Write Job Descriptions with Reasonable Accommodation
A job description starts shaping an accommodation decision long before anyone requests a change at work. When the description is vague, outdated, or built around one customary way of performing a task, it becomes harder to separate the job’s essential functions from habits that can be adjusted.
Writing job descriptions that provide reasonable accommodation means describing the work accurately, identifying the results the position must achieve, and leaving room for a qualified applicant or employee to reach those results in an effective way. The goal is not to predict every disability or accommodation. It is to create a reliable record that supports a fair, case-specific process.
What Is Reasonable Accommodation Under the ADA?
Reasonable accommodation is a modification or adjustment to a job, the application process, or the work environment that enables a qualified applicant or employee with a disability to participate in the application process, perform essential job functions, or enjoy rights and privileges of employment equal to those of employees without disabilities. The accommodation must be effective for the individual and the work involved.
Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to private employers with 15 or more employees, as well as state and local governments, employment agencies, and labor unions. The ADA prohibits discrimination in job application procedures, hiring, firing, advancement, compensation, training, and other terms, conditions, and privileges of employment. It does not require employers to create job descriptions, but accurate descriptions can become important evidence when essential functions or accommodation decisions are questioned.
ADA Prohibits Discrimination
The ADA applies to recruitment, advertising, tenure, layoff, leave, fringe benefits, and other employment-related activities. A qualified individual must meet the position’s legitimate skill, experience, education, and other job-related requirements and be able to perform the essential functions with or without reasonable accommodation.
The EEOC’s guidance for employers under the ADA explains that a written job description prepared before advertising or interviewing will be considered evidence of essential functions. It is not the only evidence. The actual work performed, time spent on a function, consequences of not performing it, and experience of current or past employees may also matter.
Start With a Job Analysis
A practical accommodation-ready job description starts with a clear operational sequence. The sequence keeps the analysis tied to the actual functions of a job instead of assumptions about a diagnosis or a preferred way of working:
- Start with an analysis of the job that determines the essential functions.
- Identify how a disability may affect the employee’s or applicant’s ability to perform those essential functions.
- Identify possible accommodations needed to overcome the relevant limitations or workplace barriers.
- Determine the effectiveness and feasibility of each proposed accommodation, including whether it creates an undue hardship.
- Select an effective accommodation after considering the individual’s preference and discussing practical alternatives.
This sequence is not a substitute for the interactive process. It gives the employer and individual a shared description of the work so they can identify the barrier, discuss possible changes, and test whether an option will work.
How Do Well-Written Job Descriptions Support Accommodation Decisions?
Well Written Job Descriptions
A well written job description prepared before advertising or interviewing applicants can help establish what the employer actually considered essential. If an employer uses job descriptions, each one should be reviewed to make sure it reflects the position as performed today, not a copied template or a list of duties that no longer belong to the role.
A companion guide on how to write an accurate job description can help organize duties, reporting relationships, qualifications, and performance expectations. For ADA purposes, the most important work is separating essential job functions from non-essential or marginal functions and explaining why each essential function belongs in the role.
Essential and Marginal Job Functions
Essential functions are the fundamental duties of the position. Consider whether the position exists to perform the function, how many other employees can share it, how much time it requires, what happens if it is not performed, and whether it demands specialized expertise. Marginal functions may be useful, but they are not the reason the position exists.
A job description outlining essential and non-essential job functions is the first step in identifying an employer’s ADA obligations to an individual employee. It also helps prevent a marginal duty from being treated as an automatic barrier when job restructuring could allow the person to perform the job’s essential functions.
Focus on Results or Outcomes
A job description should focus on the results or outcome of a job function, not solely on the way it is customarily performed. A reasonable accommodation may enable a person with a disability to accomplish the function in a different manner from an employee who does not need the accommodation.
For example, a description might require accurate entry of customer orders by a defined deadline rather than requiring every employee to type on the same keyboard. The result remains fixed. The method can change through adapted equipment, speech-recognition software, a modified workstation, or another effective adjustment.
How Should Employers Evaluate a Reasonable Accommodation?
The decision must be based on the particular facts of each case. Employers should identify the workplace barrier, consult with the applicant or employee when the solution is not obvious, consider effective options, and document the reasoning without collecting or circulating medical information that is not needed for the decision.
Examples of Reasonable Accommodation
Examples of reasonable accommodation include making existing facilities readily accessible and usable; restructuring a job; modifying work schedules; acquiring or modifying equipment; providing qualified readers or interpreters; and appropriately modifying examinations, training materials, policies, or other programs. Accommodation may also protect equal access to workplace benefits and privileges, not only the performance of daily tasks.
