Camille Olson Quoted in Society for Human Resource Management Online
"Out with the Old ADA, In with the New"

Camille Olson was quoted in the September 30, 2008 Society for Human Resource Management Online article, "Out with the Old ADA, In with the New." The article discussed the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA) and quoted Camille throughout. According to Camille, employers should provide just as much managerial training about the amended law now as they did after the ADA was first enacted. She also explained that "The ADAAA didn’t change the definition of 'reasonable accommodation,' but employers will have many more occasions to go through the interactive process of identifying a reasonable accommodation because of the law’s expansion of the term 'disability.'  HR professionals should take a number of steps to prepare for the ADAAA, such as, according to Camille, sending a brief memo to every manager to alert them that the ADA has been amended to provide a much broader definition of who is covered and that it is incumbent on managers to alert HR to reasonable-accommodation requests. She also recommended that HR attend managers’ meetings before the end of 2008, taking a few minutes to explain the new law and ensuring that managers know who to go to if there are issues.