Reasonable Adjustments Explained: Supporting Disabled Employees in the Workplace

In the UK, employers have a legal responsibility to remove barriers to work for disabled employees or applicants by making things like flexible hours, equipment or communication more accessible.

But the latest statistics paint a different picture. Only 53% of disabled people aged 16-64 are in work, compared to 81.6% of non-disabled workers.

Supporting more disabled people into work isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s a financial win. Diverse teams are 87% more likely to make better decisions than non-diverse teams, leading to better business outcomes. And with other benefits such as higher productivity, a stronger brand and reduced legal risk, the return on inclusion is significant.

Employers who invest in accessibility and inclusive practices position themselves for long-term success in a changing economy. So, how do you make reasonable adjustments in your workplace? We’ll go through everything you need to know in this guide.

What are reasonable adjustments?

Reasonable adjustments are workplace measures that are designed to remove or reduce a disadvantage related to someone’s disability. The adjustments may include:

• Making changes to your workplace, like installing handrails or ramps
• Changing someone’s working arrangements, like allowing them to work from home
• Providing equipment, services or support, such as a certain type of computer software, or a BSL interpreter

Reasonable adjustments are unique to the individual and can be for physical or mental health conditions. Some disabled people may not need or want adjustments, but that could change at any time.  

What’s considered ‘reasonable’ depends on the situation. Acas suggests that an adjustment is reasonable if it:

• Will remove or reduce the barrier to work – by talking to the employee or applicant, not by making assumptions
• Is practical to make
• Is affordable 
• Doesn’t affect the health and safety of others

You don’t have to make adjustments that aren’t considered reasonable, but you should still find other ways to support the disabled person – which may include making other adjustments that are considered reasonable.  

You also don’t need to change the ‘basic nature’ of the job. For example, if someone works in customer service and asks for a job where they don’t have to speak to customers on the phone, this is unlikely to be reasonable if there isn’t another job to give them.

Examples of reasonable adjustments

There could be a never-ending list of examples of reasonable adjustments, as every individual is different and has unique needs. But here are a few examples of reasonable adjustments that our team has helped clients implement over the years:

Adjustments for physical health conditions or disabilities:

• Providing ergonomic chairs, desks, or specialist equipment (e.g., adjustable keyboards, screen readers)
• Allowing an employee to work on the ground floor if they have difficulty with stairs
• Modifying duties to reduce physical strain (e.g., limiting manual handling)
• Allowing additional breaks to manage fatigue or pain
• Allocating a parking space close to the workplace entrance
• Offering flexible working hours to accommodate medical appointments or fluctuating conditions
• Implementing a phased return to work following surgery or illness

Adjustments for mental health conditions or disabilities: 

• Offering flexible or part-time working to manage stress
• Providing a quiet workspace or noise-cancelling headphones to reduce sensory overload
• Allowing work from home days to reduce anxiety triggers
• Modifying communication methods (e.g., providing written instructions in addition to verbal ones)
• Allowing additional time off during periods of mental health crisis

Reasonable adjustments for mental health and neurodiversity

It’s worth noting that some mental health conditions may not be regarded as a disability under the Equality Act 2010. Under the act, a disability is defined as ‘a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities’. 

That means that someone who suffers from mild anxiety or depression may not be classed as disabled. However, you should still do what you can to support them at work, and it may still be right to make reasonable adjustments for them. This may include offering more frequent breaks or supporting with workload management.

Additionally, neurodiversity is often considered a disability under the Equality Act. For example, autism can have a significant impact on someone’s ability to carry out some types of work or work in certain environments, so you may need to make reasonable adjustments to allow them to do their job well. You could provide set working hours to allow your employee to establish a routine, or offer a quieter working area to prevent sensory overload. 

Why you must make reasonable adjustments in the workplace

Under the Equality Act 2010, employers must make reasonable adjustments for the following people:

• Employees and workers
• Contractors and self-employed people hired to personally do the work
• Job applicants

The law also says that you must make reasonable adjustments when:

• You know – or would be reasonably expected to know – that someone has a disability
• A disabled employee or job applicant asks for some changes or support
• A disabled person is struggling with any part of their job
• Someone’s absence, sickness, or delay in coming back to work is connected to their disability

As an employer, you must make reasonable adjustments for anything linked to someone’s disability. You must also make sure that other people know what’s needed for an individual’s reasonable adjustment – for example, if a visually impaired employee requires documents to be prepared in a larger font and particular format, you are responsible for ensuring that the employee’s colleagues understand this and know how to prepare documents this way. 

