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Curb Cuts in the Virtual Community: Telework and Persons with Disabilities
Bradford W. Hesse, PhD
American Institutes for Research
Abstract
Curb cuts are the mmps set into sidewalks to make
buildings more accessible to persons in wheelchairs. With
fowthought, they are easy to install, they provide accessfor
persons with physical impairmenti, and at the same time they
may be used by able-bodiedpersons for pushing strollers,
shopping carts, and the like. Just like curb cuts in the
physical communily, telework in the virtual community may
be used to break down barriers of access for persons with
disabilities. This paper addresses how and why telework
rnq be used as a work-place accommodation. It takes as a
point of illustration a program initiated by the U.S. Depart-
ment ofDefense to extend telecommuting arrangements to its
employees with short- and long-term disabilities. Recom-
mendations are given for how to represent the needs of
persons with disabilities in the design of telework enabling
technologies.
1 The Virtual Community
With the onset and progression of the information revolu-
tion, we are seeing the development of a new kind of work
community. This is a community that spans time [8, lo] and
geography [9], a community that supplements buildings and
streets with personal computers and information superhigh-
ways [2]. This is the virtual community [22] enabled by
technologiesdesigned to move information rather than goods
and people [ 171. Life in this community is new, evolving, and
relatively unfettered by previous history. Decisions that we
make now, as charter members of that community, will leave
a lasting impression on the norms, expectations, and mores
that will govern its life for decades to come.
At the dawn of the virtual work community, there are a
number of questions we must ask ourselves. One of the first
is: “How do we make this community equally accessible to all
of its members’?” In our physical environments we have
learned that the way we design our structures may inadver-
tently have an impact on who will use them. We have
learned, for example, that something as simple as a curb,
designed to keep water off yards and sidewalks, can pose
insurmountableobstaclesto those of our community members
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who have physical disabilities, especially those who rely on
wheelchairs to get around.
The solution is to design our communities with features that
are equally usable by people with a wide range of physical
abilities, a principle referred to as “universal design” [ 141.
Using the example of a curb, one of the most frequently cited
illustrations of universal design is the “curb cut.” Curb cuts
are the innocuous ramps set into the pathways outside of
public buildings. These ramps not only make the buildings
more accessible to people with wheelchairs but they can also
be used by anyone pushing a stroller, a shopping cart, or a
hand iruck, or anyonewho may simply want to avoid the strain
of stepping up over curbs. The design solution is the perfect
compromise. With forethought, curb cuts are easy to install
and yet they are welcomed additions not just for people in
wheelchairs but for all community members.
The purpose of this paper is to consider similar adaptations
-” curb cuts”if you will-in the virtual community. It begins
by examining how telework itself may be considered a type of
“curb cut” in the conventional organization; that is, how and
why telework can be used as an adaptive tool to improve
employment options for persons with disabilities. It follows
by presenting a case history of how telework was used to
improve the working conditions of civilian employees with
disabilities working for the U.S. Department of Defense
(DOD). It concludes with recommendations for fi.n?her
adapting the practice of telework to meet the needs of persons
with disabilities.
2 Telework as a “Curb Cut”
In this paper, telework is defined as the overarching
practice of substituting communications technology and/or
computer technology for actual travel to work or a central
office. The term encompasses the notion of telecommuting
[18], home-based employment, flexiplace, work from
community-based telework centers, remote work, and work
conductedwhile traveling. There has been speculation among
organizational researchers that, because of the nature of
telework and teleworkenabling technologies, the practice may
be used as an adaptationto accommodate the needs of persons
with disabilities. The argument begins with an examination of
changes in the way people work.
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2.1 The Changing Demands of Work
At the height of the industrial age, when the focus was on
creating mass quantities of tangible products through indus-
trial technology, workers by necessity were gathered into
machine-intensive, collective environments. The machines
that were introduced during the industrial age were designed
to replace or augment physical labor. The workers who
operated the machines were selected on the basis of their
physical ability to meet the grueling demands of factory work
or the assemblyline. Under these conditions, a person with a
disability was o&n seen as a superfhrous drain on the econ-
omy: a ma&nctioning cog in the larger machinery of mass
production.
