Reasonable Adjustments

The duty has three limbs: (1) provisions, criteria or practices that disadvantage disabled people (e.g. an inflexible 9-5 schedule for someone whose disability requires later starts); (2) physical features that create barriers (e.g. no ramp); (3) auxiliary aids (e.g. specialist software, sign language interpreter). The duty is anticipatory for services and public functions — providers must consider needs before they arise. Examples: providing large-print documents, allowing assistance animals, modifying equipment, allowing breaks, providing reasonable time adjustments. Failure to make reasonable adjustments is itself unlawful discrimination.

In practice, the duty is triggered once the employer knows, or could reasonably be expected to know, both that you are disabled and that you are at a substantial disadvantage. That is a low bar: repeated sickness absence with a stated cause, an occupational health referral, or a manager noticing that you are struggling can all put an employer on notice. You do not have to use the phrase reasonable adjustment, and you do not have to propose the solution yourself — though a concrete suggestion makes it much harder for the employer to say it did not know what to do.

Worked example: Rachel has chronic fatigue and finds the 8am start and open-plan noise unmanageable. She asks in writing for a 10am start, two home-working days, noise-cancelling headphones and a review of her workload. The employer refers her to occupational health, which supports the request. It agrees to three of the four but argues the 10am start is unworkable because of client cover. That is a legitimate discussion — reasonableness takes account of the size and resources of the employer, cost, practicality and how far the adjustment would remove the disadvantage. What would not be legitimate is refusing to engage at all, delaying for months, or charging Rachel for the equipment, since the cost of an adjustment must never be passed to the disabled person. Access to Work funding may cover much of it.

The misconceptions cut both ways. Employers wrongly assume they must grant every request; the test is reasonableness, not preference. Employees wrongly assume the duty ends once an adjustment is made; it is continuing, and adjustments must be reviewed when the job or the condition changes. Adjustments can include modifying absence triggers in a capability policy, transferring someone to a suitable vacancy, or adjusting a redundancy selection criterion. And the duty is anticipatory for service providers and public bodies, so a shop or a college must plan for disabled customers in general, not wait for an individual to complain.

The duty comes from the Equality Act 2010 and applies to disability, one of the nine protected characteristics; a refusal can be challenged at the employment tribunal. Read our guides to disability at work and workplace discrimination, and put every request in writing.