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Job Restructuring*
Matching people with jobs can sometimes be described as placing a square peg in a round hole. This is also true for some individuals with disabilities. As an employer looking to retain qualified workers, identifying an individual’s abilities and strengths and then matching those to the job duties can be more successful than the traditional approach to hiring.
Job restructuring involves an analysis of the tasks of the job to identify functions that are performed but are not essential, and do not match the individual’s abilities. Such duties can be characterized as marginal functions. In hiring or supervising employees with disabilities, it may be necessary to reassign or trade marginal functions among employees within a given work site.
It can also be a creative HR practice to hire employees with disabilities. This would be done so that one employee would receive the marginal functions that an employee with a disability was not able to perform. In turn, the employee with a disability would normally receive marginal functions, which they could perform. It is important to note that it is not the intent of such restructuring effort to relieve an employee with a disability of their workload or to assign undesirable tasks based on disability or a lack of disability.
Benefits to Employers
- Provides additional options for creative recruiting
- Access to a broader pool of qualified applicants
- Makes better use of individual employees’ skills and talents
- No-cost professional consultants to assist in job restructuring
*Provided by the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR), Employer Recruitment Handbook.
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