New Study of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) Released by Reliance Standard & Matrix
A 5-year benchmarking analysis offers trends to help employers better understand the ADA, and its impact on their workforce since the pandemic.
Reliance Standard Life Insurance Company and Matrix Absence Management have published, Empowering Disabled Employees in the Workforce: Insights for Employers Based on 5-Year ADA Data Benchmarking and Analysis 2017-2021. The study is a detailed review of the 1990 federal law as it is applied in the workplace today, specific to accommodation drivers, determinations and durations.
“What started as a safety net to help employers stay compliant, has grown to something more like workforce enablement. With data-driven tools and insights we’ve been able to ‘raise all boats,’ in a way – to make our clients smarter while we improve and expand our services.”
The research is based on more than a million covered employees nationwide generating more than 21,000 ADA accommodations annually.
The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, along with the subsequent ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA), is an “equal opportunity” law, designed to prevent discrimination against people with disabilities. In doing so, the law defines requirements for a variety of entities to remain compliant. With one of the industry’s largest books of employer ADA management data, Reliance Standard and Matrix began publishing annual market snapshots in 2017. These reports illustrated frequency, type and duration of ADA accommodation requests across a wide range of employers and employee populations, along with the demographic and other drivers observed.
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“With the introduction of our ADA Advantage® product in 2014, we have been at the forefront of outsourced ADA administration among progressive employers,” said Mark Marsters, Chief Operating Officer of Reliance Standard and President of Matrix. “That longevity, and our client-centric business model, has delivered meaningful insights and evolution of our service model over time. But it also places us in a position to help educate human resources professionals and brokers regarding the changing landscape, and give them a way to help plan, staff and forecast their own workplace ADA experience.”
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The 5-year look-back offers interesting context for employers and insurers now coming to grips with the longer-term impact of COVID-19 on the work force. Some are obvious – fewer workplace modification requests as more workers fled to remote or hybrid arrangements – while others hint at deeper trends still developing.
“We developed our ADA management product in close collaboration with many of our larger clients,” Chris Smith, AVP of ADA & Service Operations, said. “What started as a safety net to help employers stay compliant, has grown to something more like workforce enablement. With data-driven tools and insights we’ve been able to ‘raise all boats,’ in a way – to make our clients smarter while we improve and expand our services.”
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