REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION
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EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY
Administration and Resource Management, Headquarters Marine Corps

What is Reasonable Accommodation?

Reasonable Accommodations are adjustments or modifications which range from making the physical work environment accessible to restructuring a job, providing assistive equipment, providing certain types of personal assistants (e.g., a reader for a person who is blind, an interpreter for a person who is deaf), transferring an employee to a different job or location, or providing flexible scheduling.

Reasonable accommodations are tools provided by employers to enable employees with disabilities to do their jobs, just as the employer provides the means for all employees to accomplish their jobs. For example, employees are provided with desks, chairs, phones, and computers. An employee who is blind or who has a visual impairment might need a compute, which operates by voice command or has a screen that enlarges print.

(From the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities).

This legal term is defined in the ADA as an action requiring significant difficulty or expense for the business/employer, considering the following factors:

  • the nature and cost of the proposed accommodation,
  • the overall financial resources of the business and the effect of the accommodation upon expenses and resources,
  • the impact of the accommodation upon the operation of the facility,
  • the violation of seniority provisions of a collective bargaining agreement, or
  • the failure to eliminate or reduce a direct threat or harm to self or others.

Americans with Disabilities Act

Administration and Resource Management