The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that employers provide reasonable accommodations for employees with disabilities. This can mean physical accommodations such as building a handicap-accessible ramp or it can mean something less tangible like altering the employees' work schedule. The key phrase to understanding reasonable accommodations is that the accommodations must not cause the employer "due hardship."
This introduction to the ADA predicates an experience I had at Target last Thursday. I went to the store with my friend who suffers from a chronic spine condition. It is very difficult for her to sit and get up out of chairs and walking for prolonged periods also causes discomfort. She had planned to use the motorized scooters they offer to get around the store in order to preserve her energy and make it a more enjoyable and less painful shopping experience.
When we arrived at Target, we entered the building to find the motorized scooters. I had personally never used them and it was not evident how they operated. There were three scooters available, and the first one she sat upon had a blinking green light and didn't want to move forward. We tried the second one, which also failed to move forward. Before she got up for a third time, I went to get help.
Cue the painful experience to begin here. Painful because I am constantly critiquing companies on their customer service - ultimately a very important part of PR - and this was one of those "PR Fail" moments as well as an "HR Fail" because I think managers should be trained to handle upset customers with more composure.
I kindly asked the manager at customer service to come take a look. Her attitude was not apologetic, as she took a look at all of the scooters. Nor did it seem that she cared at all that none of them were working and one of their customers would not be able to have the shopping experience she had imagined.
They get used very regularly, she said.
Then you should buy more, my friend said. A former practitioner of labor relations, she wasn't going to give up very easily - not even when the manager finally apologized. "You could get sued for this, you know," my friend said.
The Target manager said that they have four scooters but one was being used, the only one that worked, apparently. "The rest are charging, we usually have signs on them when they are charging." There were no signs.
"You obviously don't want disabled people shopping here if you're not going to provide what I need to get around your store," my friend concluded.
She was forced to use a cart to walk around in pain, laboring her breathing (she recently ceased using an oxygen tank). As requested, another manager met up with us in the aisles of the store. She offered the use of a wheelchair. That wasn't going to cut it. She didn't have the strength to roll herself around. My friend suggested to the Target manager, again, that they should buy more motorized scooters if they weren't going to charge quickly enough for the next disabled customer to use.
"We don't have the resources right now to buy more," the manager replied, not handling my friend's constructive criticism with an ounce of composure. "You don't have money?! Target doesn't have money?" To which the manager replied to my friend that she could leave the store if she was going to speak to her like that. Um....wrong response, Target.
Back to the ADA, I think that reasonable accommodations for disabled customers should also apply, such as providing working motorized scooters to make the shopping experience better. I was unimpressed with how the Target employees handled the situation and how poorly my friend was treated.
PR practitioners - What would you do to rectify this situation from a customer service/PR standpoint?
HR practitioners - What recommendations do you have for the managers' reactions?
Sunday, January 30, 2011
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