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Purpose
The purpose of this Center is to build the capacity of Federal and State public agencies and private entities to support people with disabilities in achieving self-employment, business ownership, or telecommuting as employment outcomes. Two specific objectives will guide the Center's activities.
1) Increase the supply of trained personnel available to public and private agencies.
2) Maintain and improve the skill, knowledge, and quality of rehabilitation personnel.
COVID-19 Is Creating Telework Converts
Telecommuting is the new reality for many U.S. employees. Many are saying they want to continue working from home when the threat of COVID-19 has passed, even as companies grapple with how - and when - to safely return people to the workplace.
How Covid Inspired a New Generation of Entrepreneurs
The pandemic forced everyone to adopt new technology and rethink their jobs, spurring our economy to lean into independent work. - Humans normally respond to big unforeseen shocks in one of two ways: either they recoil from risk-taking as we saw after the Great Depression, leading to the creation of the modern welfare state and a generation that feared the stock market; or they accept that risk is part of life and learn to embrace it - as they did in the Roaring Twenties after the 1918 flu and 1920 recession. So far it looks like we’re going with the 1920s - at least from an economic risk perspective. Entrepreneurship rates are up.
JAN Offers Practical Suggestions on Telework as a Reasonable Accommodation
Dealing with requests for telework as an accommodation - According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), telework has long been considered a form of reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). While the EEOC provides useful guidance about telework as an accommodation, the pandemic has created a multitude of new telework issues for employers to consider. For employers who are looking for guidance on how to address these issues, the Job Accommodation Network (JAN) offers the following practical suggestions.