Why and How Electronic Job Coaches Improve Employment for People with Disabilities

Abstract

Even though the 2014 Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act strengthens federal and state commitments to employing people with disabilities, there remain millions of Americans with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities (ID) who are still unemployed. To succeed in competitive employment, workers with ID require help with memory, task sequence and planning, and time management; skills that are often referred to as executive functioning. Typically, employers do not have the training to manage people with ID with these challenges. This task falls to job coaches, job developers or employment specialists (e.g., providers) and the agencies that provide such services. Without effective and efficient tools to support the executive functioning of individuals with ID, policies that aim to affect their competitive integrated employment can result in an unmanageable burden on the provider. Today’s jobs are more complex. Providers need tools that can help them effectively and efficiently build, record and adjust prompts and instructions as changes occur in real-time. However, they may not have the time and/or the skills required to make clear, accurate instructional prompts for multiple workers with ID in different settings. To identify the needs of employers, providers, and workers with ID, a NIDILRR-funded project collected data from supervisors, employers and providers of employment services to workers with ID. These interviews were used to determine the requirements of an ideal system that would help them better instruct, coach, track progress and manage teams of employees with ID. This brief describes their findings and development of a cloud-based interactive electronic job coaching app that allows emplyment services providers to efficiently convert work assignments into the essential details required by the mobile worker with ID, and then wirelessly transfer the appropriate instructions to the worker’s electronic coach.