[Rehab] Accessible Technology Skills Gap Report, PEAT

[Jan Bailey]

Erica:

I don't know how to use messenger, so please send any messages to my email.
Thanks.
Jan


-----Original Message-----
From: Rehab <rehab-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Ericka via Rehab
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2019 3:36 PM
To: Rehabilitation Counselor Mailing List <rehab at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Ericka <dotwriter1 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Rehab] Accessible Technology Skills Gap Report, PEAT

Just proves that the more you know about technology and the more you know
about assistive technology can get you ahead sitghed or not.

Ericka Nelson

> On Apr 26, 2019, at 3:06 PM, Nightingale, Noel via Rehab
<rehab at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> https://www.peatworks.org/skillsgap/report
> 
> Accessible Technology Skills Gap Report: A Report on PEAT's 2018 
> Skills Gap Research Findings PEAT
> 
> [An infographic depicting research on the accessible technology skills 
> gap]
> 
> The Accessible Technology Skills Gap
> 
> Since PEAT's founding in 2013, we have helped dozens of companies build
accessibility awareness into their workplace. The majority of the companies
in our network now have accessibility policies and programs in place. They
are also increasingly making digital accessibility an imperative, not an
afterthought, for both their internal systems and the products and services
they bring to the marketplace. They are doing this because they have looked
at the business case and know that this is good for the bottom line and the
right thing to do. But PEAT has found that a current major barrier is that
many organizations can't find job candidates with the accessible tech skills
they need-and 57% report that as a result, their products and services are
less accessible than they want.
> 
> Background
> 
> In December 2017, PEAT convened more than 60 leaders from across the tech
sector to discuss how to increase accessible workplace technology. One major
issue identified was a lack of availability of accessible technology skills
in the IT sector. To better understand this issue, PEAT partnered with Teach
Access to ask our community to tell us about the accessible technology
skills in their organizations.
> 
> The Gap is Wide
> 
> We heard from 70 respondents across a broad range of companies and public
sector organizations. 3 out of 5 respondents confirmed that it was
"difficult or very difficult" for their organization to find job candidates
with accessibility skills-and 0% felt it was easy. In fact, 63% say their
current staff don't have the accessible technology skills to meet their
organizations' goals, and 38% reported that jobs stay open longer or go
unfilled as a result.
> 
> The True Cost
> 
> The responses indicate that although companies clearly feel such
investment is worthwhile, the skills gap can lead to increased costs and
decreased productivity. Specifically, organizations are paying for
significant on-the-job training or supplementing with external training to
help their staff build these skills. One respondent lamented that "we resign
ourselves to the fact we can hire very bright people but are going to have
to start from square one when it comes to accessibility." Almost 40% said
that jobs in their organizations stay open longer or go unfilled because of
a lack of accessible tech skills among candidates.
> 
> Demand Will Increase
> 
> Respondents project that the need for accessibility skills will only keep
growing-which is great news for candidates looking for a way to stand out
from the crowd! Among industry respondents, 83% reported seeing a moderate
or significant increase in demand for accessibility skills over the last
five years, and over 93% of industry respondents expect this demand will
increase in the future. And 93.5% of all respondents reported that it was
"very important" to them personally to hire more people with accessibility
skills.
> 
> Closing the Gap
> 
> With future demand growing for these key skills, PEAT is working with its
partners to look for ways to address this gap. Here are some of the things
we are doing now and we look forward to YOUR ideas for how to make progress:
> *Respondents confirmed the need to work with colleges and universities to
infuse curricula with more accessible technology skills. PEAT is partnering
with Teach Access [link] to help make this a reality.
> *Only about one third of respondents said that their HR teams consider
accessible technology skills when they recruit developer and designer
candidates. PEAT is working with companies and HR organizations like SHRM
[link] to help HR professionals better understand why these skills matter
and how to increase the supply of candidates with these skills.
> *A majority of respondents said they would like to explore using an
apprenticeship model to train and certify employees to have these skills.
PEAT is partnering with organizations like Apprenti [link] and IAAP [link]
to explore such approaches.
> 
> PEAT has developed an infographic [link] to visually showcase these major
findings.
> 
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