A Story Of Covid, remote work and best practices to deliver Fast Workplace Accommodations for people with disabilities

I usually actively make an effort to separate my work life
from my personal life. I am convinced this is a healthy way to keep a virtual work life balance. However; for the last 10 months I’ve been thinking hard on writing something about how my team at work handled the change during the pandemic.Mainly because it’s a testament to the larger organisation, the corporate culture and most importantly just how creative and capable my team is. So, in a rare breach of my internal rules I share with you a little about our story.

Firstly, for those who don’t know, I work for the
Government Of Canada (GC) in a department called Shared Services Canada (SSC) and I manage a team of bright, passionate enthusiastic experts who support the technology and adaptation needs of people with disabilities within the whole Government Of Canada. We are known as the Accessibility, Accommodation and Adaptive Computer Technology Program or AAACT (pronounced ACT or triple A C T) for short.  We are about 40 people working in direct services for people with disabilities in addition to accessibility, inclusive design, accessible
procurement and reasearch and testing of technology. I believe strongly that a team that serves people with disabilities should have a strong internal representation of people with disabilities in it’s makeup.
Adhering to the idea of “nothing about us without us” and that is why in addition to being experts in their field, somewhere between 50 and 70 percent of the team have a disability covering everything from vision, hearing, physical, learning, cognitive, injury, visible, invisible disabilities and everything in between.

Most people view government as stuffy, inflexible and full
of constipated bureaucracy. In the 20 years I’ve worked there I’ve seen examples of this and examples of the opposite. My current department has made great efforts to evolve it’s corporate culture. A google of many posts from the early days of the department would not be positive. However; today as a manager it feels much different from those days. For example a manager hears clear messaging on 2 important topics:

1. Our People are important
   • This was also clearly communicated from top to
     bottom during the early days of covid
2. Managers are encouraged to explore intelligent risk taking
   • If a process is broken and you see a way to fix
     it, act

I attribute my group’s success during covid to the above 2 key messages I receive regularly from all levels of my department.

On Friday, March 13, 2020 in the middle of packing up offices in preparation for a fit-up on the floor, AAACT’s management team were notified that one of their staff had possibly been exposed to COVID-19. The leadership team quickly reacted by contacting management and Ottawa Public Health, implementing a cleaning protocol, and before they were even aware that there would shortly be official announcements from the government, the AAACT team completed the office packing, gathered what they needed, and left for for what they believed was a 2-week period to safely work from home. By the following Monday morning, they were remotely back at work in full force. The transition was so smooth that there was no interruption to clients, as the team swiftly switched themselves and all services online. Providing
Digital Accessibility, Adaptive Computer Technology and Client services for people with disabilities across the GC and within departments struggling to
adapt to the new reality. AAACT was
right there working with departments and staff in departments.

Often workplace accommodations for people with disabilities are viewed as burdensome, difficult and time consuming. AAACT has somewhere around 70% of it’s team makeup being people with a wide range of disabilities and requirements where many of the staff had never worked remotely or had only worked infrequently remotely. Many would view this as an impossible task, fraught with delays and barriers. However; it is a testament to the team that
staff were up and working from home with little to no interruption. Creative thinking, tireless effort,
intelligent risk taking and the commitment of key team members to breaking down barriers and supporting each other quickly delivered results. That “2-week period” that started in March continues today, in December, 2020, with no end in sight. AAACT, based mostly in the National Capital Region, Ottawa, pivoted to a completely remote service delivery model in order to
continue delivering world class services to federal public servants across Canada and abroad. The team adopted the remote system it traditionally used for employees outside of the national capital region and applied it to everyone. They implemented triage and checkins with clients and communicated with departments early on to help them with planning and support of employees with disabilities in the GC. Staff even shifted their hours to work evenings and on weekends because in the early days many departments didn’t have the bandwidth to support everyone remotely accessing their work network.

