Most accommodation disputes are not about the accommodation. They are about what happened after someone asked — or, more often, about the fact that nothing happened, because nobody recognised that a request had been made.
For a separate commercial perspective on self-reporting bias, see the reference; it should be evaluated independently against accessibility, privacy, and employment-law requirements.
Primary federal ADA information is available at ADA.gov.
The interactive process is the conversation the law expects once an employer is on notice. Here is what it looks like from each side.
General information, not legal advice. Employers should take advice from employment counsel; employees can contact a disability rights organisation or an attorney in their state.
What starts it
This is the single biggest failure point, so it belongs first.
A request does not have to use the word "accommodation." It does not have to be in writing. It does not have to name a diagnosis. It does not have to come from the employee — a family member or a healthcare provider can raise it.
All of these are requests:
"I'm having trouble getting here for nine because of my medication." "The open-plan noise is making it hard for me to concentrate — is there anywhere quieter?" "My back condition makes the standing part of this difficult." "I need to leave early on Thursdays for treatment for a while."
Once an employer is on notice, the obligation to engage begins. An employer whose manager heard one of those sentences and resolved it informally — or ignored it — is already outside the process, whether or not anyone intended that.
For employers: train managers to recognise these and escalate them. That single piece of training prevents more problems than any policy document.
For employees: you do not have to use formal language, but making the request explicit and putting it in writing afterwards protects you. "I'm requesting an accommodation" removes any ambiguity about what happened.
The steps
1. Acknowledge
Promptly, and in writing. This costs nothing and establishes a date.
Delay is itself treated as a failure to accommodate. An employer who takes three months to respond has a problem regardless of what they eventually decide.
2. Establish the need
The conversation is about function, not diagnosis. What part of the job is difficult, and why.
An employer may request medical documentation where the disability or the need is not obvious — limited to what is necessary to establish that a limitation exists and what it restricts. Not a full medical history, not an unrestricted release.
For employees: you can usually satisfy this with a short letter from a provider confirming a limitation and its functional effect. You are not obliged to hand over your records.
3. Identify the essential functions
What the job genuinely requires, as distinct from what the job description happens to list.
Marginal tasks can often be reassigned. Essential ones cannot be removed — but they can frequently be performed differently.
Employers should document essential functions per role before a request arrives. Deciding what is essential after someone asks looks exactly like what it is, and it is difficult to defend.
4. Explore options
Both sides propose. The employee's suggestion is a starting point, not the only option — and the employer is not obliged to provide the preferred accommodation if an alternative is genuinely effective.
"Effective" is the test, not "adequate." An accommodation that technically permits the work while making it substantially harder is not an answer.
Sources worth using: the employee, who usually knows best what works; other employees who have solved similar problems; the vocational rehabilitation agency, which may fund equipment; free technical assistance services that exist specifically for this.
5. Decide and document
If agreed: implement it, record what was agreed, and set a review date.
If declined: record the reasoning, what alternatives were considered, and why each was rejected. Refusing without proposing anything is a process failure, even where the specific request was unreasonable.
6. Follow up
Roles change and conditions change. An accommodation that worked two years ago may no longer fit, and reviewing it is easier than rebuilding it after it has quietly stopped working.
Undue hardship, honestly
Significant difficulty or expense, assessed against the employer's size, resources and operations.
It is a real defence and a narrow one. Inconvenience is not undue hardship. Other employees objecting is not undue hardship. The fact that something costs money is not, by itself, undue hardship.
If an employer intends to rely on it, the analysis needs to be documented: what was considered, what it would cost, what alternatives were explored.
And in practice it rarely arises, because most accommodations are free. See accommodations that cost nothing.
Where it breaks down
Nobody recognised the request. The largest category by some distance.
The employer said no without exploring alternatives.
Excessive medical information was demanded.
Confidentiality was breached. Medical information must be kept separate from the personnel file. A manager is told what the accommodation is, not what the condition is. This is violated casually and constantly.
Leave was treated as automatically unreasonable. Indefinite leave is generally not required; a defined period frequently is a reasonable accommodation.
A rigid maximum-leave policy was applied automatically, with no individual assessment.
Retaliation followed. Treating someone worse after a request is separately actionable, and it usually happens through small things — projects reassigned, a cooler manager, exclusion from a meeting.
Nothing was written down. With no record, the account that survives is whichever one is better documented.
For employees, practically
Ask in writing, or confirm in writing after asking verbally. One short email.
Be specific about the functional need. "I need X because Y part of the job is difficult" rather than a description of your condition.
Bring a proposal, and be open to alternatives that work.
Keep your own records — dates, who you spoke to, what was said, what was agreed.
If it stalls, follow up in writing and note the delay.
If you are refused with no alternative offered, that is worth advice. Time limits for filing a charge are short. See what to do if an accommodation is refused.
For employers, practically
- [ ] Managers trained to recognise requests and escalate them
- [ ] A named owner for the process
- [ ] Written acknowledgement within a defined timeframe
- [ ] Essential functions documented per role, in advance
- [ ] Medical information limited and stored separately
- [ ] Alternatives explored and recorded, including rejected ones
- [ ] Decisions documented with reasoning
- [ ] Review dates set
- [ ] Counsel involved before any denial, and before any termination involving an accommodation history
The thing that makes it work
Speed and good faith, mostly.
An employer who responds within days, has a real conversation, and writes down what was agreed will almost never end up in a dispute — even when the answer to the original request is no. An employer who takes months, refuses without discussion, and keeps no record will, eventually, regardless of how reasonable their position was.