Disability

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Food Allergies In The Office? What You Need To Know



As someone with severe food allergies, I know how difficult it can be to address your food allergies with new co-workers and peers in an assertive yet informative way—especially when starting a new job in a completely unfamiliar environment. How can your place of work be inclusive of employees with severe food allergies?

What Is A "Severe" Food Allergy?


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Severe food allergies are called severe for a reason. They're life-threatening and should be taken very seriously. When someone with food allergies ingests food that contains the triggering allergen, they can go into anaphylaxis. If not administered epinephrine (an EpiPen) in time to treat the anaphylactic reaction, the reaction can be fatal.

Work Spaces And Food Allergies Don't Always Mix


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There are about 32 million Americans with food allergies. And with reports that food allergies in children increased by 50% between 1997 and 2011, they won't be going away anytime soon. Two children in every classroom will soon mean two people in every office. So, what is it like to work in an office with food allergies?

To start, it may mean not having a piece of cake at that upcoming office birthday party. Lunchtime always keeps them on guard, and they usually opt to brown-bag-it, using caution in the cafeteria and shared office kitchens. Maybe they're thinking about skipping the office outing to an unfamiliar restaurant on Friday, not sure if they'll be comfortable eating there. Every day in an open office plan could bring anxiety, as they worry about airborne allergens and lack of safe, allergen-free spaces.

If you have food allergies, chances are you can relate to at least one of these things. But if you don't have severe food allergies, you may be wondering: What does this really mean?

What The Law Says


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In the U.S., based on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, the definition of "disability" has been modified to include those with severe allergies. This is due to the fact that severe allergies are "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities" (eating, breathing, and major bodily functions related to the immune, digestive, bowel, and respiratory system).

To sum it up:

"No individual shall be discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases (or leases to), or operates a place of public accommodation." 42 U.S.C. § 12182.

Anyone with food allergies knows these laws are not widely enforced or known to apply to food allergies (think peanuts being served at baseball games or on airplanes). So, even though everyone in the U.S. with disabilities is entitled to the same rights as able-bodied people, people with severe food allergies often encounter their food allergies in these public spaces and at work and cannot fully partake in whatever activities are going on at these places. More importantly, their health and well-being could be at risk.

Most places of work are considered public places—by legal definition meaning "any enclosed indoor area used by the general public or serving as a place of work containing two hundred fifty or more square feet of floor space." Therefore, the two laws mentioned above apply, or should apply, to your place of work.

What Employers Should Know


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Good employers want to be as inclusive as possible. Yet it can be hard to be inclusive of those with food allergies if you're unaware of who has food allergies in your office.

The best way to be inclusive and considerate about food allergies is to ask new and current employees if they have any severe food allergies. And if any do, ask them what you can do to make their work environment safe and comfortable. This shows employees you care, and by acknowledging food allergies as something serious and very, very real, it already establishes that foundation of trust that is so hard to gain in the first place.

Consider what it's like trying to decide when to tell an employer about your food allergy. When asked if you have a disability on a job application, food allergies are not listed. If there's a space to check "other" and write in a different answer, you may consider, for a split second, writing in your severe food allergy.

Does your disability require reasonable accommodation?

Yes and no. It's not a physical disability, in the sense that you can't visually tell who does or doesn't have a food allergy. Yet your arrival at a new company could require them to change their policies and culture.

As you can see, it's not easy explaining food allergies at work when there's no system in place to deal with them. That's why, as an employer, you should come up with a system that works for your company. After all, it's your job to make sure all of your employees feel safe and included.

What YOU Can Do


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If you're someone with a food allergy, you probably have lots of experience navigating the world with your condition. But the professional world can be a bit tricky.

When starting a new job, it's best to tell your boss about your allergy as soon as you can, if they don't bring up the topic first (you're responsible for letting them know, and you're entitled to reasonable accommodation!). Then, ask if you can call a meeting to explain your situation to your new co-workers. This will allow for an open dialogue about the subject, and those who have questions will be able to have them answered in a supportive and honest environment.

If you don't have food allergies, but work with someone who does, please be respectful of their condition. If you're unsure whether it's okay to eat something around them, just ask. Communication is always the right choice.

Everyone deserves a safe and comfortable work environment. And it's important to remember that no one chooses to have a food allergy.

If we all try to be more kind and considerate toward our peers, it will make work better—for everyone!

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This article was originally published at an earlier date.

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Food Allergies In The Office? What You …

My Experiences As A Professional With Autism & Why I #WorkItDaily



We recently launched a social media campaign on TikTok asking users to share their stories about why they "#workitdaily." This week, we heard from Robert Rosen, a Work It Daily member who wrote about his experiences as a professional with autism.

