Accessibility Plan

Our plan was built as part of our commitment to make Shuttle Express more accessible to people with disabilities and follows the requirements set out under the Accessible Canada Act (ACA).

To build this plan we looked at six different areas of our company to see how we could make it more accessible. We looked at:

• Built environment (buildings)
• Employment
• Technology
• Communications
• Buying goods, services, and facilities
• Programs and services

We asked our employees and customers with disabilities what barriers exist through a survey and a focus group.   Please note, we are not open to the public and customer’s do not visit our workspace as many are out of country.  We worked with accessibility professionals to help us identify barriers in key areas of our organization. We then thought about how we could remove these barriers and developed goals as part of this accessibility plan.

In the next 3 years, we will:

• Continue to consult with employees and customers with disabilities.
• Provide additional training/resources to our employees about disability and accessibility
• Upon oboarding, provide AODA training and ensure all staff have access to these modules in either HR Downloads or Carriers Edge.
• Revise our diversity statement to emphasize and reinforce our commitment to accessibility and people with disabilities.
• Revise our emergency evacuation plans to include information for people with disabilities.
• Consider accessibility any time we rent or lease our locations.
• Consider removing accessibility barriers at our existing locations when renovating.
• Remove some accessibility barriers in our application and hiring process.
• Educate our employees to improve their understanding of their responsibilities when hiring people with disabilities.
• Review our accommodations policy and process to make it easier to understand and follow.
• Review our return-to-work policy and process for employees on short-or long-term disability to make it easier to understand and more accessible.
• Train managers to improve their understanding of the accommodations and return-to-work policies and processes.
• Consider the possibility of providing training to IT staff on how to design and maintain accessible websites.
• Share information in HTML or Word formats instead of in PDFs where possible.
• Develop a tip sheet of best practices for accessible meetings and share that tip sheet with employees who regularly attend and/or host meetings.
• Create a plan to help us think about accessibility whenever we purchase new equipment, hardware, and software.

Shuttle Express, Inc. is committed to observing and following relevant human rights, equity, and privacy legislation to prevent discrimination based on any prohibited grounds. The company is also committed to developing, learning, and following best practices to improve diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging for people of all abilities in every area of company.

At Shuttle Express we strive to do better for our customers and employees with disabilities. We know that to do this we need to continuously consult with people who have disabilities, including by receiving and acting on feedback about accessibility. We also need to educate, train, and develop our employees to improve their understanding of disability, accommodation, and accessibility.

To do this, we have committed to the following goals:

• Starting in 2024, Shuttle Express will provide disability awareness training for all managers.
• Starting in 2024 Shuttle Express will provide training, communications, and/or resources for current employees in disability awareness, accommodation, and accessibility.
• Shuttle Express has been and will continue to provide disability awareness training in the onboarding training for new employees.

Shuttle Express operates from two terminals in Ontario. These locations are warehouse and corporate office spaces that the public would not enter.

Our locations are owned and are older buildings where accessibility was not a priority when they were built.

Moving forward we want to make sure that our facilities and locations are as accessible as possible. This will involve reviewing and planning for accessibility when we acquire new locations and doing work to improve the accessibility of the facilities that we already reside. As part of the process of creating this plan, we briefly surveyed some of our locations to identify common barriers that we could work to remove.

Over the next three years, we have the following goals to help improve the accessibility of our built environments:

• In 2024, Shuttle Express will revise emergency procedures to include instructions and directions about evacuating people with disabilities.
• Effective immediately, Shuttle Express will consider accessibility guidelines and features in all future built environment procurement and/or design plans and will also incorporate accessibility improvements into all major renovations moving forward, where deemed practical to do so.
• Starting in 2024, Shuttle Express will investigate ways to remove barriers in key built environment locations and consider operational needs, the priority order of barrier removal, and available budget and resources to accomplish improvements.

In 2024 – Shuttle will ensure there are unisex, gender neutral washrooms and have an accessible washroom and shower.

Shuttle Express has approximately 46 employees. Many of these employees are Drivers. We also have some office-based employees who work in our corporate office spaces and some work in our warehouse loading and unloading trucks.

While we use our best efforts to accommodate employees with disabilities, we know that barriers remain. Over the next few years, we want to focus on improving accessibility for our employees at Shuttle Express. This will involve some improvements to our accommodations process, our return-to-work and disability management processes, and upgrades to our career website and training.

Our goals to improve the accessibility of employment at Shuttle Express:

Starting in June 2024, Shuttle Express will review its current recruitment and hiring practices and will:

• Review application and selection processes to ensure reasonable accommodation is available and accessible at all stages of the recruitment and hiring process.
• Clarify the roles and responsibilities of relevant Shuttle Express staff when recruiting and hiring people with disabilities.

