Physical Requirements for desk jobs, and how they are used badly
Some job descriptions for software developers and other sit-and-think jobs include phrases about physical requirements (see examples below)
This is an (attempted) legal hack to scare off people who need ADA accommodations. If someone takes the job and then requests ADA accommodations, the company hopes that they can say “but it’s required in the job description, we don’t need to accomodate you” which… is unlikely to work. But if the company scares people off in the first place, they don’t need to pay for losing an ADA court battle. See the Ninth Circuit decision which says that exclusionary job prerequisites are invalid. As a discriminated-against potential employee, the legal counter-move is to argue that reasonable accommodations are possible, like having a standing desk rather than sitting for 6 hours. But also if a comany does this for a reason other than “our lawyers gave us some boilerplate” they are assholes and you probably don’t want to work there anyway if you have better options.
Examples of physical requirements
- Ability to learn and comprehend basic instructions; understand the meanings of words and respond effectively; and perform basic arithmetic accurately and quickly
- Vision must be sufficient to read data reports, manuals and computer screens
- Hearing must be sufficient to understand a conversation at a normal volume, including telephone calls and in person
- Speech must be coherent to clearly convey or exchange information, including the giving and receiving of assignment and/or directions
- Position involves sitting most of the time, but may involve walking or standing for brief periods of time
- Ability to lift up to 10 pounds occasionally
- Ability to bend or square occasionally
- Ability to continuously sit for long periods of time
- Regularly required to sit; use hands to finger, handle, or feel and talk or hear
- Frequently required to stand; walk and reach with hands and arms
- Occasionally lift and/or move up to 10 pounds
- Vision, color vision and ability to adjust focus
Why these requirements are wrongfully exclusionary
- Pacific Standard - How Academic Jobs Screen Out Disabled People (2018)
- huffpost - This Is How Employers Weed Out Disabled People From Their Hiring Pools (2019)
- twitter - wendyluwrites (2019)
- twitter - emily_ladau (2019)
- twitter - elysewanshel (2019)
- CBS Chicago - Disability Advocates Criticize Bradley Over ‘Diversity’ Job Description; University Vows Change (2019)
- Week.com - Bradley revises job posting for diversity officer after criticism from advocates for people with disabilities (2019)
- National Law Review - Employer’s After-the-Fact Discovery of Lack of Job Qualification Sinks Employee’s ADA Discrimination Claim (2020) “Thus, under this test, the Ninth Circuit held that an individual who fails to meet the job prerequisites cannot be considered “qualified,” and thus cannot meet their initial burden under the ADA, unless the prerequisite itself is discriminatory in effect, which it says was not the case here.”
- twitter - Karosleep (2019)
- twitter - miskeencore (2019) (see the many replies)
Examples of job listings with these requirements
Why do these phrases show up in job ads?
These precise legal phrases are in job ads as a way to try to make it legally defensible to decline to hire people because of their physical disabilities, but that is actually illegal. But if the job description scares off the people who would request ADA accommodations from applying, then the company is “winning” anyway. Fuck them.
- USA EEOC guidelines
- Illinois WorkNet - Applications Programmers Physical Requirements
- OECD - Skills for Jobs (PDF) OECD Skills for Jobs database OECD is an international “recognized expert” org wikipedia
- Imitating job descriptions which do the above because it felt like a good idea for some reason
What to do instead of putting this crap in your job ads
Follow a better guide like TMHRA ADA Toolkit