According to a recent statistic, nearly 1.3 billion people live with a disability. In 2024, the employment rate for working-age people with disabilities was just 38%, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. That's why HR teams must take accessibility beyond hiring strategies and physical spaces and embed it into every HR touchpoint. From applying for leave and marking attendance to completing timesheets and performance reviews, employees frequently interact with HR systems. If these tools aren’t built with accessibility in mind, they can unintentionally create barriers for some employees.
What is WCAG and why should it matter to you?
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are a globally recognized set of standards that have been developed by the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative. WCAG's purpose is to ensure that digital content is accessible to everyone, including people with various impairments. These guidelines provide information on how web content creators can develop their websites in a way that makes them more accessible for people with disabilities.
Being WCAG-compliant means your product and website can be accessed seamlessly by people with visual, auditory, cognitive, or motor impairments. It also means that your digital infrastructure is future-ready.
Zoho People's commitment to accessibility
At Zoho People, we believe that every employee should have equal access to the tools they need to thrive, regardless of their ability. That's why we've built a platform that emphasizes equity, compliance, and a truly inclusive workplace.
Accessibility is not just another feature in Zoho People, but an innate part of our design principles. We’ve made a conscious, ongoing effort to align Zoho People with WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards—the globally recognized benchmark for digital accessibility. Our primary objective is to ensure that people with different disabilities—including visual, auditory, and cognitive impairments—can access our system and enjoy a seamless user experience.
Key features that support accessibility in Zoho People
Vision
Under Vision in accessibility controls, users can customize the font, text size, and text spacing according to their preference, ensuring a comfortable experience for those with visual impairments and reading difficulties. Additionally, users can toggle between light and dark mode, choose a theme color, and even control the contrast to accommodate light sensitivity.
To further aid readability, users can adjust the zoom levels for clarity and enable a reading mask that highlights one line at a time to minimize distractions. Enabling toast notifications gives users more time to process feedback about an action they've performed.
Hearing
Zoho People comes with auditory support features, where screen content is read aloud with audio descriptions. This ensures that individuals who are blind, have low vision, or experience reading difficulties can listen to the information that they need and engage with key content.
Note: This capability is only supported for employee-level services and related actions
Mobility
Zoho People has been carefully designed with mobility features for individuals with limited motor skills. For instance, it comes with a host of keyboard shortcuts to reduce dependency on the mouse. The page navigator also assists users in quickly switching between key sections, and a focus indicator helps them by highlighting interactive elements.
Language
Zoho People supports 20+ languages to provide a personalized HR experience to global users and ensure accessibility for non-native English speakers.
Wrapping up
Our journey towards accessibility is ongoing. As we continue to evolve Zoho People, we remain committed to building HR tech that’s not only powerful and intuitive, but also inclusive by design. Check out our help document to understand how accessibility works in Zoho People!
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