Effective July 1, 2016, the Customer Service Standard Regulation will be revoked.  An expanded Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation will include all standards, including customer service requirements.

Following public consultations, there are certain changes to the accessible customer service standard:

Training Required for ALL Employees 

The primary change is with respect to the extent of training required on accessible customer service.  As you will recall, training on accessible customer service has been required for employees and third parties who work with customers or who participate in developing your policies on accessible customer service.  As of July 1, 2016 all employees must be trained on accessible customer service, as well as any third parties who provide goods, services or facilities on your behalf to the public or participate in developing your policies (for example, a member of your board of directors).  While the government has been notifying organizations that the training must be completed by July 1, 2016, the Regulation states that the training must take place “as soon as practicable”.  Ongoing training is also required on any changes to the company’s policy.  All organizations with 50 or more employees must keep records of the training provided, including the dates of training and the number of people trained.  We advise sign-in sheets or on-line logs with names included.  In addition, all organizations with 50+ employees must prepare a document that describes the training policy, summarizes the content of the training, specifies when training is to be provided and, on request, provide a copy of this document to any person who so requests.

Expanded Definition of “Service Animal”

While this is unlikely to affect many customer service policies, the definition of a service animal has been expanded to include a number of ways in which the individual with the service animal can confirm that they need the service animal for reasons relating to a disability.  Documentation from a number of different regulated health professionals will be acceptable, including, for example, a member of the College of Psychologists of Ontario.

Support Persons

In the event that your organization has health and safety reasons  to require a person with a disability to be accompanied by a support person when on your premises, you must consult first with the person with the disability, consider the available evidence and make a determination that the support person is necessary and there is no other reasonable alternative.

Expanded Feedback Process

The feedback process that you have established under the Accessible Customer Service Standard to allow the public to comment on how you provide accessible customer service has been expanded.  The feedback process must be accessible to people with disabilities, and accessible formats and communication supports must be provided on request.  Organizations with 50 or more employees must prepare a document describing the feedback process, provide this document to anyone on request and include a notice on the premises and/or on the website (or any other reasonable method) that this document is available upon request.

Because the Regulation now defines a large organization as having 50 or more employees, a business with 20 to 49 employees is no longer legally required to have the accessible customer service policy in writing or to make it public.  However, it is advisable, in our view, to have the policy in writing in the event of any complaints or disputes.

Reporting Online

As a reminder, the Regulation sets out the following timetable for filing the online compliance report:

• Government of Ontario – annually commencing December 31, 2013
• Public sector organizations – every 2 years commencing December 31, 2013
• Large organizations with 50 or more employees – every 3 years commencing December 31, 2014
• Organizations with 20 to 49 employees – every 3 years commencing December 31, 2014, but only with respect to the accessibility standards for customer service
• Organizations with 1 to 19 – no online compliance reporting is required.

The Ontario government is preparing a new training module, expected to be available in August 2016.  In the meantime, you can access a free customer service training module at: http://curriculum.org/sae-en/index2.php Just click on the “Start course” button.

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