You’re also responsible for paying for any reasonable adjustments. Most adjustments are very affordable and simple to implement.

If you don’t make reasonable adjustments in compliance with the law, this could be considered workplace discrimination. The individual could take you to an employment tribunal, which is expensive to defend. If found in favour of the employee, it could cost your business thousands in compensation.

So, it’s clear that you can’t ignore a disabled employee’s reasonable request for adjustments in the workplace. But what process should you follow to ensure that each request is considered correctly?

How to make reasonable adjustments in the workplace

While every individual is different, and what’s considered reasonable will depend on the situation, you can follow a process to help you deal with reasonable adjustment requests and implement them accordingly. 

Our HR specialists recommend these steps to help you make reasonable adjustments for employees in your workplace:

1. Arrange a meeting

The first step after you receive a request for a reasonable adjustment is to arrange a meeting to discuss it with your employee. Be led by them – listen to them to understand how their disability affects them at work. 

It’s important not to make assumptions about what will work for your employee. Ask open questions that allow them to explain their needs clearly and help you gather information on how to support them. Make sure you take some notes.

During the meeting, ensure your employee understands that while some adjustments may be possible, others may not be. It can be useful to signpost them to the Acas guidance on reasonable adjustments so they can see what is considered reasonable from a neutral source.

Finally, share details about other support you have available for employees. For example, your Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) may be useful to your employee, or they could make a flexible working request.

2. Consider your employee’s individual needs

After the meeting, take some time to consider your employee’s needs. Everyone’s needs are different, so try not to compare your employee’s needs with any other colleagues you’ve spoken to about their disability in the past.

It can be useful to ask yourself the following questions:

• What kind of changes could actually work in your employee’s job role?
• What support would help them stay well and do their best work?
• Will the changes affect the rest of your team?
• How can you and your management team make sure things still run smoothly for your colleagues?

These questions will help you come up with the best support for your employee. It’ll also help you decide whether the adjustments the employee is asking for are reasonable. 

3. Get medical advice

If you’re unsure how to support your employee or simply want to make sure that you’re doing the right thing, you could consider getting medical advice from occupational health or asking for a GP assessment. 

Medical assessments can be particularly helpful in helping you to understand the adjustments required for an employee when they’re returning to work after a period of long-term sick leave. They can help you decide what adjustments are reasonable and effective.

Occupational health professionals or GPs can give you more insight into your employee’s capabilities and any potential barriers to work. They should suggest reasonable adjustments that you could make to support your employee to return to work or do well at work.

It’s worth remembering that your employee doesn’t have to agree to a medical assessment – you should ask for permission to make an occupational health referral in writing. 

It’s important that your employee understands that the purpose of the assessment is to ensure that they get the support they need. 

4. Confirm the reasonable adjustments 

Once you’ve discussed the adjustments with your employee, their line manager and any medical professionals, confirm the adjustments in writing. You can do this by letter or by email. 

In the letter, outline the adjustments you will be making and when they will come into effect. If you’ve had to decline some of the requested adjustments, state why you came to this decision and what support you will offer instead.

The importance of reviewing reasonable adjustments

You should regularly review reasonable adjustments for all your employees who have them. Everyone’s health and needs are different, so the review intervals might differ for each employee. However, a good place to start is every 6 months, or when something changes.

Some situations where you might want to review your employee’s reasonable adjustments include:

• If your employee moves to a new job role within your organisation
• When something changes at work, such as when you introduce new equipment or a new way of working, or you move to a new premises
• If your employee’s condition changes, or if they’re managing a disability that gets worse over time

During the review, ask your employee if or how their condition has changed since you last reviewed their adjustments. The meeting should follow the same format as your initial meeting – be led by them to understand how their needs may have changed and what that means for the adjustments they currently have in place.

Keep a written record of all meetings and all further adjustments you make. You should also record what the employee requests, even if the adjustments are not implemented, so you can review past requests and determine what was considered reasonable or unreasonable.

Can reasonable adjustments be removed?

Reasonable adjustments can be removed, but this should only occur after you’ve reviewed the adjustments with the employee. 

The key is to ensure that your employee’s adjustments remain appropriate and effective. When you review their adjustments, you may find that some are no longer required or have become disproportionate. 

For example, if you were supporting an employee who had returned to work after a period of long-term sick leave, you may have made a reasonable adjustment to their working hours to allow them to ease back into work. Once they have been back at work for a while and have continued their recovery, it may be appropriate to remove the adjustment and enable them to work their usual hours.

