Duty to Accommodate - What it Means for Ontario Employers

Under the Human Rights Code, all employers have a duty to accommodate to the point of undue hardship all the needs of people with specific personal characteristics, including disabilities. The main goal is to make sure they have equal opportunities, equal access and can enjoy equal benefits as all other people in society. Among other things, this means that employers must ensure that employment and workplaces are designed inclusively or adapted to accommodate people with particular needs in a way that promotes their full integration and participation at work.

Procedural and Substantive Requirements

The duty to accommodate has both a substantive and a procedural component. The procedural aspect requires employers to assess what types of accommodation is required is as important as the substantive aspect of actually implementing accommodation measures in the workplace.

All employers must ensure that, in fulfilling their duty to accommodate, they follow three main principles: respecting an employee’s need for dignity, individualization, and integration and full participation.

Respect for Dignity

The duty to accommodate people with disabilities means accommodation must be provided in a way that respects each person’s dignity, including self-respect, self-worth and inherent worth as a human being. Among other things, this means ensuring the accommodation process respects each employee’s privacy, comfort and autonomy (right to self-determination), while also not marginalizing, stigmatizing, ignoring or devaluing each employee.

Individualization

When it comes to the duty to accommodate an employee’s needs under the Human Rights Code, there is no “one size fits all approach.” As such, each person’s needs are unique and must be considered separately when an employee requires accommodation, since while some accommodation measures might work for one person, they may not work for others.

Integration and Full Participation

The accommodations provided by an employer should allow an employee to integrate into the workplace, which means removing any barriers that would prevent the employee’s participate at work.

Types of Needs that Employers Must Accommodated

Under the Human Rights Code, employers have a duty to accommodate all types of personal characteristics recognized as related to the following protected grounds:

Age
Ancestry, colour, race
Citizenship
Ethnic origin
Place of origin
Creed
Disability (including mental health, psychosocial, physical disabilities, addictions, etc.)
Family status
Marital status (including single status)
Gender identity, gender expression
Receipt of public assistance (in housing only)
Record of offences (in employment only)
Sex (including pregnancy and breastfeeding)
Sexual orientation.

Examples of Workplace Accommodations

Examples of workplace accommodation could include:

- changes to a physical workspace
- job restructuring
- changes to a company’s policies, procedures and practices prohibiting something an employee with a disability needs to do their job (e.g., allowing a person with a disability to be accompanied by a service animal, allowing food at the workstation of a person with diabetes, allowing personal items at the desk of a person with a psychiatric disability)
- adaptations to the equipment, tools, or uniform used
- flexible work hours or job sharing
- reassign work at the existing site among coworkers
- eliminating non-essential tasks
- reassign visits to accessible sites
- allow work in other than the traditional office setting (e.g., if a person’s disability makes it difficult to come to the office, and the job can be done off-site, an accommodation may be to allow the person to work from home)
- relocation of the workspace within the workplace
- the ability to work from home
- reallocation or exchange of some non-essential tasks for others
- time off for medical appointments

Call an Employment Lawyer in Toronto

For an employee who believes they were wrongfully dismissed, it is important to speak with an experienced Toronto wrongful dismissal lawyer as soon as they are told by an employer that their employment will be terminated. If you are an employee who believes you have been wrongfully dismissed and the decision to terminate was unjust or discriminatory, please speak with our experienced wrongful dismissal lawyer in Toronto regarding your options, including negotiating your severance package to obtain the severance compensation you deserve, as well as wrongful dismissal claim.

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