Reasonable Accommodation

California law requires most businesses to provide reasonable accommodations for their employees with known disabilities, including disabilities caused by pregnancy, unless doing so would cause the employer an undue hardship. The law extends to job applicants too. California employers are prohibited from discriminating against applicants and employees based on a disability or medical condition where the applicant or employee can perform the essential functions of their role. 

A reasonable accommodation is a change or adjustment to a job, the work environment, or the way things are usually done to allow the employee to perform the essential functions of their role, despite their disability. Providing the employee with time off to see a medical professional, permitting an employee to work from home, changing the time in which the employee’s duties must be completed, and providing the employee with a chair or other modifications to the employee’s workspace are all examples of reasonable accommodations. 

The law also requires that employers engage in an interactive process with their disabled employees about the reasonable accommodations. This means that employers are required to communicate with those employees and make reasonable efforts to determine the appropriate accommodation in consultation with the employee. The employee is required to participate in the interactive process and to consider the employer’s preferred accommodations. 

The disabled employee who is seeking a reasonable accommodation must still be able to perform the essential functions of their job with that accommodation. There are a variety of factors that courts look at to determine whether a job function is essential, including whether the function is highly specialized, whether the position exists to perform the function, and the number of employees the employer has to distribute the performance of that function.