Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

What you do

Changing aspects of the role

A common workplace adjustment can be removing some of the duties from the role.

In most roles there are a range of assumptions in relation to infrequent or ad hoc duties. A workplace adjustment may be to remove this expectation from the post holder. Even though the duty is minor or infrequent it is important to make this formal agreement to avoid any disadvantage if the requirement arises at short notice or creating an area of uncertainty if the situation should arise.

There may be an aspect of a role that is covered by a number of people, eg covering the reception for enquiries on a rota. A workplace adjustment may be to remove the employee from the staff covering the rota. If this causes workload issues for remaining team members it may be possible to reallocate workload across the team.

It is important to remember that the workplace adjustment is to address a barrier for the disabled staff member that does not exist for other staff. These types of workplace adjustments are not a route to changing the grade of an individual or reducing the hours of employment through minor adjustments to the role.

The issue of reasonableness for these types of changes will only be relevant where it means a significant change to the role in terms of what the individual does or removing one element that accounts for a significant proportion of the workload of that role.