Understanding reasonable accommodations
Reasonable accommodations are an essential part of creating an inclusive workplace—they help individuals successfully and safely contribute to the State of Indiana’s important work. But what do you need to know about them as a manager? We’re here to offer a brief overview to help you understand reasonable accommodations for your employees. To learn more and apply your knowledge, attend our workshop on understanding workplace accommodations. Find upcoming dates here.
What are reasonable accommodations?
Reasonable accommodations are changes to the work environment, or the way work is performed, that help individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of their position and receive equal benefits and privileges of employment. They create an alternative way to accomplish a job’s functions by reducing or eliminating disability-related barriers.
Reasonable accommodations are also split into two categories. The Americans with Disabilities Act applies to individuals with disabilities that need assistance to perform the essential duties of their job while the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act applies to employees during pregnancy, childbirth, or their related medical conditions and recovery afterwards.
These accommodations can look different depending on the tasks that need to be performed and the employee’s unique needs. Some examples include providing interpreters, adjusting learning materials (for example, providing a verbal format), offering a modified work schedule, making changes to the workplace to make it easy to access for individuals with disabilities (for example, providing reserved parking), ensuring service animals are welcome, and more.
Additional details to know
At the State of Indiana, we want to make sure our workspaces are inclusive while also ensuring that we can effectively accomplish our work across the state. With that in mind, employers are required to provide effective accommodations to their employees, but it doesn’t have to be the employee’s preferred accommodation. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, an employer isn’t required to remove or reallocate essential job functions, reassign the employee to a different supervisor, create a new position for the employee, or provide personal need items like eyeglasses, hearing aids, and mobility aids.
Under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, essential job functions can be removed or reassigned temporarily, as long as the employee will be able to perform the essential functions of their position in the near future (generally considered to be 40 weeks).
Another related term to know is Temporary Modified Duty (TMD) which is a temporary change in assignment during recovery from a worker’s compensation injury. It’s often mentioned alongside the phrase “light duty” which refers to employees performing fewer or easier duties, usually because of a medical condition.
As a supervisor, what are your responsibilities related to reasonable accommodations?
Receiving and documenting reasonable accommodation requests and communicating them to your HR representative in a timely manner.- Providing job applicants with reasonable accommodations so they’re able to effectively participate in the application process, including a job description that identifies the position’s essential functions.
- Providing the employee’s job description, goals and competencies that identify the essential functions of the position.
- Participating in a problem-solving conversation to identify if an employee or job applicant needs a reasonable accommodation and what it might look like (also called the interactive process). This process will help you to best respond to employees that request accommodation.
- Providing employees with reasonable accommodations.
- Maintaining confidentiality.
- Monitoring and evaluating the reasonable accommodation with the employee or job applicant to make sure that it’s effective. Regular one-on-one meetings can help support this process.
In addition to these responsibilities, it’s also important that you approach the topic of disability with care and respect. While you should ask an applicant if they need any accommodations to participate in the hiring process, you shouldn’t ask if they have any disabilities or about the nature or severity of any disability. Instead, focus on whether the applicant will be able to perform the essential functions of the position—with or without a reasonable accommodation.
Similarly, if an employee indicates they need a reasonable accommodation, you shouldn’t press them for details about their disability. Instead, bring HR into the conversation and focus on how you can help the employee perform the essential functions of the position. We want employees to feel empowered to actively participate in identifying potential accommodations.
It’s also important to remember that any information an employee shares with you about their disability or need for an accommodation is confidential—don’t share the information with other employees.
Check out this article for more tips on disability etiquette.
What are your employees’ responsibilities related to reasonable accommodations?
- Telling you or their HR representative (verbally or in writing) about a disability, including a description of the reasonable accommodation they’re requesting. This request will also need to explain how the accommodation(s) will help them to do the essential functions of their position.
- Cooperating in the interactive process to make sure everyone is on the same page about essential job functions and possible reasonable accommodations.
- Potentially acquiring and sharing appropriate medical documentation with HR.
- Performing the essential functions of their position.
- Meeting the necessary performance standards for their position.
If you have any questions about reasonable accommodations, you can refer to the full policy (including the Reasonable Accommodation Request Form) here, contact your HR representative, or call INSPD’s Employee Relations Team at 1-855-773-4647, Option 4.