St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (St. Joe’s) is embarking on a novel pilot project designed to put voices of individuals living with disabilities front and centre, while making the job application process more accessible.   

The new project, which launched earlier this year in partnership with the Hamilton Disability Employment Network, began with a comprehensive review of each stage of St. Joe’s recruitment processes.   

Lisa Jeffs, Senior EDI Consultant at St. Joe’s who will play a key role throughout the pilot project, says the partnership has already proven to be worthwhile.  

“To have this experience where HDEN invested so much in us is just incredible,” Jeffs says. “The outcome is going to mean real improvements to how we hire people.”  

As the project moves forward, the team is focused on exceeding the standards set by the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) by improving the accessibility of online job applications by conducting end user testing.   

"As a group we realized that was an area that would have the largest benefits if it was looked at,” says Elaine Logie, Co-Chair and Founder of HDEN, who first brought forth the idea of doing a review of St. Joe’s processes. “AODA standards focus more on automated testing, whereas we’re doing usability testing, which is excellent because standards can only take you so far in terms of how usable a site is for individuals with disabilities. 

“This process is facilitating an individualized, specific approach to assessing St. Joe's hiring processes,” Kelly Sward, Co-Chair of HDEN and Occupational Therapist at St. Joe’s adds. “AODA provides general requirements, but this process gives us a chance to have lived-experience perspectives on the nuts and bolts of St. Joe’s own system.”  

The feedback from this testing will then be compiled into a report from HDEN which will be used to add actions to  St. Joe’s five-year accessibility plan, which Lisa says differs from previous plans in that “it is more aspirational, in that we are pushing St. Joe's to go beyond meeting the bare minimum requirements of accessibility legislation.”  

"One of our values at St. Joe’s is justice and to me, this demonstrates our real commitment to that value, by being more inclusive,” says Jeffs. “We know from research evidence that people with disabilities who work in their chosen field are productive, loyal and successful. So not only does this project demonstrate the values of the hospital, but in the end all the evidence tells us that this is going to benefit us in the long run because we're going to have amazing employees.”