Universal Strategies for the 21st Century Workforce
Good customer service means providing a welcoming environment, respectful treatment, and needed information. Universal Design (UD) provides an important toolset for companies seeking to provide these advantages for their customers and for their employees, who also want to feel welcome and respected, and who require adequate and timely information to do their jobs.
ODEP promotes and has shown that UD as a service-delivery strategy can meet the diverse needs of all customers, particularly youth and adults with disabilities, mature workers, veterans, the chronically homeless, and those with limited English proficiency.
UD is a lens through which every aspect of a business can be viewed (its products, services, physical environment, communications, and technology) and a set of tools by which products, services, customer satisfaction, and strategies that attract and retain employees of all abilities--ultimately results in increased profitability and success for companies.
ODEP has promoted the development and replication of universally designed best practices that increase programmatic and physical accessibility, enhance market-driven skills development, and foster collaboration through the findings of its past Customized Employment projects.
ODEP's Universal Design and Universal Strategies Fact Sheet
This fact sheet answers the questions on what is Universal Design and universal strategies and how they can assist a company in attracting and keeping a diverse workforce and customer base.
Universal Design for the Workforce Development System Toolkit
This toolkit, developed by the National Center on Workforce and Disability, is a collection of tools, online training modules, and best-practice findings from the field, all of which are deigned to promote a workforce-development system that is both responsive to local needs and realities, and able to meet the needs of its diverse businesses and career seeker customers. Taken together, these tools form a comprehensive system evaluation and change curriculum which users can customize to best meet their state and local needs.
Other Universal Design Resources
Principles of Universal Design
The Principles, conceived by UD advocates in 1997, established a valuable language for explaining the characteristics of Universal Design. They are in common use around the world, sometimes with slight modifications, primarily one or two principles grouped together.
Institute for Human Centered Design
Also known as Adaptive Environments (AE), the Institute is a 30-year old international non-profit organization, based in Boston, committed to advancing the role of design in expanding opportunity and enhancing experience for people of all ages and abilities. The organization's UD site provides the principles, history, experts, resources, and more.
Ronald L. Mace Universal Design Institute (under construction)
The Center for Universal Design
The Center for Universal Design (CUD) is a national information, technical assistance, and research center that evaluates, develops, and promotes accessible and universal design in housing, commercial and public facilities, outdoor environments, and products.
