Accommodations: an individual-level change or an organizational-level change?

This space is a system - do you integrate me into the system, or, do you integrate the system to me?

When I enter into it with my accommodation, the whole space shifts, the whole system shifts. Yet, this isn't formally represented as accommodations have been applied in an isolated way.

A recurring experience I’ve had is the practice of maintaining a fixed organizational system while ‘handing out’ the accommodation modification. One small example of this is that when I use my assistive chair in the classroom, I, and other students, spend about 5-10 minutes rearranging the whole space to fit together in a new way so that it works better for the size and space of the chair. We spend time doing this because it hadn’t been done prior; my chair was simply added in. But the reality is that the assistive chair impacts everyone in the space and the system as a whole. 

Researchers Kensbock, Boehm, and Bourovoi discover that an accommodation can be considered an individual-level change. “Job accommodation processes primarily affect single employees and their immediate work environments. By contrast, organizational-level change processes typically affect many employees simultaneously (Kensbock et al, 2017).” Here, the authors are distinguishing that job accommodations follow an individual-level analysis of change management, not an organizational-level. Furthermore, they found that the understanding and implementation of the accommodation process can benefit by applying change management theories. Their finding is critical to uplifting that workplace disability response is intricately woven within organizational behavior.

Yet, repeatedly, the authors discovered that the accommodation solves practical problems, yet generates a wide range of problems that haven't been given attention to yet. In my research and experience, this is because accommodations are treated as an individual-level change. The variety of unseen problems relate to social psychology and organizational power structures. When the accommodation is recognized as a change which impacts everyone, vision of unintended consequences will arise.

Imagine

The personal example I shared can be taken as a micro example of an organization. When the chairs stay fixed and they add my accommodation to it, this is what it means to respond at an individual-level. When the chairs are reconfigured they all relate to each other in a new way, a slightly different way, to accommodate this new piece that was just added to the system as a whole. That is what it means to respond at a system level. 

If the organizational structure assumes it will stay fixed and simply provide accommodations at an individual-level, then they aren’t encompassing the reality of the impact of their decisions. Whether they plan for it, or welcome it into their understanding of things, the reality is that accommodations are not an isolated phenomena and neither is disability. The logical structural response has been to maintain the same system and add the modification into it. But what if it acknowledges the natural reality which is that the shift enters the system and naturally impacts the whole system.

A systems theory understanding allows for recognition of the emergent and dynamically shifting environment that disability is situated within. Acknowledging the systemic impact of accommodations allows the organization to anticipate unintended consequences across a constellation of structures and respond with flexibility. Flexible organizations have been known to be the most resilient. Therefore, acknowledging the natural impact of an accommodation can lead to strengthening and creating a more resilient organization.

In Conclusion,

When the link between accommodations, change management, and organizational behavior becomes part of mainstream academia and organizational psychology, workplaces will be able harness the power and resiliency that can arise from anticipating the relationality and impact of introducing new structures into the system.