Academic offers insights, tips for HR on how to implement updated employment standard
On May 29, 2025, Accessibility Standards Canada released its revised CAN/ASC-1.1:2024 (REV-2025) – Employment standard, a national framework aimed at helping organizations build accessible and inclusive work environments for all employees, particularly persons with disabilities.
The updated standard includes several major additions: refined language across clauses, a new section on accessibility support systems, and an expanded focus on workplace culture, engagement, and education.
According to Accessibility Standards Canada, the standard “gives [organizations] the tools to create equitable and inclusive workplaces that include the skills and talents of employees with disabilities.”
The revisions clarify expectations for employers and are aligned with federal initiatives such as the Disability Inclusion Action Plan and the Employment Strategy for Canadians with Disabilities.
The changes emphasize proactive strategies and systemic approaches to identifying and eliminating accessibility barriers, both physical and attitudinal, throughout the employment life cycle—from recruitment and onboarding to professional development and job separation.
A significant component of the revised standard is Section 11.2.2, titled “Worker-centred actions.” This section highlights how informal workplace dynamics—such as hallway discussions, impromptu meetings, and social events—can create or perpetuate exclusion if not properly addressed.
Natalya Alonso, professor of management and organization studies at the Beedie School of Business, notes that the informal nature of these interactions often makes exclusion difficult to identify and correct.
“There aren't necessarily ways that you can legislate or create policies that are going to completely eliminate this type of behaviour,” Alonso says.
“It's often difficult to catch them, and they happen in informal settings where people may not necessarily even be privy to them, but they have a huge impact on people's wellbeing, as well as their workplace experiences, and whether they continue in that workplace or move on elsewhere.”
The revised standard calls on organizations to identify such barriers and to foster anti-ableist attitudes in all workplace interactions—this includes a commitment to eliminating microaggressions, discriminatory language, and other subtle forms of exclusion.
According to Alonso, “These experiences are very consequential for people and for their wellbeing and their trajectory at work, but they're difficult to manage, and so I think that's a challenge that the government's probably picking up on.”
The standard makes clear that efforts to build an inclusive workplace must go beyond formal processes and extend into the day-to-day experience of all employees; Alonso explains the difficulty in quantifying informal discrimination: “It’s much harder to quantify these interpersonal dynamics or experiences that people are having.”
She points to the importance of education and awareness when addressing these issues, especially concerning disability-related microaggressions.
“Oftentimes I think microaggressions are associated more so with racial microaggressions, but absolutely they relate to people with disabilities as well,” Alonso says.
“So you think about turns of phrase, like saying, ‘Oh, that's so crazy.’ This is stigmatizing language that can be perceived as a microaggression to certain people.”
Training is one tool the standard recommends to combat exclusion, but its effectiveness depends on execution, Alonso stresses.
“More in-depth, long training that has an interactive face-to-face component tends to be more effective than shorter, virtual, online trainings,” she says.
“Leadership support for the training itself is also an important factor.”
Section 11.2.2 also encourages organizations to re-evaluate how informal settings are structured to avoid unintentionally reinforcing exclusion. Alonso explains that elements such as physical layout, lighting, and sound all influence whether a space is truly accessible.
“What are the accessibility parameters there that are ensuring that everyone can participate in that to the same degree?” she asks.
“Are there ramps available, automatic doors, that sort of thing, as well as … assistive technologies that can help people of all differences interact in that space in a similar plane?”
Even within conversations, unconscious patterns can reflect bias, she adds. The revised standard underscores that inclusion must be built into all layers of workplace interaction, from formal training to the structure of a coffee break.
“This typically shows up in speaking patterns,” Alonso says.
“So, who is given the floor, whose ideas are listened to, whose ideas ultimately get credit,”
Alonso highlights three foundational principles organizations should adopt when addressing informal bias: “accountability, formalization and transparency.”
She explains that transparency might involve something as concrete as “tracking speaking time in meetings and seeing if that's evenly distributed,” while formalization means “creating structured policies and procedures for how decisions are made, and how interactions are flowing.”
One practical example involves company social events—the approach not only reduces interaction anxiety but also reinforces inclusion through universal design principles.
“If you're having a social event, don't just simply expect people to show up and start mingling,” Alonso says.
“Have some kind of structured icebreakers to kick off the event.”
