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Economics and Workplace PAS > Promising Practices > Granite State Independent Living (GSIL)

Promising Practice in Workplace PAS:

Shared Personal Assistance Services (PAS)

Employer: Granite State Independent Living (GSIL)

Joan Ripple
Lewis Kraus M.P.H., M.C.P.
Lita Jans Ph.D.
Susan Stoddard Ph.D.
2008.

Center for Personal Assistance Service
InfoUse
2560 Ninth Street, Suite 320
Berkeley, CA 94710-2566

Summary of the promising practice

In the Shared Personal Assistance Services (PAS) model, the personal assistant (PA) is a full-time employee whose services are shared by employees with disabilities for both work-related and personal care assistance. When the PA is not assisting a person with a disability, the PA provides minor clerical services. However, the main responsibility of the position is to provide PAS. Employees with disabilities play an active role in designing their PAS services at work, including interviewing prospective PAs and providing input on the kinds, intensity and scheduling of services. A job description for the shared PA outlines the duties of the job. This practice, which began in 1993, overcomes the barrier of cost to employer by allowing more than one employee to share the services of a PA. Another benefit is the elimination of waiting time to receive PA services, since the PA is on staff.

Organization that uses this practice

Granite State Independent Living (GSIL) is a statewide non-profit organization with offices in five cities throughout New Hampshire. This center for independent living has 86 employees, 51% percent with disabilities. Founded in 1980, the organization’s mission is “to promote life with independence for people with disabilities” through its four core services of advocacy, information, education, and support. Specifically, GSIL provides advocacy, long-term supports, employment, community living services and independent living tools. These tools and resources enable individuals with disabilities to participate fully and independently in their lives, families, and communities. As summarized on its website, the main functions of GSIL include “training job seekers and employees with disabilities, placing job seekers with disabilities, providing information about accommodations, providing human resource services, and providing direct placements to hundreds of employers of all sizes and industries.”

Description of the promising practice

GSIL has been providing PAS to employees since the organization was founded 27 years ago. Initially, GSIL provided PAS by having other employees of the center for independent living assist employees who needed PAS, but that system became cumbersome. The practice of hiring a person whose main responsibility is to provide workplace PAS was started in 1993.

In the Shared PAS model, GSIL hires an individual whose primary responsibility is to assist all employees with disabilities who have personal care or work-related PAS needs. Although the PA also answers phones, works as a receptionist, and does minor clerical tasks, the organization makes it clear that the PA’s main responsibility is to assist employees with disabilities. The office manager supervises the full-time PA, who currently assists six employees with PAS needs. (Four of these employees are in the office every day and two others work at home four days and in the office one day per week.) The office manager works with the PAS users to coordinate the scheduling of services; for example, lunch times may be staggered so that the PA can assist more than one employee with eating. The people who currently use the services have spinal cord injury, muscular dystrophy, and multiple sclerosis; the services are also potentially available to new hires with disabilities or to other current staff if they were to develop a need for PAS services. The PA is a full-time employee who is already on staff, so that no special arrangements are necessary to obtain PAS services, once a need is identified.

Prospective employees are informed about the Shared PAS practice in their initial interviews. Once hired, a new employee’s needs for assistance are reviewed, including the types of services needed, how much time the services will take, and specific times of day when services are most needed. Employees with disabilities play an active role in designing their PAS services at work. The organization also has systems in place for initiating changes in PAS services and other accommodations to meet people’s changing needs. For example, staff who experience a physical or emotional decline are encouraged to discuss the situation with their supervisor or Human Resources staff, who document the situation and present it to the executive leadership team. The leadership team determines a reasonable accommodation (which might include PAS or other work-related changes) and a plan is put into place and carried out by the Human Resources Department.

GSIL also has four branch offices, only one of which currently has an employee with PAS needs. Since that employee works part-time, he has a part-time PA. If other branch offices had employees with PAS needs, GSIL would hire a PA on an hourly basis as needed by the employees.

The PA does not provide transportation to and from meetings, but the organization pays for a PA to attend meetings with those who need assistance. The organization also has a transportation department that can assist with arranging transportation. When one employee travels on business he takes one of his own PAs with him as they are better trained to assist him with his night time routine. The employer pays for him to take his own attendant when traveling.

In addition to the PAS services provided to employees, GSIL hires contract (per diem) employees to assist Board members or other people with disabilities during Board meetings and special events.

