"Promoting
Ability Within USDA"
USDA will make reasonable accommodations for the removal of workplace barriers to the known physical or mental limitations of qualified applicants for employment and employees with disabilities, unless such accommodations would impose an undue hardship on the operation of the Department's activities and/or programs. It is the Department's policy to serve as a model employer of persons with disabilities and to accommodate employees and applicants with disabilities.
The attached enforcement guidance (http://www.eeoc.gov/docs/accommodation.html)
allows managers and supervisors to provide more than the minimum
requirements whenever feasible, including accommodating individuals
whose functional limitations do not rise to the definition of a
"disability." USDA recognizes that all of its employees need
the tools necessary to be productive, and that making reasonable
accommodations is simply a way of providing the tools needed to
accomplish its mission. USDA is committed to a simple and streamlined
process for providing reasonable accommodations.
The Department's guiding principle is
"When in doubt, accommodate!"
The goal of the Secretary's Advisory Committee for Employees with Disabilities (SACED) is to enable USDA to achieve equitable consistent, Department-wide policies and systems that provide equal access and reasonable accommodations where employees with disabilities are treated fairly, with dignity and respect, and to establish USDA as an employer of choice.
