6. Hiring Accessibility Staff
Hiring Knowledgable Staff
Roles and Accessibility Responsibilities
For most positions an organization may be hiring for, digital accessibility knowledge or skills need not be a requirement, though having that knowledge or skills should add points to a candidate’s overall score. For most positions, a little training will provide the needed details of accessibility requirements for particular roles.
Of the various roles that could be found in an organization, it is the web developers who will need to be most familiar with accessibility requirements and the strategies to meet those requirements. Knowledge and skills for web developers will be covered separately later in this unit.
The following lists in general terms the skills and knowledge each role in an organization should possess or be trained in, starting with knowledge everyone should possess and followed by additional specific skills for particular roles:
Everyone
- Disability sensitivity
- Organization requirements (high level, legislated obligations)
Senior managers
- Organization requirements (details of legislated obligations)
- Experience with change-management projects
Store managers
- Customer-service accessibility
Sales staff
- Customer-service accessibility
Office staff
- Document accessibility
- Basic web accessibility
Human resource staff
- Role-based accessibility knowledge and skills
- Accessible employment practices and local accessibility regulations
- Document accessibility
- Knowledge of training, change management
- Knowledge of accommodations for people with disabilities
- Knowledge of the organization’s accessibility efforts
Communication and marketing
- Document accessibility
- Multimedia accessibility
- Basic web accessibility
Purchasers
- Organization requirements (procurement)
- Basic web accessibility
Telephone support staff
- Customer service accessibility
UI designer
- Universal design principles
- Basic web accessibility
Web content authors
- Basic web accessibility
Media support staff
- Basic web accessibility
- Multimedia accessibility
Distribution centre staff
- Minimal
Cleaning and maintenance
- Minimal