Why web accessibility is vital to HR

An easily overlooked way to show employees they are valued is to make HR digital channels more accessible. More workplace communication happens through digital channels, so the need for digital accessibility in HR is growing Besides, it’s the law.

What is web accessibility?
Web accessibility means accounting for disabilities when building any web-based product. For HR, this relates to employee-facing digital products like benefits, microsites, decision support quizzes, and even videos and PDF documents. To ensure there’s a standard for these accommodations, the World Wide Web Consortium maintains the definitive set of guidelines known as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

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Web accessibility becomes an HR issue in 3 main ways:

1. It improves the employee experience: If an employer is to justifiably make the claim that they’re providing an equitable work environment, then all employees should have equal access to all communications. As Philip Joyner, Chief Technical Officer of B2E design firm Paragon Design Group, explains it, “If the goal of HR’s is to serve all employees, then it must reach every employee regardless of their sensory abilities. Web has a unique place where any employee can navigate and view the same information in ways that meet their needs. Traditional print, mail and in-office signage can’t be “read” by everyone. A site, if built correctly, can serve everyone.” 

2. It’s the law: If providing a good digital work environment wasn’t enough of a good reason, how about not getting sued? Just as the American with Disabilities Act relates to physical accommodations, it pertains to websites as well. In December, 2018, Epic Systems was sued by the NFB due to their lack of accessibility features on the employee side of their software, even though the public-facing software had accommodations for screen-readers. In fact, there were over 4000 ADA-based cases, where the subject of the claim was either a website, mobile app, or video content in 2021, a 15% increase from 2020.

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3. It benefits everyone: The population of employees who directly benefit from WCAG measures is larger than you’d think, as there are people with varying degrees of impairments that use assisted devices to navigate the web. Besides, as with other accommodations for people with disabilities, WCAG compliance improves the experience for everyone else. According to Usability.gov, “Case studies show that accessible websites have better search results, reduced maintenance costs, and increased audience reach, among other benefits.”

So what now?

Evaluate: If all this has managed to convince you that web accessibility is vital to HR communications, then you could get started by running an accessibility evaluation on your current digital content. You could start small by using a tool like CommonLook PDF Validator, a free Adobe Acrobat plugin that checks a pdf doc for accessibility issues. Then work your way up to any video content embedded on any digital channels and finally your benefits microsite.

Educate: If you’re interested in reading more about what you can do to improve your digital content’s accessibillty, the A11YProject has a comprehensive checklist that’ll help you through the evaluation process.

Create: Then you’ll be in a good position to keep accessibility in mind when creating any new digital content. It’s always easier to get it right from the start. So make sure your web designers & developers (in-house or outside vendors) are paying attention to WCAG guidelines when building.