Changesin the market place, occuring simultaneously with
changes in technology, transformed the nature of work.
Oversaturated markets, increased competition, and a global
economy were all pressures that favored a new organizational
envimnment, an e&onrnent basedon information rather than
capital [26]. The technologies introduced to support this new
environment were different as well. They served not to
replace physical labor, as was the case in the industrial
revolution, but to empower users in processing information
[28]. Under theseconditions a person with a disability whose
intellect was sharp and intact would be in the perfect position
to use the new technologiesto become an indispensable player
in a new workforce.
2.2 Electronically Distributed Organizations
As organizationsconverted to an information age economy,
they also decentralized their organizational power and
authority. The move was to take out the inefficiency of making
decisionshigh up the organizational hierarchy, away from real
time market pressures, and to put decision making power as
near the front line of operations as possible. This, coupled
with advances in communications technologies, allowed
organizationsto distribute themselves geographically [ 15, 161,
What emerged was a new type of organization that must rely
increasinglyon telework, in one form or another, to conduct its
business [3,4]. This was the electronically distributed work
community: the virtual community.
2.3 Telework as an Adaptive Strategy
With these concurrent developments-increasing value
placed on knowledge workers irrespective of physical ability
and an overall move to distributed operations-the time
became right to suggest that telework could be offered as an
adaptive work strategy for persons with disabilities. In the
Netherlands,a rising number of older and disabled employees
emerging at the same time as an increase in electronic network
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technology led one commentator to predict that government
support for telework among employees with disabilities would
pay for itself dramatically by reducing money spent on
disability benefits [27]. In the United States, the designers of
a plan to make telecommuting arrangements available to all
Federal employees suggested that telework could be used to
get “injured employees back to work and to take them off of
workers’ compensation roles” [20].
In the context of these justifications, at least two formal
programs were introduced in the United States to give persons
with disabilities more equitable access to employment
opportunities. In 1990-9 1, the Tennessee Valley Authority
instituted a program to support workers with spinal damage,
paralysis,and other disabling conditions as they worked from
home [25]. Around the same time, George Washington
University in Washington, D.C., established a systematic
program to support home work as part of a comprehensive
vocational rehabilitation program. Both programs reported
positive improvements in their abilities to meet the vocational
rehabilitation needs of their constituencies.
Encouraged by the promise of these programs and with
effarts at the Federal level to establish flexible work arrange-
ments as a work option for Federal employees, the DOD set
out to establish flexiplace as a work option for its employees
with disabilities in 1993. That program, and its implications
for telework as an adaptive work practice, are described
below.
3 The DOD Flexiplace Project
On April 19,1993, the managerof the DOD’s Program for
People with Disabilities formally introduced flexiplace as
work option for the civilian workforce under the auspices of
the Department of Defense. The notion of flexiplace came out
of etlbrts initiated by the U.S. Government’s Oflice of Person-
nel Management and General Service Agency to make flexible
workplace arrangements available to members of the Federal
workforce. Flexiplace is similar to the notion of tele-
commuting, which allows employees to substitute work at
home for work in the office, but the name was coined to imply
that employees should be given the flexibility to choose
between working away from or working in the office.
The DOD program grew out of a larger effort to create new
opportunities for personswith disabilities in the DOD civilian
worktbme [7]. The goal was to create a diverse workforce in
which at least 2% of all civilians employed would be employ-
ees with disabilities, Flexiplace was seen as a way of meeting
that goal by offering an attractive work alternative to prospec-
tive employees. During the uncertain period of base closures,
reductions in force, and changes in administration during the
early 1990’s the DOD altered its goal from creating new
opportunities to enhancing current positions.
