Types of Workplace Accommodations, With Examples

Most guides on this topic are written for the employee asking. This one is organized around the request as it actually lands on your desk: what the employee says, what category it falls into, what it typically costs, and whether the answer is usually yes.

Workplace accommodations sort into six practical buckets. Knowing the buckets matters because it speeds up the part of the process where teams get stuck, which is generating a second option when the first one will not work.

What are the main types of workplace accommodations?

A workplace accommodation is any change to a job, a workspace, or a policy that lets a qualified employee perform their role. Nearly every request falls into one of six categories: schedule and leave, work location, equipment and workspace, job structure, policy exceptions, and communication access.

The category tells you where to look for alternatives. When a schedule request will not work, other schedule options usually will, and a location change often solves what a schedule change cannot.

Cost almost never decides it. In the Job Accommodation Network's employer survey, 61% of accommodations cost nothing to implement, 33% involved a one-time expense with a median of $300, and only 6% created an ongoing annual cost, with a median of $2,400.

One framing point before the categories. A reasonable accommodation is not a benefit you extend. It is a change that removes a barrier the job created for one person, which is why the same request can be a clear yes in one role and a genuine no in another.

Schedule, hours, and leave accommodations

The most requested category and the cheapest to grant, because it usually costs nothing but coordination. These requests come from medication timing, treatment appointments, chronic fatigue, sleep disorders, and recovery periods.

Modified schedules and flexible start times

A later start, an earlier finish, or a shifted shift. It sounds like "I keep missing the 8 a.m. because of when I have to take my medication."

Usually a yes. The question to test is whether a specific time of day is genuinely essential, which it is for a shift handoff or a client-facing window and is not for most office work. If coverage is the concern, grant the shift and specify which hours are protected rather than refusing the whole request.

Reduced hours and part-time schedules

A temporary or ongoing drop in hours. Frame the decision against the real alternative: an employee asking to go from 40 hours to 30 is offering you a version that works, and the alternative is often zero hours on medical leave.

Additional or restructured breaks

Short frequent breaks for blood sugar management, pain, medication, restroom access, or lactation. Almost always no cost and almost always granted. Under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, several of these are treated as predictable assessments that will virtually never be an undue hardship.

Leave as an accommodation

A defined block of time off is a legitimate accommodation, including after FMLA is exhausted or when the employee was never eligible. Indefinite leave with no expected return date generally is not. Ask for an estimated duration and treat a structured leave of absence as one option on the list rather than the fallback when you have run out of ideas.

Work location and remote work accommodations

The most contested category right now, and the one where blanket policies cause the most damage. Requests range from full-time remote work to a single predictable day at home to a desk in a different part of the building.

Full-time or partial telework

Whether this is reasonable depends entirely on the essential functions of the specific role, not on your company-wide stance. An accounting manager running month-end close alone in a spreadsheet is a different analysis from an office manager who receives deliveries and meets on-site vendors.

In February 2026, the EEOC and the Office of Personnel Management issued joint FAQs on telework accommodations that apply the same standards private employers work under. Two takeaways sit side by side: you cannot revoke existing telework accommodations by blanket policy, and telework is not automatically reasonable either.

Workspace relocation and environment changes

Moving a desk away from a walkway, off a noisy aisle, out of direct HVAC flow, or closer to a restroom. Nearly free, frequently effective, and often a workable alternative when remote work genuinely is not.

Parking, entry, and travel adjustments

A reserved close space, a route with fewer stairs, an accessible entrance, or reduced travel expectations. Ask whether travel is truly essential or simply customary before treating it as a barrier.

Equipment, workspace, and assistive technology

The category people picture when they hear accommodation, and the only one that reliably costs money. Even here the numbers are small, and the request is usually specific enough that the employee can name the product.

Ergonomic and physical equipment

Sit-stand desks, specialized chairs, a stool for a role that involves standing, anti-fatigue mats, keyboard trays, footrests, and lifting aids. A stool at a checkout counter is the classic example, and it is a one-time purchase that keeps a trained employee working.

Assistive technology and software

Screen readers, magnification, speech-to-text, captioning tools, alternative input devices, and text-to-speech. Much of this is already built into the operating system you own, so check before you buy. An adaptive device is frequently cheaper than the meeting you held about whether to approve it.

Sensory environment adjustments

Noise-canceling headphones, task lighting instead of overhead fluorescents, screen filters, a low-stimulation room, or permission to keep a light off. These come up often with sensory sensitivity and with neurodivergent employees, and most cost under $100.

Job restructuring and reassignment

Changing what the job contains rather than how it is performed. This is where the essential functions analysis does real work, because you are required to consider reallocating marginal duties and you are not required to remove core ones.

Reallocating marginal duties

Swapping a task that takes twenty minutes a month and could be done by anyone. A duty is likely marginal if the position would still exist without it, if several other people already perform it, and if little time is spent on it. Trading marginal duties between two employees is usually the least disruptive accommodation available.

