Nature and Extent of Employer's Duty to Accommodate

The employer's duty to accommodate primarily involves the tailoring of a work rule, practice, condition or requirement to the specific needs of an individual or group. The need may be associated with their disability, religion, gender or other human attribute that is specifically protected within the human rights legislation.

Accommodation can include something as simple as an exemption of the employee from an existing work rule or condition which applies to others. At its core, it involves some degree of differential treatment. A test for determining whether an accommodation is necessary is whether such a measure is needed to ensure that the employee can fully and equally participate in the workplace.

Generally speaking, the employer's duty to accommodate requires the employer to do whatever is necessary, short of "undue hardship", to accommodate the employee in question.

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