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3.1 The Flexiplace Steering Committee though, many participants worked as information systems
specialistsand maintained modem links to their offices’ main
To supervise introduction of the flexiplace program tixme or Local Area Network.
department wide, the DOD flexiplace coordinator formed a In all, 34 employees registered for inclusion in the demon-
steering committee of Defense component representatives stration project. To quality, employees needed only to obtain
who would work from the top down to support flexiplace permission tiom their immediate supervisors after which they
throughout each of their represented constituencies. The completed and submitted a participant inhormation form.
steeringcommittee was composed of representatives from the Supetvisors were instructed to extend flexiplace privileges to
Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and each of 17 independent employees who had obtained a performance review rating of
defense agencies. StatT from the American Institutes for “fully satisfactoty”or better, since poor employees at the office
Research, a not-for-profit behavioral science research insti- would make poor telecommuters. Participant information
tute, served as facilitators on the project and worked with the forms were submitted to the American Institutes for Research
committee to oversee program implementation. for tabulation and analysis. Participant characteristics as
The first goal of the project was to establish an informal obtained from the form are depicted in Table 1.
demonstration program by which the committee could From Table 1, the 34 employees in the demonstration
evaluate advantages of, and obstacles to, using telework as a project appeared to be primarily female (74%), working
workplace accommodation. During the demonstration phase, principally under General Schedule (GS) pay plans, and with
members of the flexiplace steering committee identified an average time on the job of 7.69 years. It is unclear at this
employees who either had already been benefitting &urn the time why a disproportionate number of females was in the
use of flexible workplace arrangements to accommodate their group. One contributing factor was the high number of
disability or would be willing to begin using some form of employeeson short-term disability who were working at home
telework on a trial basis. to accommodatecomplications in pregnancy. Approximately
The flexiplace steering committee met monthly during the 24% of those in the project indicated that they had been
demonstration phase of the project. During that time it receiving worker’s compensation before starting flexiplace, a
monitored the progress of participant identification, identified statistic with cost savings implications for DOD, and 6% (2
and provided solutions to problems in the program, and employees)indicated that they had been considering disability
developed strategies for encouraging the program’s wider retirement. About one fifth of the workforce (2 1%) indicated
dissemination. Guests were invited to attend meetings on an that they needed special computer adaptations to make their
ad hoc basis as the occasion warranted. Guests included home work station compatible with their office computers in
representativesfrom the Computer Electronics Accommoda-
tions Program, invited to help overcome the logistical prob-
lemswithcomputer acfzommcdationsin the home; representa- Table 1. Descriptive Characteristics of Pilot Group
tives from the Department of Labor, called in to help identify
potentially eligible participants from the worker’s compensa- Gender
tion rolls; and guests from the Office of Personnel Manage- Male 26%
ment, invited to share results of the Federal flexiplace pilot Female 74%
project, In April 1994, work on the demonstration project Pay Plan
ended and the program transitioned into an ongoing, sup- General Schedule 76%
ported, work option. Following are results of the demonstra- General Manager 12%
tion project.
Other 12%
Time on Job 7.69 yra.
3.2 Participant Characteristics Needs adaptive computer equipment 21%
Was on worker’s compensation 26%
To be identified as part of the demonstration project,
employees needed to be working in (or be eligible for Considering disability retirement 6%
working in) a flexible workplace arrangement. Relevant Type of Disability
flexible arrangements were those that were approved by a Deafness 0%
supervisor and in which some or all of the employee’s work Blindness 3%
week was spent away from the primary duty station. Employ- Missing Extremities 0%
ees would quaI@ for inclusion if they worked from home, Paralysis 29%
from a telework center, or from a nursing home or indepen- Mental Illness 3%
dent living center. Employees were not required to maintain Short-term disability 24%
specialized telecommunications technologies away from the
Other 41%
office other than a standard telephone. Not surprisingly,

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teims of eons for their disabilities (e.g., to include
voice recognition soi?ware or specialized keyboards).
The most commonly reported disabling condition in the
project was paralysis; next was short-term disabilities. Both
are logical. For participants with paralysis, flexiplace re-
moves the burden imposed by having to negotiate specialized
transportation needs. Moreover, persons with paralysis
frequently employ personal assistants to help them in their
work at home or in supported living arrangements. These
ass&ants know the personal needs of the employee and have
already developed a very effective working relationship with
them. In some cases, personal assistants can be even more
effective at helping the employee stay productive than office
staffcan. Flexiplace allows employees with paralysis to make
the most of their personal assistants along with specialized
BccOmmOdatiollS in the home while forgoing the daily burden
of commuting to work.
