12 minutes
Essential functions and barriers, not diagnosis Keep every question on the job, the barrier and the options, and leave diagnosis and documentation to the office that is allowed to handle them.
What you’ll be able to do Ask questions that focus on essential functions, access barriers and effective options, and avoid questions about diagnosis, history or treatment. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: Which questions should the supervisor have asked instead? Document a next step for Essential functions and barriers, not diagnosis: Before your next accommodation conversation, write your questions down and strike any that ask what the person has instead of what the person needs. The job, the barrier and the fix Every accommodation conversation has three subjects: what the person is trying to do, what is getting in the way and what would remove it. The first subject is where essential functions come in. Essential functions are the fundamental duties of a position, the reasons the job exists, the things that cannot be handed to someone else without changing what the job is. Marginal functions are the rest: tasks that are done in the position but could be reassigned or dropped. Accommodation is expected to change how essential functions are performed, when and where they are done and with what tools, and to reassign marginal functions when that helps. It is not expected to remove an essential function. Knowing which is which, from the position description and from how the job is actually done, keeps the conversation honest in both directions.
The second and third subjects are where diagnosis tries to sneak in. Staff ask what the condition is because it feels like the responsible question. It is not. The condition does not tell you the barrier; the person does. Two people with the same diagnosis can need opposite things, and one person's needs can change over time. Questions about diagnosis, history, treatment and prognosis also collect information protected under disability and data privacy law, information a supervisor is not the designated holder of and cannot un-know once heard. Keep to the task: which part fails, when, what has worked, what would work now.
There are times documentation is legitimately needed: when the disability or the need for the accommodation is not obvious and the organization needs to confirm them. Even then, the request is limited to what is needed to establish the disability and the need, it is made by the office designated to hold medical information, and it is kept apart from personnel files. A supervisor who says “I will need a doctor's note first” has taken a step that is not theirs to take, and has delayed access for a request that may need no documentation at all.
Ask this, not that About the task About the barrier About options About the fit About documentation
Ask: “Which parts of the job are affected? Walk me through a day where it goes badly.”
Not: “What is your diagnosis?”
Ask: “What about the current setup gets in the way: the timing, the tool, the format, the location, the noise?”
Not: “How bad is it? Is it going to get worse?”
Ask: “What has worked before? What would you want if you could design it? Here is what I can think of; what am I missing?”
Not: “Have you tried medication or therapy?”
Ask: “Would this fully remove the problem, or is there more? What should we do on a day it is not enough?”
Not: “Are you sure you can still do this job?”
Say: “If documentation is needed, human resources or the ADA coordinator will ask for it directly, and they will only ask for what the decision requires. I will not be collecting it.”
Not: “Bring me a doctor's note and we will go from there.”
Strike the diagnostic questions What you can change You control which questions you ask, and every question about the condition is a question you did not ask about the task.
What to watch for Do not open with “what do you have.” Do not make documentation a precondition for talking. Do not ask whether the person can still do the job when they have asked for a change in how it is scheduled or done.
Your next step Write your questions down before your next accommodation conversation. Strike any that ask what the person has instead of what the person needs.
Access-focused or diagnostic? “Which part of the intake script is hardest when it changes without notice?”
Choose a category Access-focused Diagnostic “When were you diagnosed, and by whom?”
Choose a category Access-focused Diagnostic “Would written changes posted after the huddle remove the problem?”
Choose a category Access-focused Diagnostic “Are you taking anything for it?”
Choose a category Access-focused Diagnostic “What should we plan for on a day the arrangement is not enough?”
Choose a category Access-focused Diagnostic “Is this the kind of thing that gets worse over time?”
Choose a category Access-focused Diagnostic Check matches Reset Keeping the focus Essential function
A fundamental duty of the position, the reason it exists. Read the position description, then check it against how the job is really done; the two are not always the same.
Marginal function
A task done in the position that could be reassigned or dropped without changing the job. Reassigning marginal functions is a common and reasonable accommodation.
Changing how, not whether
Accommodation changes when, where, how and with what tools an essential function is done. It does not remove the function. Keep both halves of that sentence.
Who may ask for documentation
The office designated to hold medical information, usually human resources or the ADA coordinator, and only when the disability or need is not obvious, and only to the extent needed.
When the person offers the diagnosis
Thank them and return to the task. Do not write it into your record. What you record is the barrier and the plan.
The fluctuating condition
Plan for the variable, not the average. Ask what a hard day needs and build that in, rather than designing for the good days and calling the hard ones a performance problem.
The best manager I had never knew what I was diagnosed with. She knew I needed the schedule a week out and that some days I would need to move a visit. That was the whole conversation, and it worked for four years.
Composite staff perspective, illustrative Carry this forward Essential functions are the fundamental duties of the position, the reason the job exists. Marginal functions are the tasks that could be reassigned without changing the job. Accommodation works on how essential functions are done and on whether marginal ones are needed.
You do not need to know the diagnosis to run the conversation. You need to know the task, the barrier and what would remove it.
Medical documentation may be requested only when the disability or the need for accommodation is not obvious, only to the extent needed to establish them, and only by the office designated to hold it.
A completed sort of access-focused and diagnostic questions, a scenario decision and a knowledge check.
Before your next accommodation conversation, write your questions down and strike any that ask what the person has instead of what the person needs.
Browse and download only. Course notes are not typed or saved on this page.
Reset this lesson
Previous lesson Next lesson Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
