Abstract
For individuals with specific diagnoses, workplace accommodations serve as cost-effective return to work and stay at work interventions that compensate for unsupportive work environments and improve task performance. Whereas accommodation strategies are varied, they are typically intended to enable an employee to perform the essential job tasks. Thus, while accommodations are effective at supporting activity independence for employees with specific diagnoses, they do little to address the needs of employees with a variety of diagnoses or the social aspects of work, including participation in social roles (e.g., role in a work team) and interpersonal relationships (e.g., ties with coworkers) that are necessary to achieve a sense of belonging and well-being. The purpose of this chapter is to provide the return to work stakeholders, including employers and rehabilitation professionals, with a more holistic way of thinking about work interventions that will benefit employees with a variety of disabling diagnoses at the time they return to work as well as over their working lives. More specifically, this chapter will introduce human factors and universal design as intervention processes and products that will result in more usable and inclusive work environments for all employees, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.
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Sanford, J.A. (2016). Universal Design as a Human Factors Approach to Return to Work Interventions for People with a Variety of Diagnoses. In: Schultz, I., Gatchel, R. (eds) Handbook of Return to Work. Handbooks in Health, Work, and Disability, vol 1. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7627-7_23
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