Personswith short-term disabilities are also well suited for
telework arrangements.As described by Hesse and Grantham
[4], flexiplace does not always have to be considered a long-
term arrangement to be highly effective. One of the great
advantages of establishing a &commuting policy within an
organization is being able to give employees the flexibility to
cope with short-term life disruptions.
3.3 Qualitative Evaluations (Telephone Interviews)
To evaluatethe effectiveness of flexiplace, semi-structured
interviews were conducted with all 34 participants in the
demonstration project and when feasible with participants’
supervisors. Most interviews were conducted by telephone,
but when pm&red by the respondent alternate means such as
facsimile transmission or electronic mail were used. In each
case, an interviewer followed an 1 l-page written protocol
designed to elicit a full description of the telecommuting
experience Interviewers were given the discretion to follow
the protocol exactly or to paraphrase, given the distinctive
demandsofeach session. Typical interviews lasted anywhere
from 10 to 45 minutes and were audiotaped for later review.
Following the interviews, interviewers took the time to
summarize primary points and important quotes in a two- to
three-pageindividual synopsis. The audiotapes and synopses
were analyzed with respect to (a) reasons for accepting
flexiplace as a work place alternative, (b) advantages of the
practice, and (c) problems experienced. Each of these areas
is described in greater breadth below.
3.4 Reasons for Going on Flexiplace
Reasons for negotiating flexiplace opportunities differed
somewhat depending on whether the employee was dealing
with a short-term or long-term disability. In the DOD
demonstrationproject, 24% reported going on flexiplace work
schedulestoaccommodate short-term disabilities. Short-term
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conditions ranged Corn complicated pregnancies to injured
limbs. In each case, working at the O&X while recovering
from the disability was so prohibitive that working at home
was the only alternative to not working at all. These people
ch~fill-time telecommuting arrangements for a short-time
duration. As hll time tel ecommuters, they might be expected
to be prone to the negative side effects of staying away tiom
the office for long periods of time: isolation, disent?anchise-
ment ii-am the WC& c4nrimunity, or missed opportunities [2 11.
To the contrary, employees with short-term disabilities
reported being so grateful for not having to drain their sick
leave accounts that they found the experience to be quite
tolerable.
For people with long-term disabilities, reasons for tele-
commuting were slightly different. These were people for
whom innovative work strategies in the face. of personal
obstacles had become a way of life. Working remotely away
from the office had become a hard-won privilege bestowed
through years of exemplary service and consistent negotiation.
More often than not, these employees had created part-time
telecommuting arrangements for a long-time duration; they
would stay home as they needed to accommodate medical
demands,to avoid dangerouscommuting conditions, or just to
get more work done. For these people, telecommuting was an
optimizing strategy to be used as occasion permitted to
reassert personal control. Their biggest and unfortunately
most consistent obstacles were in fighting perennial battles
againstregressivemanagers who believed that work not done
in the office was work not done well.
3.5 Advantages of Telework
The biggest advantage of flexiplace, both for persons with
short-term and long-term disabilities, was a sense of control
over adverse life events. Flexiplace, by its nature, incorpo-
rates the best of two alternative work strategies: tele-
commuting, where one is able to conduct work away Corn the
office,‘and flexitime, where one is able to control the hours
during the day in which work is completed. Flexibility in
work environment allows employees to minimize disruptions
caused by lack of specialized transportation, needs for
attendant care, need for medication, and so on. It also pro-
vides them with the ability to minimize distractions, as is the
case when information workers need to get away from
telephones to read, write, or concentrate in other ways.
Flexibility in work schedule allows employees to work at
the times of day in which they are most productive. This
advantage was especially important for employees who,
because of physical limitations or the side effects of medica-
tions, might feel fatigued after working long stretches. By
working at home, these employees could work for a short
stretch, rest, and then pick the work back up later in the day
when they were feeling rejuvenated. Overwhelmingly,
participants and supervisors noted that the increased control
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participants had over their lives led to greater productivity,
better health, and increased morale.
