Reasonable Adjustments at Work

In May 2026 an employment tribunal ordered the Department for Work and Pensions to pay £17,280 to a former work coach with arthritis. She had declared her disability on her application form, nobody asked what she needed, and her request for a suitable chair took five months to become an equipment order.

The biggest part of the award, £12,000, came from something less visible. The DWP never adjusted the sickness absence trigger points in its attendance policy, despite her repeated requests. Our McRobbie v DWP case study sets out every finding.

The case shows where reasonable adjustments usually go wrong. Not in refusing a big, expensive change, but in slow handling, unclear ownership and blanket policies applied without thought. This page explains the duty and the process that keeps you on the right side of it.

Reasonable Adjustments at a Glance

Question	Short answer
Where does the duty come from?	Sections 20 to 22 and Schedule 8 of the Equality Act 2010
Who does it protect?	Disabled employees, workers and job applicants
When does it start?	When you know, or could reasonably be expected to know, about the disability and the disadvantage
Does the employee have to ask?	No. You must act on what you know or ought to know
Who pays?	The employer. The employee must never be charged for an adjustment
What if you fail?	Disability discrimination, with uncapped compensation

Who the Duty Protects

The duty applies to disabled people: employees, workers and job applicants. Under the Equality Act a person is disabled if they have a physical or mental impairment with a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

"Substantial" means more than minor or trivial. "Long-term" usually means the effect has lasted, or is likely to last, at least 12 months. Cancer, HIV and multiple sclerosis count as disabilities from diagnosis.

The definition is wide. Many people with conditions such as diabetes, depression, dyslexia or long COVID meet it without ever describing themselves as disabled.

The Three Requirements

Section 20 of the Equality Act 2010 sets out three requirements. Each one applies where a disabled person would otherwise be at a substantial disadvantage compared with people who are not disabled.

• Provisions, criteria and practices. Your normal rules and ways of working, such as hours, attendance triggers, targets and how a role is structured.
• Physical features. Steps, doorways, lighting, noise and workstation layout.
• Auxiliary aids. Equipment and support, such as assistive software, a specialist chair or a British Sign Language interpreter.

In practice the first is where most claims arise. Attendance and performance rules applied without adjustment caused the largest award in McRobbie, and they are the area managers most often get wrong.

You Must Act Before You Are Asked

The duty does not wait for a formal request. Schedule 8, paragraph 20 only lets an employer off where it did not know, and could not reasonably be expected to know, that the person was disabled and likely to be disadvantaged.

That means you are expected to notice. A disability declared on an application form, a fit note, a pattern of absence or something an employee says to their manager can all fix you with knowledge.

The tribunal in McRobbie said it was "surprising" that a declared disability did not automatically trigger the DWP's adjustments process. Your policy should make that trigger automatic: any disclosure, at any stage, starts an adjustments conversation without the employee having to push for it.

What Counts as Reasonable

You only have to make adjustments that are reasonable. The test is objective, so a tribunal decides what was reasonable, not the employer. The EHRC's guidance on workplace adjustments and its Employment Code of Practice list the factors tribunals weigh.

• How effective the adjustment would be at removing the disadvantage.
• How practicable it is.
• The cost and the disruption it would cause.
• Your size and resources.
• Whether financial or other help is available.

Cost is rarely a full answer. Most adjustments are cheap, and a large employer is expected to absorb more than a five-person business.

If one adjustment is not reasonable, you are expected to look for another. Rejecting a request outright without exploring alternatives is a common route to a finding against you.

Access to Work

The government's Access to Work scheme gives grants for practical support, such as support workers, specialist equipment and travel to work. GOV.UK is clear that it does not pay for the reasonable adjustments the employer is legally required to make.

Treat it as extra help for the employee rather than a way to pass on your own duty. It can still be useful when deciding what package of support is realistic.

Adjustments to Rules, Not Only to Equipment

A common mistake is to see adjustments as ramps and chairs. The adjustments most often argued about at tribunal concern rules: attendance, performance and working patterns.

• Discounting disability-related absence, or raising the trigger points, under your attendance policy.
• A phased return after sickness absence, agreed in writing.
• Changed hours, a later start, or a change of shift pattern.
• Time off for medical appointments and treatment.
• Moving minor duties to a colleague.
• Changing how a performance target is measured.
• Information in accessible formats, or written instructions alongside verbal ones.

