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| DDA (1995) - Reasonable Adjustments and Employers |
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Introduction
The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) provides protection against discrimination in Employment. The DDA is here to stay but there are still many employers who have yet to embrace the spirit and letter of this legislation. Alison John & Associates (AJA) have prepared the following examples of ‘reasonable adjustments’ as inspiration for employers in meeting the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act. We hope our ideas help you to keep your practice up to date.
What are Reasonable Adjustments?
‘Reasonable adjustments’ describe the individual steps a service provider or employer may need to take to enable Disabled People to use the service or be employed. Part 2 of the Act describes the responsibilities of employers and Part 3 describes the responsibilities of providers of goods and services. The term ‘reasonable adjustment’ applies to both areas of the Act as a way of describing changes an employer or service provider may have to make in order to comply with the act and not behave in a discriminatory way. Below are some examples of employment related adjustments. The list is not exhaustive and the main thing to remember is to be flexible and not to panic. Panic can lead to token and ineffective adjustments which might tick a box but won’t necessarily solve the problem.
Recruitment
You need to think about where you advertise and what you say in your job descriptions e.g. Is asking for applicants to be ‘a car driver’ imperative to the job? Or do you just need the applicant ‘to be able to travel’? The first statement will discriminate against people who, because of impairment issues, cannot hold a driving licence. They may well be suitable for the job and use public transport or even have a driver. Another area of employment which can be problematic is in using tests as part of the interview process. Discrimination can occur if all applicants are expected to complete tests in the same way. A recruitment panel would need to be flexible about how they obtain the required information.
Promotion and Transfers
You must offer promotion and transfers to all your employees and not exclude those who, based on your own assumptions, you think would not be able to do the job. A recent case of discrimination was won by an employee against a supermarket which did not offer the chance of promotion to one of its till operators who had mild learning difficulties. The supermarket was ordered to pay compensation.
Altering Working Hours
If a Disabled Person requires assistance to get up and to get to work in the morning and that assistance comes from a care agency, work arrival times will depend on a range of factors. A reasonable adjustment could be made to ensure flexible working times so that the employee doesn’t have to worry about being late.
Different Workplace
A reasonable adjustment which works particularly well for IT jobs is to work from home either most of the time or for a few days a week. This suits not just Disabled People but people with children as well.
Time Off for Assessment, Rehabilitation and Treatment
It may be reasonable that if a Disabled Employee has to go for treatment a few times a year that, in negotiation with the employer, this time is not taken from holiday allowance. This is where flexibility on the part of employer and employee is required in order to negotiate what both parties see as reasonable.
Technical Aids and Equipment
If someone with restricted movement in their hands could do their job but with a different type of computer keyboard or telephone, then a reasonable adjustment may be for the employer to pay for or contribute towards the cost of that equipment.
Access to work (click here for link) is an employment scheme available if a person’s health or impairment affects the way they do their job. It gives the employee and employer advice and support with extra costs which may arise because of the employee’s needs.
Redeployment
Sometimes an employee may acquire an impairment because of stress, aging, accident or illness and it is possible that their impairment may be covered by the DDA. In these cases it is in the best interest of employers not to lose that person and their expertise, therefore reasonable adjustments may need to be made for the employee to continue at the same or another job within the organisation. It could also be discrimination if you dismiss that person without looking to see if they could be redeployed within the organisation. This may mean re-training or even promotion.
Paying the Price of Discrimination
The examples of reasonable adjustments listed above are just a few which illustrate the principles of access and inclusion in the workplace. Cases heard by the Equality & Human Rights Commission (& previously the Disability Rights Commission) have shown that not making adjustments can prove costly for employers.
One local authority recently had to pay compensation of several hundred thousand pounds when they failed to make adjustments for an existing employee so that she could continue with her job as a previously mild impairment became more significant. Compensation took into account how many years the employee would have been expected to work before retirement age.
Sometimes a leap of imagination is required on the part of employers to see past no-win situations and see how much they are gaining by including Disabled People in their workforce. In places where this has happened, employers have found that it has made their business stronger in ways that they hadn’t anticipated. There are issues to be resolved in moving towards being a more inclusive employer, it is not always plain sailing, but overall, the sense of teamwork becomes stronger and the motivation and effort on the part of all staff increases. Managers involved eventually see that they can’t afford NOT to include Disabled People in their workforce if they are to be successful employers of the future.
Reasonable adjustments do not need to cost a lot of money and they are not, as some people assume, about preferential treatment. Reasonable adjustments ensure that people are treated equally in the job market and they allow Disabled People to get on and be contributing members of our society.
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