Other advantages expressed by interviewees included:
feeling more relaxed about getting dressed (a big concern for
employees who were contin4 to bed part time or who found
that BccoRlIILodatingcasts,prostheses, or braces was fatiguing
and time consuming); decreased apprehension over self
presentation (people expressed relief in dealing with remote
colleagues in such a way that the disability was not a salient
issue); sensing an enhanced feeling of independence; and
experiencing a heightened sense of community. This last
advantagemerits addedemphasis. Employees and supervisors
felt that effective telework arrangements were not just the
accomplishmentof one person but the result of an entire work
unit striving to improve in communication skills, trust, and
cooperation.
3.6 Problems with Telework
For most people, socialized by years of working on-site,
flexible work arrangementsare still a novel concept that takes
“getting used to” by employers and employees alike. Most of
the participants in the flexiplace pilot project were early
adopters of the practice. For these people, negotiating a
working flexiplace arrangement was a struggle, and one that
was usually won only with the help of a compassionate
champion. Even once an employee had found a sympathetic
ear, processing the request for off-site work could drag on as
the anomalous request wound its way upward through layers
of unsympathetic hierarchies.
Another outcome of unfamiliarity is a generalized sense of
worry on the part of the employee that the telework arrange-
ment might be perceived by others as an excuse for malinger-
ing. As a result, flexiplace employees frequently reported
ovmting. All too often they found themselves trying
to prove themselves by working longer hours and producing
more than their colleagues in the office. This tendency was
exacerbated by the fact that in the home there were no clear
demarcations between work time and personal time. If
unattended, these unclear boundaries in conjunction with
anxiety over personal acceptance could set employees up for
exploitation and burn-out.
Other problems included missed opportunities, lack of
equipment and materials (especially over not having the
simple supplies, forms, books, or other materials needed to
complete work away f?om the office), and disruptions at home.
As an illustration of this last point, one employee with
hyperocusis (an extreme sensitivity to sounds) found that the
noise of her refrigerator going on and off in her home was
much more aversive than the din of office noise at work. In
those cases where telecommuting arrangements didn’t work,
most employees either returned to the office full time or else
mod&d therr arrangementsto include more time in the office
than originally planned.
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4 Implications for a Border-less Organization
Much enthusiasmis cutainly warranted about telework and
about how the technologies that support it have the potential
for breaking down geographic barriers in the global organiza-
tions of the 1990’s and beyond. But just as much enthusiasm
is warranted for how telework may have the capacity to bring
down barriers of accessto persons of all nations with disabili-
ties. From the Department of Defense pilot program, three
implications metit emphasis.
4.1 Enhancing Personal Control
First, telework has the potential of enhancing personal
control. When implemented as part of a work policy in
organizations, telework frequently carries with it an element
of flexibility. Teleworkers have control over where they work
and when they work, so long as they manage by objective and
goal rather than by process. It is this element of flexibility that
is especially suited for many employees with disabilities.
Employees with mobility and profound sensory impairments
find that commuting to a central offrce can be an unnecessary
burden, and a burden that is exacerbated by inclement
weather, tratIic, or other obstacles. Telework gives employees
the option of minimizing that burden associated with physical
commuting when they perceive it as getting in the way of work
or morale. Likewise, workers who suffer from a short-term
disability or who have been injured on the job find that full-
time work at the office is prohibitively fatiguing and may be
actually be forbidden by insurance or a physician. Temporary
work at home is an option that allows the injured employee to
work as long as they are able, then to rest and resume work as
soon as they feel better. Even among nondisabled employees,
many teleworkers have reported increased productivity by
working during peak performance times [ 131.
It should be noted that if a telework program is incorrectly
administered it may serve to defeat an employee’s perception
of control and flexibility. Managers who made telecommuting
compulsoiy in the 1980s as a way of saving office costs did so
at the expense of employee morale and frequently incited the
wrath of labor unions [ 193. Likewise, employees who feel
compelled to work at home ml1 time without the option of
coming into the office often report feeling isolated and
excluded from promotional opportunities [23]. With respect
to employees with disabilities, managers who insist on full
time telecommuting as a way of avoiding workplace accom-
modation may be taking a social leap backwards from an era
of “mainstreaming”to a time of isolation and separation [ 121.