Starting in 2024 and continuing through to 2027, Shuttle Express will review its accommodations policy and processes with a view to:

• Making the process easier to understand for people seeking accommodations.
• Clarifying the role of Occupational Health & Safety in the process.
• Determining if any other person or entity should be involved in the accommodations process to facilitate a more efficient roll-out of accommodations.
• Determining if and how occupational and non-occupational disabilities are managed differently.
• Training managers on their role in hiring, onboarding, accommodating, and supporting people with disabilities in the workplace.
• Updating the accommodations policy to include a clear and efficient process map for providing accommodations, including designated process owners and timelines to fulfill requests.

Starting in 2024, Shuttle Express will review its return-to-work policy for people on short or long-term disability. The guidelines will be revised to include more details about the process, including how to navigate it, who the process owners are, and how people with disabilities will participate in the process.

Shuttle Express maintains a variety of information technology platforms that are used both externally (by the customers) and internally (by Shuttle Express employees). This includes our website and third-party software where customers can submit an order and check the status of any materials they are expecting for. We make sure that all employees who work on our information and communication technologies receive training about accessibility to make sure that all these systems are as accessible as possible.

Over the next three years, we will work with the employees who make changes to our website to improve accessibility in our information communication technologies where feasible.

Our goals to improve the accessibility of ICT at Shuttle Express are:

• Starting in 2024, Shuttle Express will consider the possibility of sourcing and implementing web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) training for relevant IT staff, including accessibility testing.
• Starting in 2024, Shuttle Express will consider the possibility of reviewing the accessibility guidelines for their IT departments to ensure alignment in accessibility standards.

Shuttle Express communicates with the public and our employees in a variety of ways. We maintain a public website and regularly update our social media accounts. Members of the public can contact us by telephone or through our website. Individuals may contact us to ask a question about shipping or warehousing materials.

Over the next three years, we want to focus on making sure that the information we produce is written in plain language and that our social media accounts are as accessible as possible.

Our goals to improve accessibility in our communications practices are:

• In 2024, whenever communicating information electronically, Shuttle Express will use Word or HTML format in place of PDF wherever possible for greater accessibility.
• In 2024, Shuttle Express will develop written guidelines or “tip sheets” that cover best practices for accessible meetings and distribute them to relevant employees.
• 2024, Shuttle Express will develop guidelines for when and how sign language interpretation can be provided by Shuttle Express for employees.
• Moving forward Shuttle Express will include requirements for accessibility in the procurement process for third-party public relations and communications services (e.g., social media).

At Shuttle Express we procure (buy) many different types of goods and services each year. As of now, we do not have a system set up to make sure that the things we buy will be accessible to all users. Moving forward, we will consider the possibility of putting a process in place to help us decide when we should consider accessibility in procurement and when we don’t. For example, we don’t need to consider accessibility when we are buying fuel for our trucks.

Over the next three years, we plan to improve the accessibility of our procurement process through the following goal:

• In 2024, Shuttle Express will consider building accessibility considerations into procurement processes and checklists if possible.

The primary service that we provide is shipping and delivering goods. We provide this service to businesses. Over the next few years, we will focus on collecting feedback from our customers who have disabilities. We will do this through the public feedback mechanism that has been launched at the same time as this plan and through additional consultation activities.

We will also take proactive steps to improve the accessibility of services through training our customer service teams and consideration of accommodations for our customers when accessing our services.

Our goals to improve the accessibility of our services are:

• Starting in 2024, Shuttle Express will explore the feasibility of creating a dedicated customer service process for people needing accommodations to access Shuttle Express services. If such a process is established, Shuttle Express will source and deliver accessibility and accommodations training for relevant customer service representatives.
• Starting in 2024, Shuttle Express will explore the feasibility of adding additional mechanisms besides phone and live chat (e.g., email or direct message) for customers to obtain customer service support.

At Shuttle Express we do not provide any passenger transportation services or a fleet of transportation vehicles as defined in the Accessible Canada Act.   This means that standards for transportation are not in the scope of this plan.

To align with Shuttle Express’ commitment to make our workplace environment accessible to all, we have developed our Accessibility Plan in consultation with our employees, including those with disabilities.

We gathered feedback and input from our team members and external organizations in several ways:

1. Shuttle division-wide survey
2. Focus groups with employees so they can share their feedback and ideas.
3. Engaging with external organizations (WSIB, Disability Specialist) supporting persons with disabilities to understand and seek recommendations for improving accessibility to the Company’s building space and yards and our programs and services.

We will continue to survey employees, including those with disabilities and any working groups that have been developed as part of this Accessibility Plan, to measure progress and ensure that we realize the changes we’ve set out to achieve

Shuttle Express understands that accessibility is essential to delivering on our mission of “Putting value in motion”. We’re committing to further fostering a culture and business that supports people with disabilities within our workplace and in our communities.

Our journey to becoming more accessible is an evolving process. We appreciate the opportunity that the Accessible Canada Act has given us to take a critical look at barriers, consult with people with disabilities and formalize our goals and progress.

As part of our ongoing effort to reduce barriers and improve accessibility within our organization, we’re committed to making year-over-year progress toward making Shuttle Express more inclusive and accessible for people with disabilities.