Ultimately, you shouldn’t make any decisions without speaking to your employee. Take their views and needs into consideration, and accept that you may need to keep adjustments in place to prevent your employee from being put at a disadvantage. 

It’s crucial that you don’t accidentally discriminate against your employee, so always consider that you may need to make alternative adjustments if the current ones are no longer suitable. 

How long does an employer have to make reasonable adjustments?

There’s no timeline set in law for employers to make reasonable adjustments. However, once an employee has requested them, they have a duty to act as soon as possible, so you should start dealing with a request as soon as you receive it.

In reality, some adjustments, such as allowing an employee to work from home more often, can be implemented quickly, whereas others, such as installing a new lift in a building to allow an employee to access their workplace, will take longer.

We’ve seen it play out in recent case law that employers must make reasonable adjustments as soon as they’re able. In Mitchell v Marks and Spencer plc (2018), the judgment explained that any undue delay in making a small adjustment (in this case, providing a lift key to the employee) could be considered discriminatory.

Essentially, you need to start the process of implementing reasonable adjustments as soon as you learn about them. Whether they are small adjustments that can be made quickly or larger ones that require more time, you need to ensure you are doing everything you can to get the support put in place in as short a time as possible.

Reasonable adjustments passport

If your employee doesn’t have one already, you could consider asking your employee whether they would like to create a reasonable adjustments passport.

A reasonable adjustments passport is a record of a person’s disability and its impact on their work. It also contains any reasonable adjustments that they’ve agreed with their employer, and any that they think they might need in the future.

Using a reasonable adjustments passport means that:

• You and the employee can ensure together that each reasonable adjustment is correct, practical and up to date
• If their manager changes, your employee can show their new manager what’s already been agreed, saving them from having to go through the whole process again

The government website has a template that you can adapt to create a reasonable adjustments passport with your employee. Remember to let them take the lead on this and support them where they need it.

The passport should include:

• Details of the employee’s disability and how it affects their daily life, including how they communicate, how they plan and organise tasks, how they get around and how they deal with unexpected change
• If their condition fluctuates, it can be useful for the employee to detail how their disability affects them at work on a good day, and when things aren’t so good
• Any support the employee has needed in previous jobs or education
• Whether the employee needs support to get to work and access work premises
• Any support the employee needs to communicate or interact with others, such as a notetaker or BSL interpreter
• Whether they use any specialist IT programmes to support them at work or at home, and whether they would need training to use them
• Any specialist equipment they have found useful, such as ergonomic office equipment, hearing aids or a wheelchair
• Whether the employee needs any changes to the workplace, such as adjustable lighting or quiet spaces
• Whether they need someone at work to support them, such as a support worker or job coach
• The reasonable adjustments that have been agreed between the employee and their manager
• Any further adjustments the employee may require if their condition worsens

Working with your employee to construct a reasonable adjustments passport can help them to do their best at work and stay in employment. It helps prevent them from having to re-explain and renegotiate their reasonable adjustments if they change roles or get a new manager, which is unnecessary and stressful.

A reasonable adjustments passport will also save the manager and the employee time, so they can focus on their work and targets rather than doing paperwork that’s already been done.

Access to Work scheme

The government’s Access to Work scheme aims to help people get or stay in work if they have a physical or mental health condition or disability. 

The support available depends on the individual’s needs, but they can apply for:

• A grant to help pay for practical support with work, such as specialist equipment, support workers or physical changes to their workplace
• Support with managing mental health at work, such as a tailored plan to help them get or stay in work, or sessions with a mental health professional
• Money to pay for communication support at job interviews, such as a BSL interpreter

The Access to Work scheme is there to help pay for support that a person may need to return to or stay in work. It’s not there to pay for reasonable adjustments – as the employer, it’s your legal responsibility to pay for them, but larger adjustments such as specialist equipment may be covered.

If your employee applies through the Access to Work scheme and the changes they request should be made as reasonable adjustments, the scheme will advise you on how to implement the changes. 

So, you can’t ignore requests for reasonable adjustments without it having a significant impact on your business. But the good news is that when you make reasonable adjustments, you support your employees to do their best work – and make better business decisions.

How we can help

Our team of specialists are here to help you with a range of HR services relating to making reasonable adjustments:

• Equality and diversity strategies
• Absence management
• Capability and underperformance
• Health & safety policies
• Employee handbooks, policies and procedures
• Workplace assessments
• Occupational health referral management
• Risk assessments
• Employee benefits benchmarking
• Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs)
• Medical assessment and screenings
• Ill-health case management
• Grievance investigations, hearings and appeals