What appearsto be important is to provide employees with the
flexibility of selecting their work environment, while encour-
aging a mixed strategyof spending some days in the office and
some days at home. From the social psychological literature,
flexibility and control have the driving value of enhancing
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resilience to aversive events and energizing self-determined
behavior [ 11.
4.2 Improving Quality of Life
Second, for persons with disabilities, telework has the
potential of improving quality of life. The disabilities commu-
nity has been especially invested in the use of new technology
for improving quality of life [ 111. Although new technologies
are arcane and remote for some people, many people with
disabilities are thoroughly accustomed to using them to
communicatemore effectively with fiends and colleagues, to
coordinate their work in groups, and to learn new skills.
Because these employees are accustomed to using high
technologies,and becausethe virtual community relies on high
technologies to mediate communication, telework may have
the particular benefit of enhancing personal outcomes for
persons with disabilities above and beyond enhancements to
other groups.
This may especially be the casewhen employees communi-
cate through computer-mediated technologies such as elec-
tronic mail and bulletin boards. Computer-mediated commu-
nications are text-based in nature. Persons who are deaf have
been communicating textually through TDDs (Telecommuni-
cations Devices for the Deaf) for some time. As an organiza-
tion moves internal discussions from the water cooler onto
electronic networks, it levels the playing field for participants
with hearing impairments. Electronic mail colloquializes the
practice of communicating textually while it removes the
difficulty deaf employees have had in locating TDD services
and using them effectively with nonimpaired others.
In some respects, similar benefits may accrue for persons
with vision impairments. To read internally circulated
materials, employees who are blind must rely on external
reading devices to translate the printed word into synthesized
voice. Although impressive advances have been made in
Optical Character Recognition technology, the process is still
cumbersome and prone to error. On the other hand, since
electronic mail is text-based in nature and is already delivered
in a machine-readable format it is, a relatively simple matter
to convert incoming mail to synthesized speech. Putting
company memorandaon-line has the advantageof speeding up
the process by which persons with vision impairments
translate written memoranda into interpretable communica-
tions.
For employees who are home bound or who have mohility
impairments, computer-mediated communications remove the
barriers imposed by physical and temporal distance. In a
study of electronic network usage in science, Hesse and his
colleagues [5] found that increased network usage was
associatedwith enhanced professional outcomes for scientists
who were geographicallyisolated. In a study of network usage
in a city government, Hti and his colleagues [lo] noted an
increasein organizational commitment from shift workers who
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used asynchronous communications to “talk” with colleagues
in other time shifts. Olson [2 1] noted that telecommuters who
used electronic mail felt less isolated working at home than
those who relied only on the telephone. Generalizing from
these observations, it should be plausible to predict that
employees who are home-bound due to a short-term or long-
term disability should benefit directly from being able to use
computer-mediated communications for communicating with
colleagues at work.
Other advantages to using telework enabling technologies
are more subtle in nature, but the effect may be just as
pronounced. Because mediated communication is limited to
the textual channel, it lacks the nonverbal and social context
cues present in face-to-face interaction. As a result,
computer-mediatedcommunication limits the impact of social
statuscues,physical posturing, and verbal dominance cues in
discussions [24]. Participants in these mediated interactions
tend to contribute equally to discussions and decision-making.
In a sense, the medium democratizes group discussions and
will minimize the stigma associated with physical disabilities.
Taken together,the implications are that telework enabling
technologiesmay have the potential of breaking down barriers
for some people with disabilities. Consider as an example the
hearing-impaired employee who for the first time can partici-
pate in a discussion of offlce politics on an equal level with
non-impaired coworkers because their communications are
textual and not aural. Or consider the employee who has been
ma& timid through years of self-consciousnessover a visually
apparentdisability and who through electronic discussions can
contribute to discussionswith confidence and impact. (Not all
movement to computer-mediated communications is associ-
ated with positive outcomes. Consider the case of “flaming”
where participants in a computer-mediated interchange
exchange insults and aggressive jabs precisely because the
inhibitory quality of nonverbal cues is missing [6,24].)
