What are reasonable accommodations for disabilities?

Employers in San Diego need to ensure that they are following the various federal and state labor laws. There are many different laws regarding wage and hour laws, harassment, safety laws and discrimination. Employers are not allowed to discriminate against employees based on the fact that they are in certain protected classes such as their age, race, nationality, sexual orientation, religion, disability and others.

In certain situations, employers are also required to do more for their employees than simply ensure that they do not discriminate against them. When employees have disabilities employers must actually provide reasonable accommodations that allow people to perform the job duties with the disability. The type of accommodation that will be required depends on the type of disability of the employee.

Examples of reasonable accommodations

Examples of reasonable accommodations include, but are not limited to, making the facilities accessible for those with disabilities; offering modified work schedules; obtaining or modifying the existing equipment to allow people to use it with their disabilities; providing readers or interpreters; job reassignment or restricting and other accommodations.

When determining whether the accommodation is reasonable, the question is whether it is feasible and allows the employees to perform the essential job functions without causing an undue hardship on the employer. Employers do not need to eliminate an essential job functions as part of the reasonable. They also do pay excessive costs in order to provide the accommodation needed to allow the person to perform essential job functions.

Many people in San Diego have disabilities but are perfectly capable of performing the job requirements with a little extra assistance from the employer. If the employer does not provide a reasonable accommodation, the employee may have a claim against the employer for any damages they suffered. This includes back pay and loss benefits. These are very fact-specific cases though and consulting with experienced attorneys could be beneficial.