AODA Multi-Year Accessibility Plan and Accessibility Policy: What to Include, With a Template Outline

An AODA multi-year accessibility plan is a written document setting out how your organization will prevent and remove barriers for people with disabilities and meet its obligations under Ontario's Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation (IASR). Businesses and non-profits with 50 or more employees in Ontario, and every designated public sector organization, must have one. They must post it on their website, provide it in an accessible format on request, and review and update it at least once every five years.

The same organizations must also have written accessibility policies that include a statement of commitment, and make them public. Organizations with fewer than 50 employees still need accessibility policies, but don't have to write them down and don't need a plan.

Below: who needs what, what each document has to contain, how to publish them, how often to review them, and a fill-in outline for both.

Who must have an AODA accessibility policy and plan

Employee counts use your peak number of Ontario employees at any one time in the previous 12 months, including part-time, seasonal and contract workers. If your business is under 50, our guide to AODA requirements for small business covers what you do need.

Policy, plan and statement: what's the difference?

These documents get mixed up, so it helps to separate them.

• Statement of commitment: a short public statement of your intention to meet the accessibility needs of people with disabilities in a timely manner. Section 3(2) of the IASR requires it to be part of your policies.
• Accessibility policies: your rules for how the organization meets the IASR today: how you serve customers, train staff, provide accessible formats and accommodate employees.
• Multi-year accessibility plan: your strategy and timeline for preventing and removing barriers and meeting requirements you don't fully meet yet. Policies describe the rules; the plan describes the work.
• Website accessibility statement: not an AODA requirement, but a useful page describing how accessible your website is and how to report problems. See how to write an accessibility statement.

What your AODA accessibility policy must include

Section 3 of the IASR requires policies on how you achieve or will achieve accessibility by meeting the regulation. For an organization with 50 or more employees, the regulation adds specific documents. You can combine them into one policy or keep them separate.

• Statement of commitment to meeting the accessibility needs of people with disabilities in a timely manner.
• Customer service principles. How you provide goods, services and facilities with dignity, independence, integration and equal opportunity, communicating in a way that takes a person's disability into account, including the use of assistive devices.
• Service animals and support persons, including when, if ever, you would require a support person and how you handle admission fees for them.
• Temporary disruptions: the steps you take when facilities or services people with disabilities rely on are unavailable.
• Training: who is trained, what the training covers and when it is given.
• Feedback: how people can give feedback, in accessible formats on request, and what you do when you receive a complaint.
• Accessible formats and communication supports: how people request them, and your commitment to provide them in a timely way at no extra cost.
• Employment: accessible recruitment, informing employees of supports, workplace emergency response information, your written process for documented individual accommodation plans, and your return-to-work process.
• Websites: your commitment that public websites and web content conform to WCAG 2.0 Level AA, apart from live captions and pre-recorded audio description.

Ontario's guidance adds that policies can be new documents or existing ones, such as hiring or performance management policies, updated to include accessibility.

What to include in an AODA multi-year accessibility plan

Section 4 is brief: the plan must outline your strategy to prevent and remove barriers and to meet your requirements under the regulation. If you have built or redeveloped public spaces covered by the Design of Public Spaces standards, section 80.44 adds procedures for preventive and emergency maintenance of accessible elements, and for temporary disruptions when those elements aren't working.

Beyond that, Ontario's guidance on accessibility plans and policies says a good plan sets out the steps you'll take and when, and recommends that you:

• Consult people with disabilities, and invite their comments on the draft.
• Estimate and allocate the resources each commitment needs.
• Assign a named person or role responsible for each commitment.
• Set a timeline for each action.
• Write in plain language: short sentences, active voice, no jargon or acronyms.
• Get corporate approval, then share the plan across the organization.
• Include a "For more information" section with contact details and a process for responding to comments.

A plan that lists only completed tasks from 2014 to 2021 isn't a strategy. Each review should record what you achieved and set out the next five years of work, especially on your website, digital documents and hiring process.

