Employers must make reasonable accommodations for the known physical or mental limitations of qualified employees and applicants with disabilities, unless employers can show that these accommodations would impose undue hardship on their business operations. Employers can’t deny employment opportunities to qualified employees and applicants with disabilities because of their need for such reasonable accommodations.

Reasonable accommodations can include:

• making existing facilities readily accessible and usable for employees and applicants with disabilities;
• job restructuring through part-time or modified work schedules or by reassigning employees to a vacant position;
• acquiring or modifying equipment or devices;
• modifying or adjusting examinations, training materials, policies, or job application processes;
• providing qualified readers or interpreters;
• providing leaves of absence;
• modifying or adjusting the work environment or the manner or circumstances under which a job is normally performed; and
• making modifications or adjustments that allow employees with disabilities to enjoy the same benefits and privileges as similarly situated employees without disabilities.

Employers aren’t required to provide reasonable accommodations for employees and applicants who don’t have, but are regarded as having, physical or mental impairments that substantially limit one or more major life activities.

Undue hardship means that accommodations require significant difficulty or expense, as determined by:

• the nature and cost of accommodations;
• affected facilities’ overall financial resources and workforce size;
• the impact of accommodations on affected facilities’ expenses, resources, and operations;
• employers’ overall financial resources and overall business size in terms of workforce size and the number, type, and location of their facilities; and
• employers’ type of operations, including their workforce composition, structure, and functions, and the geographic separateness and administrative or fiscal relationship of affected facilities.

The reasonable accommodation requirements must be construed as consistent, to the extent possible, with similar provisions of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.

Interactive process: The reasonable accommodation requirements apply when qualified employees and applicants with disabilities request accommodations or otherwise disclose their possible accommodation needs to employers. When this request or disclosure is made, employers must initiate a meaningful, interactive process with employees and applicants to determine whether reasonable accommodations would allow them to perform their essential job functions. This informal process should identify potential accommodations that are reasonable and mutually agreeable. If these accommodations aren’t readily identifiable, the process should identify the nature of employees’ and applicants’ limitations that are relevant to potential accommodations.

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Under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), employers, including state and local governments, with 15 or more employees, are prohibited from discriminating against people with disabilities. Title I protects qualified individuals with disabilities in several areas, including job application procedures, hiring, firing, advancement, compensation and job training. It is also unlawful to retaliate against someone for opposing employment practices that discriminate based on disability, or for filing an ADA discrimination charge. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) shares enforcement authority for Title I of the ADA with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which has primary responsibility for enforcing the employment provisions of the law. (Note: Federal employees and job applicants are covered by Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 instead of the ADA.