We wanted to share Robert's story with you to spread awareness about the unique challenges autistic individuals face in the workplace and to reassure other professionals who are also on the autism spectrum that they aren't alone.

Robert's Story


Robert Rosen

I have read multiple stories and reports saying that the unemployment/underemployment rate of people on the autism spectrum is through the roof. This source says that the unemployment rate alone is between 76% and 90% (although it may not distinguish between “high-functioning”—those perfectly capable of living independently without assistance—and “low-functioning” individuals).

I estimate that I have spent something on the order of 20 years either unemployed or underemployed (much of that time making less than a living wage), translating into maybe as much as a million dollars in lost income compared to if I had been fully employed at the level of my academic and professional peers.

My situation could be perhaps best described by how a therapist from my high school years described it: “A in intellectual, F in social.” One reason for my attachment to the dogs that appear on my Facebook profile is that I never have to worry about starting or maintaining a conversation with them, or their getting angry with me if I say or do the wrong thing.

When I first heard that getting a job was “all about networking,” I thought that it would be like for a paraplegic to hear that it was all about running. To say that my social network is small might be putting it mildly. That’s been pretty much the case for my entire life. And I see more evidence of it on Facebook. Virtually all of my relatives, former high school classmates, and such friends as I have with Facebook accounts who are currently active on it—and many who are not—have hundreds of Facebook friends. My older sister has over a thousand. I have about 40. And even that doesn’t tell the whole story, because in probably at least 80% of those cases I have had to be the one to make the friend request; I can hardly even remember the last time I received one unless you count a couple of people I didn’t know at all who were probably not making such request for any legitimate purpose.

I grew up basically before there was awareness of autism, and although it manifested itself far more starkly in my younger childhood days, my parents only found a regular psychiatrist to take me to, who apparently was not aware of it either because he eventually told them that he couldn’t help me. So I didn’t receive any sort of diagnosis of it until after the age of 40. (It was diagnosed as “atypical,” meaning that I didn’t show any mannerisms common with autistics, just social awkwardness.) There is some compensation in that I am not been saddled with the horrendous costs of housing and college education that younger people have experienced, which in combination with family trust and inheritance money and a relatively frugal lifestyle and low expenses have made the lack of income more bearable. (Although I did go back to college later in life to change careers, tuition was paid for with family trust money.)

One thing that the interviewer at the autism center said about me that puzzled me for a long time was that my communication style was almost entirely verbal. I do think I use gestures, but now I don’t think that’s what she was referring to, but rather that I tend to not pick up on nonverbal signals sent by others, which I can believe. My mother sometimes remarked how I had trouble looking people in the eye (a frequent autism symptom). Much later, I read that in an interview if you have trouble looking the interviewer in the eye, they will think that you are lying—certainly not true in my case. So reading that sent a signal to me of “Don’t trust nonverbal communication.”

My work career was reasonably stable for about my first decade in the professional workforce until I was laid off from a software engineer job at Boeing in the summer of 1993. Then it all went to pieces. Following the advice given in the book What Color Is Your Parachute, I focused my search on smaller companies, working largely from a book listing high-tech companies in the region. I did get some interviews, but offers were few and far between. And a pattern started that would repeat itself multiple times over the next several years: when I did get a job, I would lose it in a matter of weeks or sometimes even days. It was over two years before I got any job with any measure of stability, and starting another pattern it was one where I was badly underpaid compared to other jobs of that type (programming), and for a time in terrible working conditions to boot. After about three years there, I was laid off, and the pattern of lengthy unemployment and lost jobs began anew. After one last job in the field where I was laid off yet again after a little over a year and confronted at the time with a hiring slump in the tech field, I decided then to go back to college and try to change careers. It would be nine years before I would finally complete that (with a couple more very poor-paying programming jobs in the interim, including one project that I ended up never being paid for at all).

I ended up with a double degree in accounting and environmental science (in 2010), and despite a GPA that earned my admission into a national business honor society, I graduated right back into unemployment. At that point, a friend told me about the state Department of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR). Things seemed to hit bottom at one point, though, when a DVR person told me that all they would be able to help me get would be an unpaid internship or a warehouse job.