Posting your plan on your website, in accessible formats

The IASR requires you to post your multi-year plan on your website, if you have one, and to provide it in an accessible format on request. Your policies must be made publicly available, for example on your website or at reception, and also provided in an accessible format on request. Section 12 adds that accessible formats must be provided in a timely manner, at no more than your regular cost, after consulting the person about what suits them.

A few practical points, because a plan about accessibility should itself be accessible:

• Publish the plan as an HTML page, not only as a PDF. A web page with real headings is easier to read, search and convert.
• If you offer a PDF, make sure it's tagged and readable by screen readers. A scanned, image-only PDF of a signed plan is a common failure. Our document accessibility service can fix existing files.
• Ontario recommends preparing policies and plans in a structured electronic file, so they're easy to convert into other formats such as large print or braille.
• Link the plan from your footer or accessibility page, so people can find it.
• Say how to request another format, with a phone number and an email address.

How often to review and update

• Multi-year plan: review and update at least once every five years, and post the updated version.
• Policies: review whenever your practices or procedures change. The IASR also requires you to train people on any policy changes on an ongoing basis.
• Annual status report: public sector organizations must report progress on their plan every year and post it on their website. Businesses don't have to, but a short yearly update keeps the plan honest.

Your compliance report checks this work. The 2023 report asked businesses with 50 or more employees whether they had written policies, a multi-year plan posted on their website and available in accessible formats, and whether they updated the plan at least every five years. Our guide on how to file an AODA compliance report explains the current questions.

Accessibility policy and multi-year plan template outline

Ontario publishes sample templates for both documents on the guidance page linked above. If you'd rather write your own, use these outlines and replace the bracketed text. They assume a business with 50 or more employees; a smaller organization can use the policy outline and leave out training records, the website standard and the documented employment processes.

Accessibility policy template outline (Ontario)

1. Statement of commitment: "[Organization] is committed to meeting the accessibility needs of people with disabilities in a timely manner, in line with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005."
2. Scope: applies to [employees, volunteers, contractors and anyone providing services on our behalf] in Ontario.
3. Customer service: assistive devices; service animals; support persons and any fees; notice of temporary disruptions posted at [locations and web page].
4. Training: [who] is trained on the IASR, the Human Rights Code and accessible customer service, within [timeframe] of starting and when policies change. Records kept by [role].
5. Information and communications: accessible formats and communication supports on request, at no extra cost; accessible emergency information; public websites conform to WCAG 2.0 Level AA.
6. Employment: accommodation in recruitment; documented individual accommodation plans; return-to-work process; workplace emergency response information.
7. Feedback: contact [phone, email, mail, in person]; response within [number] business days.
8. Requesting this policy in another format: [contact].
9. Approval and review: approved by [role] on [date]; next review [date].

Multi-year accessibility plan template outline

1. Introduction: who we are, our statement of commitment, and the period the plan covers ([year] to [year]).
2. How we developed this plan: who we consulted, including people with disabilities, and what we heard.
3. Past achievements: what we completed since the last plan.
4. Commitments by area: for each of customer service, training, information and communications, websites and digital documents, employment, procurement, and public spaces (if applicable): the action, the person responsible, resources, target date and status.
5. Website example commitment: "Audit [website] against WCAG 2.0 Level AA by [date]; fix critical barriers in [booking, checkout, forms] by [date]; train content editors by [date]."
6. Maintenance of accessible elements: procedures for preventive and emergency maintenance, and for disruptions (if you have public spaces covered by the standards).
7. Monitoring: how and when we track progress, and who reports to whom.
8. For more information: contact details, how to comment, and how to request this plan in an accessible format.
9. Approval: approved by [role] on [date]; next review no later than [date within five years].

For the website section, base the commitments on real findings rather than a guess. An AODA website audit gives you a prioritized list of barriers that drops straight into section 4, and an accessibility remediation plan turns it into dated actions.

Frequently asked questions