Assigning Roles and Filling Gaps in Staff

Once you’ve gotten an initial check on your current accessibility issues and shared a public statement and policy for how you are addressing accessibility, you need to figure out what teams will be responsible for executing on that plan, and what resources may be needed to assist them.

What Teams Involved?

First, you have to know what teams are involved. You have to think from a very high-level, as accessibility can touch many different departments and agencies in a city, and the responsibility can fall to both internal employees and external contractors and vendors. The following different areas are important to consider:

• Project Management - Who will lead this initiative and be responsible for its overall success?
• IT/Software Development - Who makes our websites and applications?
• Website/Content Creators - Who controls the content in our digital assets?
• Customer Service - Who may interface with residents with disabilities and need to know protocol and best practices to do so?
• Legal/Counsel - Who will be involved to consult on the laws mandating accessibility and represent the city if any legal challenges arise?
• Finance/Operations - Who is accounting for the budgets and resource allocation for the initiative?

What Training May Be Necessary

Once you’ve established the teams responsible for executing your accessibility plan, you have to establish all of the information and talent gaps that need to be filled to execute well. Those gaps can be filled in a variety of ways, including:

• Hiring full time staff proficient in the skills you need, maybe with accessibility expertise
• Contracting with a vendor or consultant who can lend you the expertise and skills you need through specific services or training the cities employees

Importance of Executive Sponsorship

One key thing to note in assigning roles and establishing responsibility for an accessibility initiative is the importance of having executive sponsorship. Unfortunately, if city leaders are not invested in the outcome of such an undertaking, and there isn’t buy-in from at least one decision maker, other employees working on the project will not be as motivated to succeed. The most successful accessibility initiatives are led from the top down, by a passionate leader.