Where an employee is disabled, the employer has a duty to take certain steps to remove any potential barriers faced by that employee due to their disability, so that the employee may carry out their job in the same way as their colleagues who do not have disabilities. Such steps are known as ‘reasonable adjustments’. It is important that employers are aware of this requirement, as failure to make reasonable adjustments constitutes an act of direct discrimination against the employee under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, for which that employee may bring a claim against the employer.

The duty to make reasonable adjustments is a positive duty placed on the employer which can  require them to alter aspects of the role such as provisions, criteria or practices implemented by the employer, or physical features of the role and work environment, where such aspects would place the disabled person at a substantial disadvantage in comparison to other persons who are not disabled.

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 provides a non-exhaustive list of potential steps that an employer would be expected to take to comply with their requirement to make reasonable adjustments. This list includes:

• Making adjustments to the employer’s premises;
• Allocating some of the disabled employee’s tasks to another employee;
• Transferring the disabled employee to fill a vacancy;
• Altering the disabled employee's working and/or training hours;
• Assigning the disabled employee to a different place of work/training;
• Allowing the disabled employee to be absent during work/training hours for the purposes of rehabilitation, assessment or treatment;
• Giving (or arranging) training or mentoring (whether for the disabled employee, or any other employee);
• Acquiring or modifying any relevant equipment;
• Modifying instructions or reference manuals;
• Modifying procedures fr testing or assessment;
• Providing a reader or interpreter;
• Providing supervision or other support.

This list has been further expanded by an extensive bank of case law to include swapping workers between roles, the creation of a new role (where suitable and appropriate) and the adjustment of redundancy selection criteria in order to adequately accommodate a disabled employee by taking their disability into consideration.

Employers should note that their duty to make reasonable adjustments is coupled with a duty to carry out assessments to ascertain whether such reasonable adjustments are necessary and which adjustments are most appropriate.

Where an employer is unsure whether reasonable adjustments are necessary, or which reasonable adjustments are sufficient/most appropriate, they should seek legal advice prior to taking action.

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