If there is any job-finding resource that gives me the willies, it’s the free-form networking event. In situations like that, where people tend to separate themselves into groups, I have frequently ended up in what I jokingly call a “group of one” and as a result, I have ended up leaving more than one of these early. But one did have a payoff. I met a Boeing accounting director there and, eventually, my DVR counselor was able to set up a meeting between the three of us (and some other Boeing personnel). And although their answer to the question of whether I had the background that they might hire me for was “no,” I did get a call from the director a short time later about a temp job there. And it would lead, eventually, to four more temp jobs at Boeing. But no permanent ones. And the employment timeline after graduation was fifteen months unemployed, followed by four months of employment, followed by eight more months unemployed (other than part-time work at one of those very poor-paying jobs), followed by ten months of employment, followed by four more months unemployed before work became somewhat more steady. But the temp jobs came with very few benefits—I didn’t get a single day of paid vacation the whole time, for example—and they didn’t give me any career progression.

Finally, after one more job paying virtually nothing, I landed a job that seemed to promise the end of my troubles, as an auditor with the federal government. By then it had been nearly a quarter century since that layoff from Boeing. And for the first couple of years, that promise did seem to be a reality. The high-water mark came when, because of a conflict-of-interest issue with a pension, I was temporarily transferred out of the office that audited Boeing to one that audited many companies in the area. The supervisor at the second office had doubts about me because the Boeing office progressed new employees much more slowly than theirs. But I won him over, so much so that he suggested I put in for a permanent transfer. But I didn’t end up doing so first because my supervisor at the Boeing office said that my chances for approval wouldn’t be good because of low seniority, and second because that second supervisor was soon rotated to work for the headquarters office.

But as seemed to inevitably happen, me and job security were soon separated again. After several months the conflict of interest was resolved and I was sent back to the Boeing office. Then a few months later, my supervisor there retired, and for the first time in over 20 years, I found myself under a supervisor with a short temper. But worse was yet to come. After several more months, I found myself put under a newly transferred supervisor with an even worse temper, and one who also would lose her temper for just about any reason at all. That is twice now that I have found myself under a supervisor like that, and both ended badly for me. All the more depressing after reading an article saying that federal jobs are as secure as they come, with only 4,000 losing their jobs out of 1.6 million over a period of several years. (My work group did seem to be an exception, as another person under the same supervisor was terminated just a few months later. But she succeeded in getting another federal job even before the termination date, while I remain unemployed.)

My newest cycle of unemployment is at 3 ½ months and counting. So far, every interview I have had has resulted in failure—if an initial interview, no second interview. If there is only one interview required, then no offer.

Why Do You #WorkItDaily?


@workitdaily Thank you Fatima for being the first to join our @tiktok social media campaign♥️♥️♥️@fatimalhusseiny We can't wait to share your story with the world! Check out our campaign to learn more! @workitdaily #workitdaily #WhyIWorkItDaily #careertiktok #careertok #jobtok #edutok #mywhy #purpose #passion #worktolive #live #life #love ♬ Epic Music(863502) - Draganov89

Robert shared his story with us. Will you?

Share your story on TikTok, tag @workitdaily, and add #workitdaily to your post. You could get featured on our website and social media feeds!

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You Might Be Sued Over Your Website’s Accessibility. Is It Worth Ignoring It?



The year was 1996. I was 19 years old and living in Orlando, Florida, working at a vacation destination helmed by a certain murine mascot. As you might expect with a Florida August, my coworkers and I might as well have been working on the surface of the sun. But to this day, it’s not the heat I remember most (I’ve grown accustomed to that after all these years), it was the grating question emanating from the loudspeaker and the coworker with the mic in his hand:

Would all wheelchair guests please stay to the left?

Nails. On. A. Chalkboard. Even now!

You see, working for that particular vacation destination meant a lot of training—training on company tradition, on customer service and recovery, cash handling, operations, cultural sensitivity, and more. But also among those topics was training for providing customer service to people who might use a wheelchair, who might be hard of sight or hearing, or who might have no visible disability at all. They were people with disabilities—not disabled people or, heaven forbid, wheelchair guests—because they were people first, not defined by whatever physical or motor or mental disability they might possess. What that coworker should have asked is:

Would all guests using wheelchairs please stay to the left?

That simple reversal of words addressed them as human beings first. And it's with that spirit in mind that you as a business owner should consider your website or app.

What Do You Mean, “My Website Should Be Accessible”?


Is text on your website large enough or do colors possess high enough contrast, such that content can be easily read by someone who is hard of sight?

Can screenreader technology successfully “read” your website’s content to a prospective customer who has been legally blind since birth and cannot see your website at all?

Are “targets” like buttons sized appropriately to make them easily clickable by someone with arthritis who struggles to use a mouse?

Are form fields programmed to be successively tabbed from one field to the next by a website visitor with a motor disability who cannot use a mouse at all and can only use their tab key?

Are fancy animations purposeful and programmed to be toggled off and on by those whose condition, such as epilepsy, may be aggravated by the animations?

