stories and how they have learned to work and live this new life outside of the military.&nbsp; Martha VanDriel
<div class="title">Director, IT risk management policy</div>
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From jumping out of airplanes at Fort Bragg to helping launch the Army&rsquo;s first-ever cyberspace forces, retired U.S. Army Colonel Martha VanDriel has never shied away from risk.
Indeed, one of the greatest lessons she learned during her distinguished 26-year military career is the value of stretching beyond her comfort zone. It&rsquo;s one of the reasons she excelled in the cyber field even though she&rsquo;s &ldquo;not a techie.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Today, the skills Martha used to help defend our country against cyber-attacks are the same ones she puts to work managing IT risk policy at our company. &ldquo;As a planner and policy developer, you integrate disciplines that don&rsquo;t normally work together, like IT and intelligence organizations for cyber,&rdquo; says Martha, who retired from the Army in 2017 and joined Merck the same year. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not an expert in any of the areas, but you learn enough to be able to ask the right questions to help develop a solution.&rdquo;

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Danielle Campbell
Operations manager, manufacturing &amp; supply</div>
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&ldquo;Learning how to lead people is of paramount importance as a commissioned officer in the Air Force,&rdquo; says Danielle, who joined as an enlisted airman in 2009 and quickly advanced to the role of logistics officer.
After being a leader in the Air Force, she says, transitioning to Merck in a leadership role felt like a &ldquo;parallel career.&rdquo; &nbsp;
&ldquo;I get the opportunity to lead great people and challenging projects in both roles,&rdquo; says Danielle, who joined our company in 2019 and remains a captain in the Air Force Reserve. &ldquo;I am proud to work for a company where there&rsquo;s opportunity for growth, networking and mentoring.&rdquo;
Now part of a team that oversees vaccine production, Danielle says her experience managing multiple projects in the Air Force informs her work every day. &ldquo;Anytime I&rsquo;m approached with a task or project, I always zoom out and ask &mdash; &lsquo;what&rsquo;s the big picture, what&rsquo;s the goal we&rsquo;re trying to reach?&rsquo; &mdash; before I zoom back in,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;This helps me to stay focused and maintain balance.&rdquo;
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Jessica Trenti
Vice president of human resources, manufacturing division</div>
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That was one of the first lessons Jessica learned in her training as an ROTC scholarship student, and after more than 25 years as a civilian, she&rsquo;s never forgotten it.
&ldquo;I learned more about leadership and accountability, more about myself, more about what I had the courage to lean into, in the military than I did before and probably have since,&rdquo; says Jessica, who was an officer in the Army Signal Corps.
Since joining Merck in 1997, Jessica has held about a dozen roles and supported nearly all of our company&rsquo;s divisions and functions in one capacity or another.
In her current role, Jessica works to help shape the talent landscape of the Merck Manufacturing Division.&nbsp; She is extremely proud of the division&rsquo;s track record in hiring and supporting veterans.
In addition, she loves seeing more women entering the workforce in fields like engineering and tech. &ldquo;Do we still have work to do? Definitely. But it feels like there&rsquo;s a significant change in terms of the kinds of roles women are progressing through and the tremendous leadership impact they are having.&rdquo;&nbsp;
<h2> Championing future leaders</h2>
Merck is proud to support veterans and women through a number of programs, from Hiring Our Heroes to the Women&rsquo;s Leadership Program.
In fact, job-seeking service members can use a military occupational specialty (MOS) code to search for opportunities, making it easier for them to match their skills with potential&nbsp;<a href="https://jobs.merck.com/veterans">careers</a>&nbsp;at our company.
Our employee business resource groups (EBRGs) offer additional support in the form of mentorship, development, networking, and camaraderie.
As executive sponsor of the Veterans EBRG, Dr. Kerry Blanchard works not only to help fellow veterans with the transition to corporate life, but also to be an ally for all employees.<picture><source data-srcset="https://i2.wp.com/www.merck.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2020/10/Dr-Kerry-Blanchard.jpg?fit=628%2C418&amp;ssl=1?resize=321,214" media="(max-width: 767px)" srcset="https://i2.wp.com/www.merck.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2020/10/Dr-Kerry-Blanchard.jpg?fit=628%2C418&amp;ssl=1?resize=321,214"></picture>
 &ldquo;Sometimes that means sitting back to listen and learn, or sharing feedback or opportunities that may not be transparent to others,&rdquo; says Kerry, vice president of global safety assessment and laboratory animal resources. &ldquo;Sometimes people just want someone to talk to.&nbsp; And, sometimes it means advocating on behalf of others.&rdquo;
&ldquo;We are making progress,&rdquo; he adds. &ldquo;But we&rsquo;ve still got work to do.&rdquo; <a href="https://www.merck.com/stories/from-the-military-to-merck-lessons-in-leadership/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Here is the link to check out more information!&nbsp;</a>

Diversity at Merck

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What is Assistive Technology?

Recruiting and Accessibility

Diversity at Merck

What is Assistive Technology?

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