Five Key Points an Employer Should Note About Reasonable Adjustments in England

As an employer, you owe employees with disabilities certain obligations, some of which begin before you hire them in the recruitment process. A person’s disability is one of nine protected characteristics in employment law, meaning you must not discriminate against an applicant or current employee based on their disability. If you do, you will have committed an unlawful employment offence. Similarly, you must make reasonable adjustments for disabled applicants and employees. Failure to do so could itself constitute unlawful discrimination, and you may face an employment tribunal for an employment claim for disability discrimination.

This article will examine five key points related to reasonable adjustments for disabled employees that you may wish to familiarise yourself with. 

What is Meant by Reasonable Adjustment?

An adjustment refers to your business’s proactive steps to make the workplace more accommodating for an employee or applicant with a disability. 

What is reasonable depends on the nature of your business, the employee’s position, and the nature of their disability. As a general rule, the law will consider an adjustment reasonable if it:

• will reduce or remove the effect of the individual’s disability on their ability to perform their job; 
• is practical;
• is affordable; and
• will not have a disproportionate impact on the health and safety of your other employees. 

For instance, say an employee with mobility issues requests a stand-up desk. The law would probably consider this request a reasonable adjustment. 

On the other hand, say you employ factory workers to operate dangerous machinery, and an applicant has mobility issues. These prevent them from operating machinery as it is currently engineered. While you might feasibly spend considerable sums to retool the factory on behalf of the applicant, the cost and disruption are not practical or cost-sensible. Therefore, this would not be a reasonable adjustment. 

Common Forms of Reasonable Adjustments

The main ways you are likely to make a reasonable adjustment are by making a change to:

• your workplace, such as providing a ramp for a wheelchair user to access a room in your office;
• the equipment or services you provide at work, such as a different keyboard for a person who has a disability affecting their hand or wrist;
• the way people carry out actions at work, for instance, if an employee has epilepsy which causes sleepiness in the mornings, you may suggest that they begin work later in the day; and 
• how you provide information to ensure that it is still accessible for people with a disability, such as providing a large print format for hard copy work instructions for those with a visual impairment.

Important Considerations

There are rules about when you, as an employer, must consider making a reasonable adjustment. Legally, you must consider reasonable adjustments where:

• you know the person has a disability;
• you are expected to know a person has a disability;
• the person with a disability asks you to make them; 
• an employee with a disability is finding it difficult to carry out their job role; and 
• your employee’s disability is causing them to be absent from work.

You should also note that you must consider a reasonable adjustment for any aspect of a person’s disability. Otherwise, it could be discrimination. If an adjustment is unreasonable, you are not legally required to make it but should try to support your employee in other ways.

Keeping Records of Reasonable Adjustments

You are not legally required to keep records of the reasonable adjustments you make in your employment. However, you can make a ‘reasonable adjustments passport’ to keep track of the adjustments you make for your employees. Provided you abide by data protection laws, this helps your managers to understand what adjustments have been made for their staff and any new employer if they take over your business. It may also assist you in understanding that the reasonable adjustments are:

• correct;
• up to date; and 
• practical.

Paying for Reasonable Adjustments

As an employer, you may be surprised to learn that it is your responsibility to pay for any reasonable adjustments. You cannot require that they pay for it. The fact that you, as the employer, have to pay for any reasonable adjustments does not mean you must incur all costs if doing so would be unreasonable. Therefore, if you cannot afford the adjustment, it may not be reasonable, and you may not have to make it. However, if another employer were to consider the same adjustment as reasonable, you may have a difficult time arguing the adjustment is in fact unreasonable. 

Key Takeaways

As part of ensuring you do not discriminate against employees and job applicants based on their disability, you must consider reasonable adjustments in your workplace. For example, you must appreciate what the law means when it refers to what is considered reasonable. Likewise, while there is no obligation to keep track of any reasonable adjustments that you implement, it is good practice to nonetheless do so. 

If you need help understanding reasonable adjustments in England, our experienced employment lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents for a low monthly fee. Call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.

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