Accommodations For Employees With Disabilities: Your Employer’s Responsibility

Posted in Civil rights in the workplace, Employee Rights, Employer Rights, News on February 4, 2014

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), employers are required to provide reasonable accommodations to disabled employees who need them to complete their job duties. An employee who needs a reasonable accommodation should notify the employer. The notification does not need to be in writing, and the employee can request a reasonable accommodation at any time during employment. Additionally, job applicants also may request reasonable accommodations in order to complete the interview process.

Once an employer receives a request for accommodation from an employee, the employer should sit down with the employee to discuss the types of accommodations that may best help him or her. Employers may ask the employee about the nature of the disability and how it impairs his or her ability to complete the job. Employers may ask the employee to demonstrate how the disability limits his or her job performance. Employers also may ask the employee for suggestions about the type of accommodations he or she believes would best work.

Can An Employer Ask For Documentation Of The Disability?

If the disability or the need for reasonable accommodations is not obvious, the employer may ask the employee to submit documentation that the employee has an ADA-protected disability and that the disability requires reasonable accommodation. The employer also can require the employee to provide documentation from a licensed professional, such as a physician. The type of professional will depend on the type of disability the employee claims to have. Employers cannot request information from the employee that is unrelated to the specific disability. For example, employers may not request an employee’s entire medical file.

What Types of Accommodations Must The Employer Provide?

Employers do not have to provide the most expensive accommodation or even the best accommodation – only the most reasonable one, which means an accommodation which will effectively allow an employee to perform his or her job duties. Likewise, employers do not have to provide the exact accommodation requested by the employee. Employers also do not have to provide accommodations that may have personal use, such as wheelchairs, eyeglasses or hearing aids. Finally, employers do not have to provide accommodations that would create an undue hardship for the business, such as overly expensive accommodations or those unreasonably difficult to provide.