Human Rights at Work
An accommodation is a reasonable change an employer makes to remove a barrier that affects someone because of a protected characteristic.
Employers have a legal duty to accommodate. Although accommodations are often discussed in the context of disability, the law requires employers to accommodate any protected group when a rule or practice creates a disadvantage.
It is not enough for an employer to treat everyone “the same” if doing so harms some employees more than others. Employers must consider the needs of employees based on their membership in protected groups and provide individual accommodations to meet those needs where it is reasonable to do so.
Examples of accommodations include being allowed to take days off for religious holidays, giving single parents time to pick up children from school, giving employees with disabilities access to aids such as seating for those with injuries, text to speech technology for visually impaired people, and ramps for wheelchair users.
However, this duty has limits. An employer does not have to provide accommodations that would cause “undue hardship”, meaning it would be overly difficult or unsafe. See the section on “Undue Hardship and Limits on the Duty to Accommodate” for more on this.