Mental health conditions, neurodivergent conditions and fluctuating conditions usually need these process adjustments. Our guide to neurodiversity at work covers the adjustments that come up most often.

Handling a Request Well

Most claims start because a request was handled slowly, defensively or not at all. Acas's guidance on reasonable adjustments expects employers to act promptly, keep the employee informed and consider interim measures while longer-term changes are arranged.

1. Acknowledge quickly. Confirm receipt within a few days and name who owns the request.
2. Talk to the employee. They usually know what would help. Do not assume.
3. Get advice where needed. Occupational health can identify options, but the decision and the duty stay with you.
4. Put interim measures in place. Temporary equipment or home working while an order is outstanding stops a delay becoming a failure.
5. Decide and record. Write down what was agreed, what was not, and why.
6. Review. Check the adjustment is working, and revisit it when the condition, role or manager changes.

Tracking Requests

Nobody in McRobbie set out to fail. The request drifted between managers because no one owned it end to end and nothing tracked it.

A simple adjustments log fixes that. Record the date of each request, the owner, the target decision date, interim measures, the outcome and the next review date.

A reasonable adjustment passport adds a record that travels with the employee. When a line manager changes, the agreed adjustments carry over instead of being renegotiated or quietly dropped.

Adjustments in Recruitment

The duty starts before anyone is employed. Application forms, online tests, interview rooms and assessment days all have to be adjusted where a candidate would otherwise be disadvantaged.

Ask every candidate whether they need anything changed for the interview, and act on the answer. Common adjustments are extra time for a test, questions in writing, a step-free room or a remote interview.

Keep health questions out of the selection decision. Section 60 of the Equality Act restricts asking about health before a job offer, except for limited purposes such as working out what interview adjustments are needed.

When an Adjustment Is Not Enough

Sometimes the original role cannot be adjusted far enough. Redeployment to a suitable vacant post can itself be a reasonable adjustment, and tribunals expect employers to look properly before dismissing.

That can mean offering a vacancy without a competitive interview, or allowing a trial period in the new role. A redeployment register, with the employee told about every suitable vacancy, is the evidence you will need.

Confidentiality

Health information is special category data under UK GDPR, so adjustment records need tighter handling than ordinary HR files. Limit access to the people who need it, and agree with the employee what colleagues are told.

An employee may want an adjustment but not want the reason shared. The policy should say how you will explain changes to the team without disclosing the condition.

What Happens If You Get It Wrong

A failure to make reasonable adjustments is disability discrimination in its own right. Compensation is uncapped and can include loss of earnings and an award for injury to feelings.

Failures often come in clusters. Where a dismissal follows an unadjusted attendance process, the employee can claim failure to adjust, discrimination arising from disability and unfair dismissal together.

Since 1 October 2026 most tribunal claims can be brought within six months rather than three, so an old, untracked request can surface later than it once could. Our guide to the new tribunal time limits explains the change.

A Worked Example

An employee with a long-term back condition returns from absence with a fit note recommending reduced lifting and a phased return. Their absence level would normally trigger a formal warning under the attendance policy.

Meeting the duty means discounting the disability-related absence from the trigger, agreeing the phased return in writing, moving the lifting part of the role to a colleague and checking whether an adjustable workstation helps. Issuing the warning on autopilot is where the claim begins.

The Policies Behind the Duty

The duty is easiest to meet with a written process that managers follow. That usually means a reasonable adjustments procedure, an attendance policy that tells managers to consider adjustments before any formal stage, and a dignity and respect at work policy to deal with harassment like the chair comment in McRobbie.

Our page on disability in the workplace covers the wider framework, and the attendance management policy is where most adjustments to rules are written down.

Reasonable Adjustments Policy and Procedure Writers

We write reasonable adjustments procedures with an automatic referral trigger, response deadlines, an adjustments log and a passport template, so a disclosure never falls between two managers. They sit within our HR policies and procedures service, priced from £65 per document.

If you already have an adjustments or attendance policy, our policy review service checks it against the lessons from McRobbie and the EHRC Code. Contact us for a fixed quote.