ADA Appropriate Accommodation
The principal test is effectiveness: whether the accommodation will give a qualified person an equal opportunity to apply for the position, perform the essential functions, or enjoy the same workplace benefits. Equal opportunity does not guarantee identical results or require exactly the same benefit in exactly the same form.
The individual’s preference should receive primary consideration because the person often understands which adjustment will address the limitation. However, the employer may choose among effective accommodations and may select a less costly or easier option if it removes the workplace barrier. If the proposed options are not effective, the analysis is not finished.
Reassignment and Personal Use Items
Reasonable accommodation may include reassigning a current employee to a vacant position for which the individual is qualified when no accommodation enables performance of the original job. An employer is not required to create a position, promote the employee, or find a position for an applicant who is not qualified for the job sought.
Employers are not required to lower uniformly applied quality or quantity standards. They may need to provide an accommodation that enables the employee to meet those standards. Employers are also generally not obligated to provide personal use items such as ordinary glasses or hearing aids, though job-specific equipment or adjustments may still be required.
How Do Accessibility and Job Performance Standards Apply?
ADA and Accessibility
Access to application materials and interview sites must be provided to applicants with disabilities. Accessibility and usability extend beyond physical entry. Employers should consider the needs of qualified individuals with visual, hearing, mobility, intellectual, mental health, and other disabilities when designing application steps, interviews, assessments, communication methods, and workplace tools.
Job Performance
An employer can hold employees with disabilities to the same standards of production or performance as other similarly situated employees for essential job functions, with or without reasonable accommodation. The distinction matters when a disability affects a marginal function. The employer may need to restructure that marginal duty but may not exclude an individual who is satisfactorily performing the job’s essential functions.
The ADA is not an affirmative action law. An employer may select the most qualified applicant and make decisions for reasons unrelated to disability, provided the qualification standard is job related, consistent with business necessity, and applied without discrimination.
For example, suppose two people apply for a job as a typist and an essential function is to type 75 words per minute accurately. One applicant, an individual with a disability who receives a reasonable accommodation for the typing test, types 50 words per minute. The other applicant accurately types 75 words per minute. The employer can hire the applicant with the higher typing speed if that speed is needed for successful performance of the job.
Education and Qualification Requirements
The ADA does not prevent an employer from establishing education-related requirements, such as a high school diploma, when the requirement is job related and consistent with business necessity. A requirement should not remain in a job description simply because it has always been there. The employer should be able to connect it to the work and evaluate whether a qualified person can meet the underlying need with reasonable accommodation.
How Does Section 503 Affect Federal Contractors?
Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 applies to covered federal contractors and subcontractors and requires affirmative action to employ and advance qualified individuals with disabilities. These obligations are separate from the ADA’s general prohibition on employment discrimination, even though the two frameworks share important standards.
Voluntary Self-Identification and Confidential Records
Covered contractors use a prescribed process to invite applicants and employees to voluntarily self-identify as individuals with disabilities. The invitation must make clear that responding is voluntary. Disability self-identification information must be kept in a separate, confidential record apart from regular personnel records and used only for permitted compliance purposes.
Pre-Employment Inquiries
Outside an authorized voluntary self-identification process, employers generally may not ask applicants disability-related questions before making a conditional job offer. Contractor obligations under Section 503 and protected-veteran requirements under VEVRAA use separate rules and forms. Employers should not combine those processes or treat a voluntary disclosure as a qualification screen.
You can write a job description that supports reasonable accommodation with careful planning. Define the essential functions, separate them from marginal duties, describe the required results, and review the document against the actual work before recruiting. That preparation gives managers and employees a stronger starting point when an accommodation request calls for a practical, individualized decision.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is Reasonable Accommodation Under the ADA?
Reasonable accommodation is an effective change to the application process, job, or work environment that enables a qualified individual with a disability to apply, perform essential functions, or enjoy equal workplace benefits and privileges.
Why Should a Job Description Separate Essential and Marginal Functions?
The distinction shows which duties are fundamental to the position and which may be reassigned or restructured. It also helps the employer and employee focus an accommodation discussion on the actual barrier to essential work.
Must an Employer Provide the Employee’s Preferred Accommodation?
The individual’s preference should receive primary consideration, but an employer may choose another accommodation when it is effective. The selected option must remove the relevant workplace barrier and provide an equal employment opportunity.
Can an Employer Maintain Production and Quality Standards?
Yes. An employer may apply the same job-related production and quality standards to similarly situated employees. A reasonable accommodation may change how an employee meets the standard, but the employer generally does not have to lower the standard.
How Does Section 503 Affect Federal Contractors?
Section 503 requires covered federal contractors and subcontractors to take affirmative action regarding qualified individuals with disabilities. Its voluntary self-identification information must be handled under the prescribed process and kept separate and confidential.
