Reasonable Adjustments
What are reasonable adjustments?
If you employ a person with disability or are looking to employ a person with disability, it is important that you take into account the person's disability and make any appropriate or reasonable adjustments to the work environment to accommodate them.
Reasonable adjustments enable an employee with disability to:
- perform the inherent or essential requirements of their job safely in the
- workplace have equal employment opportunities such as recruitment
- processes, promotion and training opportunities enjoy equal terms and conditions of employment.
Essential elements of a reasonable adjustment policy
- Meet requests for alternative formats, e.g. electronic format, Braille, large print, audio/CD
- Ensure position description focuses only on inherent requirements
- Provide a contact person to answer questions regarding any available positions
- Focus on applicant’s capacity to fulfil inherent requirements of the job
- Ask all applicants if adjustments are required when organising interview
- Adjust assessment process as requested (e.g. sign language interpreter, accessible venue)
- Let reception and panel members know of adjustments beforehand
- Ensure testing/assessment processes are carefully considered and adjusted for the specific candidate
- Ensure medical assessment relates to the inherent requirements of the job and considers reasonable adjustments
- Health or disability related questions should be accompanied by opportunity to request reasonable adjustments and information about who will receive information
- You can only collect medical information if it relates to: industry risk, carrying out tasks inherent to the job, or OH&S requirements
- Action a ‘request for workplace adjustments’
- Respond to the request in a timely manner
- Monitor timeline for implementation
- Review for effectiveness
- Materials and locations are accessible to employee
- Presenters know how to make adjustments
- Ask EEO questions after appointment has been made
Key considerations for implementing reasonable adjustment policies and procedures
Robust Reasonable Adjustment Policies and Procedures are foundation stones for the successful and equitable inclusion of people with disability.
When communicated effectively a Reasonable Adjustment Policy makes it easier to attract skilled and talented people with disability, and to retain employees who may acquire a disability throughout their working lives.
Your Reasonable Adjustment Policy tells people that you have the intention to be inclusive and that you have developed the systems and knowledge to ensure the process is both timely and effective.
Your Reasonable Adjustment Policy should be readily available and well communicated within the organisation.
Important decision points:
- Who are the key people that will need to be involved in the development and approval of the Policy and Procedure?
- Who will pay and how will these expenses be managed?
- Who will be ultimately responsible for refusals of requests? (ideally only one person)
- What data will be kept? By whom? How will the data be used?
- What are the expectations of various roles in the organisation? E.g. recruitment team, hiring manager, OH&S team, diversity practitioner?
- What information will be available on the internet to prospective employees?
- What information will be available to existing employees, and will employees be able to download the request form from the intranet?
- Will you measure “time taken” to satisfy a request?
- How will you ensure that cost implications do not impact on managers’ performance assessments?