Shortly after, AAACT soft-launched a new pilot service, which provides fast-tracked accommodations to short-term employees who require job accommodations due to a disability or injury, on time on April 1, 2020 only weeks into the crisis. Once again AAACT didn’t miss a beat in providing services to clients in what was largely planned to be an in-person service with an Apple Store type showcase space to demonstrate adaptive technology to clients. The service is being delivered remotely, leveraging the latest collaboration technologies like MS Teams to meet with clients, and shipping equipment directly to client’s homes or places of work. The They also reacted to the pandemic by offering the new services to any Government of Canada employee who was experiencing a temporary need for accommodations in order to meet their responsibilities under the business continuity plan in their organization.

With everything running smoothly for the team, and with their recent purchase of and training on a 3D printer, some of AAACT’s team members began an initiative to print parts for face shields to be used by front line workers in several hospitals in the NCR. The program ran from March to June and resulted in 961 mask components. helping to meet the need when there was a shortage of PPE.

Recognizing that the physical separation of the team, and requirement for most people to stay at home as much of the time as possible in the early days was beginning to take a tole on the spirits of the team, the social committee organized a weekly Teams meeting, affectionately named the AAACT Lunch Bunch, as a place for team members to connect, unwind from the week and maintain a personal connection to their teammates. Implemented checkins and other support mechanism for staff working remotely. In addition to this larger team social connection, smaller groups were connected to provide each other with stronger support to combat the extra stress that people were feeling due to the pandemic. Over the months, team mates have found ways to support each other, talking on the phone late into the evenings, bringing groceries and supplies to doorsteps when people could not go themselves, and remaining strong and professional during the times that were the hardest. These best practices were shared with other units and areas seeking disability inclusive practices that also supported remote work, including presenting for TBS on the topic of remote work as part of a series of National Accessibility
Week videos in June.

Just to give you an idea of the tremendous work this small but mighty team accomplished, here is a short list:

• • Supported the digital accessibility of the GC Covid response for v Canadians by advising departments and areas such as PCO, TBS and HC on more inclusive practices, performing accessibility testing of products, software, systems and information
    sites and delivering feedback
  • >Equipped quickly our team with the standard IT tools, ergonomic
    v equipment, individual adaptations (60-70% of team have a disability), , Headsets and furniture required to work safely and comfortably from home.
  • we swung into immediate action and made it possible for our entire team to work from home, safely. We were in place within 1 business day, and ready to work Monday.
    This includes ensuring staff teleworking had access to the equipment and tools they needed, adjusting the way AAACT delivers service and providing
    basic services through remote options. Much of our client services were already delivered remotely already so this has just been an extension of that type of work  we already did (since a fair number of our clients aren’t in the NCR).
  • We have also responded to specific inquiries related to covid and the current situation from a number of requests, e.g. PMO/TBS on communicating in accessible form and from departments requesting specific information).
  • Because our clients may be working remotely or in new situations, we have put in place additional activities related to check-in and triage of issues during this time. triaging our client projects and setting up check-in activities to ensure that their projects are moving forward or to identify barriers.
  • Ensured that all staff had necessary equipment to effectively and safely work from home
  • Setup a 3 step approach for equipment for clients
    1. Receive from vendor at AAACT home office
    2. Deliver to AAACT Subject Matter Experts home for setup/programming/customisation
    3. Ship to client for installation or integration

• Arrange equipment pickups or drop off with clients in the national capital region who need equipment quickly
• Test, Evaluate and Recommend disability inclusive equipment like headsets that have been
  tested to work with teams and can also be used with GC issued smartphones.
• Found alternate Canadian owned suppliers for non standing offer goods such as headsets and Used our contacts outside of government to secure PPE in March and
  April when availability
  was scarce.
• Tested virtual platforms and supported clients and staff in learning to use these tools with
  their adaptations
• Trained clients and areas on inclusive remote work and meeting practices including using new tools such as Office 365 and Teams
• AAACT has used a multichannel and multi modal response when we ensured all our communication
  activities took into account the fact that Disability isn’t binary so our responses shouldn’t be either (e.g. thinking of vision, hearing, physical, cognitive, learning and other types of disabilities). But not just that, everyone has different needs and consumes information differently so this same approach benefits everyone regardless of if they have a disability or not.
• Our employees have been more flexible in their hours of availability and have been willing to meet with client’s outside of Core Business hours (evening or weekends)

COVID-19 will never be remembered as anything positive in the future, but it added to the resiliency of our own team and our larger department, and strengthened the
federal public service as a whole.