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Employers increasingly are asked to accommodate workers living with physical and mental health conditions that cause episodic disability, where periods of wellness are punctuated by intermittent and often unpredictable activity limitations. Episodic disabilities are challenging for workplaces which must comply with legislation protecting the privacy of health information while believing they would benefit from personal health details to meet a worker’s accommodation needs.

Objectives of this presentation are to understand organizational perspectives on the successes and challenges of disability communication-support processes, including:

  • Differences in cultures of support
  • Misgivings of others and their role in communication-support processes
  • Challenges when worker’s do not disclose a disability and when disability is cast as a performance problem
  • New tools and resources to improve communication and accommodation processes