GSIL has identified a number of features that make the Shared PAS practice work well. In the initial interview and hiring, it is essential to ask about all the accommodations that an employee might need, including personal care, assistance with work tasks, assistive technology (AT), computer-related needs, communications, and any other disability-related needs that the employee might identify. GSIL involves the employee with a disability from the beginning to determine his or her needs and develop an estimate of the time necessary to meet those PAS needs, so that all parties are clear about the expectations for the shared PA. GSIL provides a clear job description for the PAs, so that, as one PAS user put it, they know exactly “what they are getting into.” GSIL includes employees with PAS needs on the panel that interviews prospective PAs. The organization has found that people with disabilities who were not involved in the PA interviews were less likely to have a good working relationship with the shared PA. The organization has also found it important to conduct orientation training with the PAs. The orientation emphasizes how to talk to a person with a disability, including the use of respectful language, person-first terminology, and free and open communication.

Costs of the promising practice

The service is paid through the administrative/operational budget. The PA is a full-time staff person who is paid hourly, can accrue sick and vacation leave, and has full benefits. The total annual cost of workplace PAS is $25, 000, including hourly wages plus benefits. The one salaried employee covers the PAS needs of four employees who are in the office every day, as well as two employees who are in the office part time. Breaking down the annual costs, GSIL estimates that work task related PAS costs are $14,500; personal care workplace PAS costs are $10,500; and one-time computer technology costs are $1,500. GSIL also includes PAS accommodations in grant budgets when it applies for outside funding.

Benefits and challenges

The vice president of GSIL stated that “the practice has increased the individuals’ access to employment opportunities, and creates a culture of diversity and respect. It has increased the organization’s understanding of opportunities and challenges of the people we serve; and has increased worker satisfaction and productivity.” The practice has helped in the retention of employees and the ability to hire new workers with severe disabilities and has increased worker satisfaction and productivity In fact, GSIL believes that the practice has given them a competitive advantage by allowing them to retain highly skilled workers and to work with other agencies that want to do business with GSIL because of its diversity. The vice president added, “Because of our being an ILC we’ve been able to partner with contractors building homes, because we can talk about universal design to make a home more accessible and affordable for an individual with a disability, regardless of age.”

One employee who uses PAS was certain that he would not be able to work if he did not have a PA there. The PAS allows him to travel for work and helps him to be comfortable in the workplace. Occasionally he might ask a colleague to assist him, but he views this as much less desirable: “Sometimes the co-worker could begin to not consider you a peer or an equal if you need their help too much.”

Discussing the challenges of the Shared PAS model, the vice president of GSIL reported that many challenges were worked out early in the process of implementing the practice. In the beginning, some people had pushed to have the PA provide clerical support to the whole organization. GSIL determined that it was important to use the position primarily for assisting the employees with disabilities and answering the phones, but not to provide extensive clerical support.

One employee who uses PAS noted that when he came back to work from an illness, he found that the front office had come to rely on the PA for back-up. However, the institutional commitment to PAS helped him to talk with the other staff about the need for the PAS duties to be primary.

GSIL staff also noted that it can be difficult to find people to cover when the PA is absent due to illness or vacation. Generally, other staff who have previously worked as PAs can substitute for the absent PA. In cases of more extended absence, GSIL hires a temporary employee to cover the tasks. In general, employees who received PAS thought that the Shared PAS model works very well for them when implemented properly. As one of the employees put it, “It’s nice to have someone available.”

Transferability to other organizations or industries.

The vice-president of GSIL addressed what needed to be in place to make the practice work: “The infrastructure that is needed includes policies and procedures on how to access support, to loosely define what support would be; to have a reasonable accommodation policy, an application form to request support, a review board comprised of Human Resources and representatives of the leadership team. If a request for accommodation is approved by the review board, a logistics plan should be developed that spells out how the accommodations are to be implemented for the individual. This plan provides a monitoring tool for the Human Resources Department or other designated person or group to assure implementation of the plan.” Other staff noted that when hiring the on-staff PA, it is important to include those who use PAS on the interview panel.

In addition to the full-time PA at the main office, the Shared PAS practice has been used in another branch office of GSIL.

Although staff at GSIL did not know of other organizations that had adopted their specific Shared PAS model, they suggested that any business interested in adopting such a practice should contact its local center for independent living for assistance. They also advised that an organization develop a consumer advisory group comprised of people with disabilities to make the workplace friendlier to people with disabilities.

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