Accessibility Standards Canada (ASC) has published a draft Accessibility Standard on Employment as part of its mandate under the Accessible Canada Act (ACA).
The Accessibility Standard on Employment is intended to guide employers in identifying, preventing, and removing barriers to employment according to the guiding principles and legislative requirements of the ACA and the Accessible Canada Regulations.
The Standard sets out employment-related accessibility requirements including, but not limited to, the following:
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Structural support, policy, and leadership (systems policies and practices): Developing an accessibility strategy with measurable objectives, supporting policies, and clear roles and responsibilities of key workplace parties.
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Culture, engagement, and education: Supporting workers with healthy and disability-inclusive workplace culture, leadership, communication, worker participation, training and education.
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Recruitment, hiring, and onboarding: Developing a fully accessible recruitment process to support workers or prospective workers with disabilities.
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Retention and career development: Implementing policies and practices to strengthen job retention and career advancement for all workers, focusing on workers with disabilities by fostering the continued employment of workers, providing equitable opportunities for training and promotion, and ensuring compensation is based on merit.
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Work disability management, accommodations, stay at work and return to work: developing policies, processes, and programs for disability management in the workplace.
The Technical Committee on Employment started developing this standard on March 15, 2021. Public review of the standards is in the current stage in 2023, and publication of the standard is expected in the summer of 2024.
Interested stakeholders are invited to provide comments on the draft Standard to ASC by October 17, 2023.