Received an accommodations request? Think twice before turning it down.

Authors note: Because of Medium’s refusal to address its accessibility issues for both authors and readers, I’ve moved my last three years of blogs to Substack. Please sign up there for notices of all new articles. Also, I will be updating older articles (like this one) and the updates will only be published on Substack. Thank you for your continued readership and support.

This is Part 2 of a two-part article. Read Part 1, The Manager’s Practical Guide to Handling an Employee Newly Diagnosed With a Disability here.

What are accommodations?

An “accommodations request” is as simple as an individual communicating the following type of request through ANY channel. The request doesn’t have to be written, though in writing is easier to prove the request was made if there is a dispute later.

“I need X to do Y because Z”

Where X is the requested accommodation;

Y is the task being accommodated

and Z is the reason related to a health condition or disability.

The word “accommodation” does not need to be included in the request. In fact, “accommodation” is a very US-centric term. Other countries use different terms…