Have you previously engaged in any kind of accessibility audit on your website or app and publicly professed the results of that audit?

If you answered “no” or “I’m not sure” to any of those questions, it’s incumbent on you to find answers and quickly remedy any issues. Read on for why this matters and what you can do now.

OK, I Get All Of That, But Why?


That WWW you type (but shouldn’t have to) in front of web addresses? It stands for “world wide web,” and among the globe’s more than 7 billion inhabitants—your potential website visitors—one billion people live with some kind of disability according to The World Bank.

In the U.S. alone, the CDC cites 61 million adults living with a disability. That’s one in four American adults.

Firstly, and most importantly, website accessibility is the right thing to do. Put yourself in their place and imagine needing to look up your doctor’s office hours. Or wanting to check out a book from your local library. Or wanting to order takeout. Or simply wanting to buy the newest smartphone. Much like we’ve made room for parking spaces for those who are handicapped or closed-captioning on TV or doors wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair, your website, too, must be user-friendly and provide an experience as closely akin to that experienced by those who are not disabled.

Secondly, you also need to know there are legal ramifications for website owners. According to the American Bar Association, more than 8,000 web accessibility-related lawsuits were filed or removed between 2017 and 2020 in federal courts across the country. Three states—New York, Florida, and California—accounted for a great many of these lawsuits. But no website owner in any jurisdiction should consider themself immune to the possibility of legal action when their website fails to approach, much less meet, common accessibility standards.

Lastly, many of the best practices related to accessibility, like image alt tags, are also SEO (search engine optimization) best practices. In other words, the investment you make in website accessibility can also have a positive impact on how Google and Bing see your website. Being thoughtful and proactive in making your site accessible can result in the site being ranked higher on search engines.

I’m Convinced. What Should I Do?


Know that web accessibility can be a complex topic. There are loads of different initialisms, acronyms, and numerical naming conventions—W3C, WCAG, 2.0, 2.1, 3, AA, AAA, and more.

But your foremost job is simply operating and marketing your business. And that’s OK. This is where it’s key that you have a trusted web developer who has a firm handle on all of the current standards and continuing evolutions in the world of web accessibility. Ask this web developer at least a few of the following questions:

  • What elements will they specifically focus on in designing and developing the website or app? (You’ll want to hear them mention font sizes, color contrast, form accessibility, and semantic programming, to name a few.)
  • With which level of accessibility standard will their work comply? (Their answer should be at least version 2.1, level AA.)
  • What tools will they use to ensure accessibility? (They should be able to name several. Write their answers down and do your own research before hiring.)
  • What websites or apps have they recently launched that met or exceeded modern accessibility standards? (They should be readily able to offer proof of their work, which you can vet on your own before hiring.)

Want to check your existing website? There are a number of steps you can take to begin improving the accessibility of your website:

  1. Firstly, Google offers its free Lighthouse tool (see image above). Using the Chrome browser, right-click anywhere on a given page and select “Inspect.” In the panel that appears, in the upper right, choose “Lighthouse” among the options. In the panel that now appears, choose the appropriate device type (desktop for most B2B brands and mobile for most B2C brands), then ensure that “Accessibility” is checked among the various performance categories that may be measured. Click the blue “Analyze...” button and do not click away from the webpage. Give the browser a minute or so and it will give you a summary of how the page scores for accessibility, as well as tips for improvement.
  2. After you’ve adequately addressed any accessibility-related issues, consider adding an accessibility statement to your website. The statement may be included among the footer navigation toward the bottom of each page of the website, typically alongside your privacy policy and terms of use. Think of your accessibility statement as a public profession of your commitment to operating a website that is accessible and what you’ve done to make that possible. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) offers a free tool to develop this accessibility statement.
  3. Another tool that may be of use is an accessibility “healer” like accessiBe. You’ve likely seen the “little man” or wheelchair icon as a button at the bottom of many different sites, and there are competitors to accessiBe like Userway. Tools like these allow website visitors who have disabilities to toggle increased color contrast on the site or larger text size or any number of different features. But to be clear, tools like accessiBe are not Band-Aids; they do not take the place of the fundamental work to ensure a site is accessible in the first place. These tools simply add another layer of accommodation for website visitors who need it.

Finally, you can always reach out to digital marketing leaders like myself. While I’m no attorney and cannot advise you on whether or not your website or app will pass muster in a court of law, I and many of my peers would always be happy to answer your accessibility-related questions. We’re here to offer direction however you may need it.

So go out and start building a better, more accessible world starting with your very own website. We’ll be collectively improved for it, including that coworker from so many years ago. Don’t be that guy.

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You Might Be Sued Over Your Website’s …