4.3 Recommendations for Design
Third, as telework becomes a more accepted business
practice and more people participate in the virtual community,
care must be taken to ensure that the needs of individuals with
disabilities are included in the design of telework technolo-
gies. We, as managers and engineers of information systems,
must take care to build our own curb cuts into the world we
create. Something as simple as a move toward graphical user
interfaces in the design of front-end computer applications
may serve to exclude persons with blindness if thought is not
given to how to provide access through voice synthesis or
tactile transduction.
Following are recommendations for using the promise of
telework to fulfill the vision of a fully inclusive and adapted
community on-line.
0 Design accessible on-ramps and off-ramps to the
information highway. Designers should work closely
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with human factors professionals to be sure that the
technologies developed for the electronic organization
are compatible with the needs and limitations of persons
with disabilities. This is the notion of universal design
[ 141,which suggeststhat information technology should
be designed t?om the start to be compatible with a full
spectrum of physical and cognitive abilities.
l Develop applications that help specially challenged
individuals transcend their disabilities. Adaptive
technologieshold great promise for helping individuals
overcome the limitations of their disabilities. The image
of how the world has recovered through technology the
thoughts and contributions of such talented individuals
as Stephen Hawking is a motivating infiuence on
engineers and developers. As discussed in this paper,
telework itself is an adaptation that can be used to help
individuals overcome the physical and social limitations
of their disabilities.
0 Implement the organizational infrastructure to support
a productive use of telewonk. Obstacles to the use of
telework by employees with disabilities are frequently
managerial rather than technological. Recent efforts in
the United States, the United Kingdom, and Western
Europe have begun to wear away at industrial age
managerial philosophies and for the first time are
opening telework as an option to a good number of
employees with disabilities. These efforts should be
continued.
l Support continuous learning with on-line resources.
Just as world libraries have been the keystone to enlight-
ened changein previous eras,information on-line can be
the keystone to empowerment in the information age.
Examples of current and proposed resources for the
disabilities community include: (a) adaptive technolo-
gies information for persons with disabilities and their
care providers, (b) instructional information on accessi-
bility for teachers and employers; (c) employment
opportunities; (d) legislative and policy information; (e)
educational information including adapted coursework
on-line; (r) medical information; and (g) professional
and popular journals, texts, and magazines.
l Bolster community building through dedicated and
inclusive discussion groups on-line. Electronic discus-
sion groups can overcome boundaries by connecting
community members through conversation, inquiry, and
exploration irmspective of geography or time. Support-
ing electronic discussion groups for employees with
disabilities will provide immediate access to the com-
munity’s knowledge and personal relationships.
l Move toward international standards. As emphasized
by the World Institute on Disability [ 141, standards need
to be developed to assure that persons with disabilities
have universal accessto telecommunications and on-line
information regardlessof where they live or the products
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1995
they use. Although some progress has been made on
this front nationally, efforts should continue to work on
negotiating telecommunications and information systems
standards for persons with disabilities internationally.
5 Conclusion
Early formative feedback from the DOD flexiplace project
for persons with disabilities suggests that telework can be
useful for persons with disabilities across a wide range of
practice. Successml telework can range from short-term
solutions, in which employees spend full time at home for a
short duration, to long-term solutions, in which employees
balance work at home with work in the office. In fact, just
having a flexiplace policy within an organization-just like
having a short- or long-term sick policy-should serve as its
own employee benefit. Whether employees are rebounding
from earthquakes in California or recovering from broken
ankles in the DOD, flexiplace takes the stress out of their
personal emergencies.
As organizations distribute themselves and improvements
are made in telecommunications technologies, telework is
inevitable. As we move into a global, virtual community we
must take stock of how accessible we have made that commu-
nity to persons with disabilities. Now, as we plan for the
borderless organization, is the time to consider making
adaptations-“curb cuts”-for persons with disabilities in the
virtual community.
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges Judith Gilliom, Robert
Weisgerber, Natalie Broomhall, Lea Stublarec, and Charles
Grantham for their collaboration on the Department of
Defense Flexiplace project and Deborah Kaplan who helped
popularize the analogy of “curb cuts” as universal adaptations.
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