Modified methods and supervisory support

Written instructions instead of verbal, a task checklist, more frequent check-ins, or splitting a large assignment into stages. These cost a manager's attention and nothing else, and they are among the most effective accommodations there are.

Reassignment to a vacant position

The accommodation of last resort, used when nothing works in the current role. It should be a comparable position at comparable pay when one is vacant, and it comes after the in-role options are genuinely exhausted, not instead of them.

Policy exceptions as accommodations

Modifying a rule for one person while it continues to apply to everyone else. Teams resist this category the hardest and it is often the simplest to grant.

Common examples:

• Allowing a service animal where a no-animals rule applies
• Permitting food or drink at a workstation where it is normally prohibited
• Adjusting a dress code or grooming standard for a medical device, skin condition, or religious practice
• Letting a cashier sit during a shift where the policy says stand
• Exempting an employee from a rotating shift or on-call rotation
• Permitting a phone at a workstation for glucose monitoring or medication reminders

Religious requests often arrive as policy exceptions, and the standard for refusing one changed in 2023. In Groff v. DeJoy, the Supreme Court held that undue hardship means a substantial burden in the overall context of the business, which is a considerably higher bar than the minimal-cost test employers relied on for decades. Coworker annoyance does not clear it.

Watch on demand

Accommodations don't have to be complicated

Why manager fear stalls more requests than policy ever does, how to keep documentation light enough that employees can actually produce it, and what to say when someone worries about setting a precedent.

Watch the session

Communication and information access accommodations

Changing how information reaches an employee. These matter as much for meetings, training, and benefits enrollment as they do for daily work, and they are the accommodations most often forgotten at company events.

Interpreters, captioning, and transcripts

ASL interpreters for meetings and trainings, live captioning on video calls, and transcripts afterward. Interpreters are one of the few accommodations with real recurring cost, and nonprofit and remote services have made them substantially cheaper than most teams assume.

Alternate formats

Large print, braille, high-contrast documents, screen-reader-compatible files rather than flat scans, and audio versions. This is also an accessibility problem worth solving once at the source, because a document built to be readable serves everyone who receives it.

Written follow-ups and processing time

Recapping verbal instructions in writing, sending agendas in advance, and allowing extra time to respond. No cost, no paperwork, and among the most commonly requested adjustments for cognitive and mental health conditions.

Accommodations for mental health conditions

The same six categories apply, and the requests are usually smaller than managers expect. Anxiety, depression, PTSD, ADHD, and bipolar disorder are covered conditions when they substantially limit a major life activity, and the accommodations that help are mostly adjustments to time, environment, and communication.

What these requests typically look like:

• A flexible start time to accommodate medication side effects or a morning therapy appointment
• Time off during the workday for standing appointments, made up at another point
• A quieter workspace, a desk away from high traffic, or permission to work with headphones
• Written instructions and written recaps after verbal direction
• More frequent, shorter check-ins with a manager instead of one long weekly review
• Advance notice before schedule changes or before being added to a client meeting
• A defined leave period during an acute episode or a treatment program

Two things trip teams up here. The first is asking for proof of the condition because it is not visible, which you cannot require and do not need. The second is treating the request as a performance conversation, which it is not: manage output on the same standard you always did, and let the employee raise the connection if there is one.

Pregnancy accommodations under the PWFA

These follow their own rules and they are easier to get wrong than ADA requests. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act applies at 15 or more employees and covers known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, and related conditions, including morning sickness, lactation, recovery from childbirth, miscarriage, and fertility treatment.

The important difference is that the EEOC identifies several common requests as predictable assessments that will virtually never be an undue hardship: carrying and drinking water, additional restroom breaks, sitting when the job involves standing or standing when it involves sitting, and breaks to eat and drink. Approve these and move on rather than routing them through a documentation cycle.

The PWFA also permits temporary suspension of an essential function, which the ADA does not, and it does not require the employee to have a disability. Delay is the most common failure: a pregnancy accommodation that arrives in eight weeks was effectively denied. Handling these badly is also one of the clearest routes to a pregnancy discrimination claim.

What accommodations are you not required to provide?

Four things fall outside the obligation. Knowing them is what lets you say no without hedging on the requests that are genuinely off the table.

1. Removing an essential function. You must consider whether a function is truly essential. You do not have to eliminate one that is.
2. Personal-use items. Devices needed both on and off the job, like a standard wheelchair, prosthetic, or eyeglasses, generally are not the employer's obligation. Equipment specific to performing the job is.
3. The preferred option over an effective one. When two accommodations both work, you may choose. If the employee explains why yours does not work, the conversation reopens.
4. Anything that causes undue hardship. Significant difficulty or expense measured against your actual size and resources. Inconvenience, extra scheduling effort, and coworker objection do not qualify.
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What matters more than any single category is that you evaluate each request the same way and record how you got to the answer. Categories give you options. The interactive process is what makes the decision hold, and keeping every request in one place is what keeps your twentieth decision as consistent as your first.