Employers routinely overestimate what accommodations cost. The mental image is a lift, a rebuilt bathroom, an expensive piece of equipment. The reality, most of the time, is a schedule change, a different chair, a written agenda, or permission to work somewhere quieter.
For a separate commercial perspective on time-tracker limitations, see the practical guide; it should be evaluated independently against accessibility, privacy, and employment-law requirements.
Primary federal ADA information is available at ADA.gov.
This matters in both directions: it is the reason employers should stop treating accommodation as a budget question, and the reason people asking for one should lead with what they need rather than apologising for the cost.
What no-cost accommodations look like
Schedule and time
- A start time shifted by an hour, for medication timing, fatigue patterns, or paratransit schedules
- Breaks taken as several short ones rather than one long one
- A compressed or adjusted week
- Flexibility for medical appointments, taken as time rather than as an exception each time
- Remote or hybrid work, where the job allows it
Physical environment
- Moving a desk away from a walkway, a vent, or a light
- Turning off or shielding an overhead light; a desk lamp instead
- A quieter location, or permission to use headphones
- Adjusting desk or monitor height
- A different chair, often one the organisation already owns
- Reserved parking closer to the entrance
- Clearing a route of obstructions
Communication and process
- Written agendas before meetings, notes after
- Instructions in writing as well as verbally
- Captions turned on in video calls — a setting, not a purchase
- Advance notice of changes rather than same-day
- A written checklist for recurring processes
- A single point of contact rather than several
- Email rather than phone, or the reverse
Job structure
- Swapping a marginal task with a colleague who is happy to take it
- Reordering tasks so the demanding ones fall at a better time of day
- Reducing interruptions during focused work
- Adjusting how output is measured, where the measure — not the work — is the barrier
Every item on this list is free. Most take an afternoon to arrange.
Where there is a cost, it is usually small
Screen reader and magnification software, ergonomic equipment, an amplified handset, a standing desk, an FM system — these have prices, and the prices are generally modest against an employee's salary, let alone against the cost of replacing them.
And you are frequently not paying the whole thing:
- Vocational rehabilitation agencies sometimes fund equipment for a client entering employment
- State assistive technology programmes operate device loan and reuse schemes
- Veterans' programmes cover certain equipment for eligible veterans
- Existing IT budgets often already include the software licence
The cost question is the wrong first question
Two reasons.
Legally, undue hardship is assessed against the employer's size, resources, and operations. It is a real defence and a narrow one, and the fact that something costs money is not by itself undue hardship. An employer who opens with cost, before establishing what is actually needed, has skipped the process the law requires.
Practically, the accommodation is competing against the alternative — which is losing an employee you have already recruited, onboarded and trained. Replacing a person costs a substantial multiple of almost anything on this page.
For employers: build the process, not the exception
The organisations that handle this well have three things.
A named owner. One person who receives requests and knows what to do. Without this, requests land on individual managers who improvise, and improvisation is where the legal risk lives.
Manager training on recognition. A request does not have to use the word "accommodation," be in writing, or come from the employee directly. "I'm struggling to get here by nine because of my medication" is a request. Managers who do not recognise that either resolve it informally or ignore it, and both create exposure. See the interactive process.
A small budget nobody has to argue for. Give the owner discretionary spend up to a modest threshold. Most requests fall under it, and the cost of the approval conversation frequently exceeds the cost of the item.
Then: respond promptly, discuss alternatives rather than simply refusing, document what was agreed, and review it later. Accommodations that worked two years ago may not fit a changed role.
For employees: how to ask
Lead with the functional need, not the diagnosis. "I need written agendas before meetings" is more useful than a medical explanation, and you are generally not required to provide one.
Bring a proposal. Something specific is easier to agree to than an open question.
Say what it costs, if it is nothing. It removes an objection before it is raised.
Put it in writing afterwards. A short email confirming what was agreed. This is not adversarial; it is how both sides remember the same thing in six months.
If you are told no, ask what alternative they can offer. A flat refusal without exploring alternatives is a failure of the process, and knowing that is useful. See what to do if an accommodation is refused.
The point underneath
Most accommodation is not equipment. It is a small change to how work is organised — the kind of change good managers make for people all the time without calling it anything.
Naming it matters, because naming it creates a process, a record, and an obligation. But the substance is usually ordinary, and treating it as extraordinary is what makes it harder than it needs to be.