The Federal Employees with Disabilities group has challenged the move toward open offices being pushed by the GSA, saying that is in “direct conflict with the responsibility of the federal government to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities” and with the administration’s initiative to facilitate employment of the disabled in the government.
In a recently released letter to President Obama, the group said that employees at an HHS component for example are concerned about how the open workplace policy will affect their ability to perform their work. HHS is one of the agencies with the highest percentage of employees with a disability.
It said that employees of the unit are to be moved into small cubicles with low or no walls and “some of these employees are deaf or hard of hearing and will require interpreters to have conversations, a hard thing to do in such confined quarters. Others, who are blind or are required to use voice dictation technology will need to deal with annoyed coworkers frustrated by the noise and distractions these accommodations will make, simply for trying to do their jobs to the best of their ability.”
Others “need quiet settings in which they can concentrate as a reasonable accommodation, physical conditions where they need to stretch or do exercises in the middle of their work days, compromised immune systems where private offices are preferable – or need more space in case they need to bring a scooter, a wheelchair, a service animal or adaptive equipment into the office.”