A model of job activity description for workplace accommodation assessment

Workplace accommodations to enable employees with disabilities to perform essential job tasks are an important strategy ways for increasing the presence of people with disabilities in the labor market. However, assessments, which are crucial to identifying necessary accommodations, are typically conducted using a variety of methods that lack consistent procedures and comprehensiveness of information. This can lead to the rediscovery of the same solutions over and over, inability to replicate assessments and a failure to effectively meet all of an individual's accommodation needs. To address standardize assessment tools and processes, a taxonomy of demand-producing activity factors is needed to complement the taxonomies of demand-producing person and environment factors already available in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). The purpose of this article is to propose a hierarchical model of accommodation assessment based on level of specificity of job activity. While the proposed model is neither a taxonomy nor an assessment process, the seven-level hierarchical model provides a conceptual framework of job activity that is the first step toward such a taxonomy as well as providing a common language that can bridge the many approaches to assessment. The model was designed and refined through testing against various job examples. Different levels of activity are defined to be easily linked to different accommodation strategies. Finally, the levels can be cross-walked to the ICF, which enhances its acceptability, utility and universality.