If a disabled employee needs an accommodation so he or she can continue to perform the job, you don’t have to provide any accommodation that would be an undue hardship for you. Generally, undue hardship means that providing the reasonable accommodation would result in significant difficulty or expense, based on your resources and the operation of your business.
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Here are the factors the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission looks at to evaluate whether an undue hardship exists:
- The nature and cost of the accommodation needed;
- The overall financial resources of the facility making the reasonable accommodation;
- The number of persons employed at the facility making the reasonable accommodation;
- The effect on expenses and resources of the facility;
- The overall financial resources, size, number of employees, and type and location of the employer’s facilities;
- The type of the employer’s operation, including the structure and function of the work force, the geographic separateness, and the administrative or physical relationship of the facility involved in making the accommodation to the employer; and
- The impact of the accommodation of the operation of the facility.
Keep in mind that just because you determine that a particular accommodation would be an undue hardship, that doesn’t excuse you from exploring the possibility of other accommodations.
Additional Resources:
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Enforcement Guidance on Reasonable Accommodation and Undue Hardship Sample Reasonable Accommodation Policy