Growing up with spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic neuromuscular disease that affects all muscles of the body, can bring social challenges for anyone.  For Alice Wong, the challenges made her angry.  Rather than the anger becoming a negative impact on her adult life, she has been able to utilize it to fight for her rights and those of others with disabilities.

As she wrote in her essay Hey, Angry Girl, Alice faced a lot of attitudinal barriers while she was growing up in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Besides the usual stares and naïve questions from people, she also faced barriers in her education.  For instance, to complete her second year drama class, one of the requirements was to do a skit that required physical action.  The professor insisted it had to be done standing up, which Alice couldn’t do.  So she had to forego it.

Attending the University of California, Alice discovered ways to break down barriers that she had encountered during her youth and still was facing.  Works of disability activists and researchers such as Paul Longmore, Irving Zola, Erving Goffman, and others inspired Alice to express her ideas and voice her frustration through writing and research.  Her writings have helped people with disabilities to live as independent as possible.

For instance, Alice is the Staff Research Associate for the Community Policy Living Center at the University of California where she authors curricula for the College of Personal Assistance and Caregiving and producing reports on Olmstead-related legislation and lawsuits.  In fact, Alice is the co-author of several online courses on personal assistance care, which can be found at Direct Course Online.  She’s also the founder of the Facebook group “Self-Directed Care Discussion Group”, where members can voice their concerns and ask questions about personal assistance issues.

Besides personal care assistance, Alice also has motivated other persons with disabilities to make their voices heard.  She has launched the Disability Visibility Project, a blog-like platform so persons with disabilities can write about their challenges and successes.  These stories make our voices heard, act as a historical resource, and illustrate their diversity.  As with the Facebook personal assistance group, she also utilizes Twitter to encourage them to discuss issues that concerns the disability community.  Hopefully, agency or government officials notice these discussions and act upon what needs to be done to ensure our basic rights as humans.

Alice also promotes social media accessibility as a council member of the National Council of Disability (NCD).  In 2014, she co-moderated a series of online dialogues to discuss how social media platforms can become more accessible, such as users adding text alternatives to images and including correct captions for videos.   “{O}ne of my advocacy efforts is through community-building efforts on social media such as Facebook and Twitter,” Alice says. “I’ve come across some amazing people with disabilities all over the world and we share our experiences that seem to be universal.”

As an avid advocate for persons with disabilities, Alice offers three bits of advice.  First, don’t consider yourself the problem.  Society creates most of the barriers that you need to overcome.  Second, reach out to other persons with disabilities who have experienced similar situations that you do for guidance and mentoring.  Third, share your struggles and successes with others who may need help.

Alice turned her anger as a little girl into something positive as a woman—her passion and desire to help others with disabilities.

Follow Alice on Twitter at @SFdirewolf.

It is critical to assure that the workplace is accessible for your current employees and future employees.  Sometimes people think workplace accessibility is only critical to new hires but it is also critical to retain your talented employees.  Replacing employees is very expensive.

A study by the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, University of California, Berkeley evaluating the effects of the US Family Medical Leave Act found that “turnover costs for a manager average 150% of salary, including tangible costs of hiring new workers and relocation, and intangible costs such as the new worker’s inefficiency and lost productivity while the job is vacant.” The same study, incidentally, found that the cost of a temporary replacement is only 39%).

How can workplace accessibility help you retain the talented employees currently working for your firm?  As employees move through the lifecycle they sometimes are impacted by temporary and permanent disabilities.  It might be because of age, or a stroke, disease like cancer or diabetes or maybe an accident like a sports or car accident.  However, many employees can still be productive if the workplace is accessible and accommodations are provided.  Companies want their employees to be productive and do not want to lose the value assets of the employee or their intellectual capital.

What can you do to make your workplace accessible?

Assure that all HR systems are fully accessible including benefit programs, PTO, and any other internal systems.

When you hold training programs online and in-person be sure the training is fully accessible.  Assure all intranets and internal service programs are fully accessible.

Train your managers, recruiters, managers, supervisors and team members about accessibility and inclusion.  Be sure your employees understand that diversity is critical and part of your organizations culture.

Offer accommodations to all employees.  Sometimes employees need an accommodation because they broke their arm or hurt their leg.  An accommodation can be as simple as a closer parking place or a one handed key board or allowing an employee that is hard of hearing utilize and instant messenger program.

Also be sure that all videos are captioned so all employees can have access to the data.

Look at all the touch points you have with employees, clients, vendors, partners and other stake holders and assure all touch points are accessible

• Websites
• Online HR Systems
• Intranets
• Service Centers
• Products and Services
• Promotions – Marketing & Communications
• Procurement
• Training

Make workplace accessibility part of your culture and blend it into your processes.  Workplace accessibility will allow your employees to be more productive and creative and assure a solid ROI for all stakeholders.

For further information about TecAccess and their current endeavors, visit their website at SSB Bart Group