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Obama Issues Executive Order to Increase Federal Employment of Individuals with Disabilities

July 29, 2010 — Pres. Barack Obama on Monday issued an Executive Order that would fulfill Executive Order 13163, which called for an additional 100,000 individuals with disabilities to be employed by the federal government over five years. Executive Order 13163 was signed by former-Pres. Bill Clinton in 2000, "yet few steps were taken to implement that Executive Order in subsequent years," Obama wrote.

"As the nation's largest employer, the federal government must become a model for the employment of individuals with disabilities," Obama's Executive Order reads. "Executive departments and agencies must improve their efforts to employ workers with disabilities through increased recruitment, hiring and retention of these individuals."

Under Monday's Executive Order, within 60 days the director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) must work with the secretary of Labor, the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to design model recruitment and hiring strategies for agencies seeking to increase their employment of people with disabilities. They also must develop mandatory training programs for both HR personnel and hiring managers on the employment of individuals with disabilities.

Within 120 days of the date that the OPM sets forth strategies and programs listed above, each agency needs to develop an agency-specific plan for promoting employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. Each agency's plan should be developed in consultation with the OPM and OMB. Each plan should include performance targets and numerical goals for employment of individuals with disabilities, as well as sub-goals for employment of individuals with targeted disabilities.

Each agency also is to designate a senior-level agency official to be accountable for enhancing employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities and individuals with targeted disabilities. The official also will be accountable (among other things) for:

• Developing and implementing the agency's plan
• Creating recruitment and training programs for employment of individuals with disabilities and individuals with targeted disabilities
• Coordinating employment counseling to help match the career aspirations of individuals with disabilities to the needs of the agency.

In implementing their plans, agencies are, to the extent permitted by law, to increase their use of the federal government's Schedule A excepted hiring authority for people with disabilities, and increase participation of individuals with disabilities in internships, fellowships and training and mentoring programs.

The OPM is to assist agencies in implementing their plans. The OPM, working with the OMB, is to implement a system for reporting regularly to Obama, the heads of agencies, and the public on agencies' progress. The OPM is to compile and post government-wide statistics on its Web site.

To increase agencies' retention and return to work of individuals with disabilities, the OPM, working with the DOL and EEOC, is to identify and help agencies in implementing strategies for retaining federal workers with disabilities in federal government including training, the use of centralized funds to provide reasonable accommodations, increasing assistance to appropriate accessible technologies, and ensuring the accessibility of physical and virtual workspaces.

Agencies are to make "special efforts" to ensure the retention of those who are injured on the job, including improving, expanding and increasing successful return-to-work outcomes for those of their employees who sustain work-related injuries and illnesses as defined under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA). This is to be accomplished by increasing the availability of job accommodations and light- or limited-duty jobs, removing disincentives for FECA claimants to return to work, and taking other "appropriate" measures.

The secretary of Labor is to work with the OPM to pursue innovative re-employment strategies and develop policies, procedures and structures that foster improved return-to-work outcomes, including by pursuing overall reform of the FECA system.

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