Reasonable Accommodation

Where the duty to accommodate comes from

Three federal laws create accommodation duties, and each has its own standard for undue hardship. Hiring teams need to know which one a request falls under.

• Disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (employers with 15 or more employees). Undue hardship means significant difficulty or expense, judged against the employer's overall size and resources. That is a high bar for a large employer.
• Pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, in effect since June 27, 2023, for employers with 15 or more employees. It borrows the ADA's undue hardship standard and, unlike the ADA, can require accommodating a temporary inability to perform an essential function.
• Religion under Title VII. For decades courts treated anything more than a minimal cost as undue hardship. In Groff v. DeJoy (2023) the Supreme Court raised the bar: the employer must show the burden is substantial in the overall context of its business.

Many states add their own accommodation duties, sometimes for smaller employers, for lactation, or for victims of domestic violence.

How the interactive process works

The interactive process is the back-and-forth between employer and employee (or candidate) to figure out what the limitation is and what would work. The law does not prescribe a script, but courts look hard at whether the employer engaged in good faith. A failure to talk is often what loses the case.

A workable process looks like this:

1. Recognize the request. No magic words are needed. My back is killing me after four hours in this chair, can I get a different setup is a request.
2. Respond quickly. Acknowledge in a day or two and set a meeting. Unnecessary delay can itself be a violation.
3. Understand the limitation and the job. Ask what is hard and why. When the disability or need is not obvious, you can ask for reasonable documentation from a health care provider about the limitation, but not the full medical history. Under the PWFA, documentation should only be requested when reasonable, and not at all for obvious needs like more water breaks during pregnancy.
4. Explore options together. The person often knows what works. The Job Accommodation Network (askjan.org), funded by the Department of Labor, has searchable ideas by condition and job.
5. Choose and implement. The employer may pick among effective options and can choose the cheaper one. It does not have to give the exact accommodation requested.
6. Document and follow up. Record dates, options considered, and why. Check in after 30 days to see whether it is working.

Keep medical documentation in a confidential file separate from the personnel file.

Examples of reasonable accommodations

Most accommodations are small and cheap. The Job Accommodation Network's long-running employer survey has consistently found that a large share cost nothing at all.

In hiring: extra time on a timed assessment, a sign language interpreter for an interview, an accessible format for an online test, a phone interview instead of a video interview, or interviewing on the ground floor.

On the job:

• Modified schedules, such as a later start for medication side effects or shift swaps for a weekly Sabbath.
• Breaks for insulin checks, pumping, prayer or rest.
• Equipment: screen readers, sit-stand desks, noise-cancelling headsets, larger monitors.
• Remote or hybrid work where the essential functions can be done from home.
• Temporary light duty or removal of lifting during pregnancy.
• Exceptions to dress code or grooming rules for religious head coverings or beards.
• Leave beyond what policy offers, including unpaid time for treatment.
• Reassignment to a vacant position the employee is qualified for, as a last resort when nothing works in the current job.

Accommodations that are generally not required include removing an essential function permanently, creating a new job, lowering production standards that apply to everyone, or providing personal items like glasses that are needed both on and off the job.

Undue hardship: what it does and does not mean

Undue hardship is an individualized defense, not a category. A 10-person shop and a 40,000-person enterprise get different answers for the same request. Factors include the net cost after tax credits and outside funding, the employer's overall financial resources, the impact on operations and the effect on other employees' ability to do their jobs.

Things that are not undue hardship on their own: coworker grumbling, a manager's preference, a fear that others will ask for the same thing, or an attendance policy that has never had exceptions. Under Groff, coworker resentment about a religious accommodation only counts if it actually affects the conduct of the business.

In a contact center, a recurring scheduling accommodation is the most common hard case. Excusing one agent from Sunday shifts is rarely an undue hardship at a 400-seat site with voluntary shift swaps. Excusing 30% of a 20-person team from the same peak shift might be, and the employer should document the coverage data behind that conclusion.

Accommodation in high-volume hiring

When thousands of candidates go through automated screens, one-off accommodation handling breaks down. Build it into the funnel instead.

• Put an accommodation contact in every invitation to assess, interview or attend a hiring event.
• Pre-approve standard adjustments (time-and-a-half on timed tests, alternative format for one-way video) so recruiters can grant them without waiting for legal.
• Track requests and outcomes in a separate confidential log, not as an ATS note visible to the hiring manager.
• Train trainers too. Nesting and classroom training are part of the job, and a new hire who needs captioned training videos or a slower system walkthrough is asking for an accommodation.

The common failure is a recruiter who tells a candidate the assessment cannot be changed. That sentence, in writing, starts a lot of EEOC charges.

Common mistakes

• Waiting for the employee to use legal words before acting.
• Asking for complete medical records instead of information about the limitation.
• Saying no because the policy does not allow exceptions.
• Granting an accommodation verbally and never telling the scheduler, so it disappears on the next roster.
• Disciplining someone for an absence that was part of an approved accommodation or protected leave under the FMLA.
• Closing the file after the first fix. Needs change, and the process continues if the accommodation stops working.

This is a summary of federal rules. State laws often add protections, so check local requirements and involve counsel on hard cases.