While disability and student groups on campus are largely excited about the development of a new UBC Workplace Accommodation Policy for employees, some groups say they were not included in early consultations.
According to a policy draft, the Workplace Accommodation Policy outlines UBC’s responsibilities under the BC Human Rights Code and establishes the university’s processes for requesting, assessing, implementing and managing accommodations for staff, including student employees.
This policy comes after UBC announced the launch of the Centre for Workplace Accessibility and the Workplace Accommodation Fund earlier this year.
The policy draft stated that the Office of the University Counsel convened a Policy Development Committee for a workplace accommodation policy in April after the VP Human Resources Marcia Buchholz initiated discussions on the policy. The 13-member committee included representatives from UBC’s Workplace Health Services, the Centre for Accessibility, the Student Union Okanagan and the UBC Vancouver Graduate Student Society.
But some groups said University Counsel and the policy committee failed to consult with them.
Dr. Dana Solomon said the Disability Affinity Group, a group for faculty and staff with disabilities, were not consulted. “We’ve asked to be involved, and we’ve asked to be a part of the development for several months now because we knew it was happening and we kept requesting a deeper involvement.”
Solomon expressed concerns regarding the development of the policy in the absence of anyone “who at least publicly identifies as having lived experience with disability.”
She said the university needed a Disability Task Force to prevent this from happening.
“UBC is very clearly trying to develop policies and programs that are going to support disabled people,” she said. “But without a task force, they simply don’t have the information that they need to do so appropriately.”
In a statement to The Ubyssey, Matthew Ramsey, director of university affairs at UBC Media Relations, said the policy committee emailed the Disability Affinity Group on May 11 to ensure they were aware of the new policy and invite them to participate in the community consultation period.
“The committee anticipates that there will likely be many individuals and groups interested in this proposed policy but the committee coordinator was made aware that the [Disability Affinity Group] had expressed an interest in this type of policy so reached out to them in advance,” he wrote.
He added that policy committees generally include 12 members, and are composed of students, faculty and staff from across UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan and different departments to “obtain broader perspectives.”
Despite her frustrations with the consultation process, Solomon emphasized this policy would benefit the UBC community.
“The better you support your employees, the better your productivity is going to be and the greater excellence you’re going to achieve as an institution,” she said.
The AMS was also not initially consulted. Max Holmes, a student representative on the Board of Governors, brought this up during a discussion on the policy at a recent Employee Relations Committee meeting.
AMS VP Academic and University Affairs Dana Turdy said University Counsel has since contacted the student society to offer it a seat on the policy committee.
“It was disappointing to see that they didn’t have that representation in the first place and I think it’s a larger issue in itself about the university and University Counsel not going through that due process of engaging with students,” said Turdy.
Turdy agreed that this policy is a good idea, as it could eliminate some of the barriers that student employees might face while accessing accommodations.
Specifically, she pointed to the policy’s elaboration on the role of unit supervisors in making accommodation decisions. The policy sets out the process for an employee to make an accommodation request, and provides guidance to supervisors about how to process requests without going through Human Resources.
“It gives the ability for supervisors to directly provide accommodations to employees without having to go through human resources, which I think is just an extra barrier, because often these things take a really long time, and that can really be frustrating for students who are trying to access these accommodations,” Turdy said.
University Counsel and the policy committee are currently holding an open consultation period for the policy until October 2.