CAREER NAVIGATOR LET’S BE REASONABLE
Reasonable accommodations remove barriers and encourage work- life balance.
by Jacqueline M. Hames B
alancing work, social lives, family lives and other miscellaneous parts of life can be difficult, even for the most well-organized, healthy and economically comfortable individuals. Average employees spend
roughly eight hours a day, five days a week, performing their jobs and interacting with their co-workers before returning their attention to their home life. Tat’s a large amount of time spent at work with co-workers—it’s no wonder that a few rough days on the job can throw off the balance of home life.
Achieving that work-life balance can be even more difficult for some people with disabilities than it is for their counterparts, simply because the world at large does not always cater to the full range of different abilities. Providing reasonable accommo- dations for individuals with disabilities can help reduce stress by working around limitations or barriers that interfere with acces- sibility and performing job duties.
“As we all encounter various difficulties and barriers in our personal and work lives, stress can result,” said Rosemary Salak, the disability program manager for the Equal Employment Opportunity Policy and Programs directorate under the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Equity and Inclusion. Her focus is on Army programs and policies that provide for equitable
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and inclusive employment of people with disabilities and govern accessibility for job applicants and employees.
“Reasonable accommodation is all about removing barriers,” Salak said.
In a January 2023 article, the Partnership for Public Service reported that federal employee engagement and satisfaction scores for people with disabilities were 6.7 points lower than their coun- terparts. “Tis group has an overall different experience working in the federal government than their peers,” the article said.
Tose results aligned with similar research on the private sector workforce conducted by Global Disability Inclusion and Mercer. More than 12 million employees with disabilities in the United States are “more subject to micromanagement, which deters employee innovation, and receive less recognition than their peers without disabilities,” the report stated.
THE RIGHT TOOLS Out of the general federal employee population, “one in four government employees report very often or always feeling burned out at work,” a Gallup article from March 2024 said. Gallup iden- tified five work experiences that contribute most to that feeling:
Army AL&T Magazine
Fall 2024
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