Documentation in the accommodation process has two jobs: to make sure the accommodation actually happens and keeps happening, and to show, if anyone asks later, that the organization responded promptly and in good faith. A good record is short. It shows the date of the request and what was asked, the barrier as the person described it, the options considered and why each was chosen or set aside, the arrangement put in place and who owns it, the date of the hand-off to human resources or the ADA coordinator, and the follow-up date. It does not contain a diagnosis, a medical history or the supervisor's theory of the condition. Medical information, when the designated office has collected it, is kept in a separate confidential file, not in the personnel file and not in the supervisor's drawer.
Follow-up is the step most often dropped, and its absence is why accommodations quietly fail. Jobs change, systems change, teams move buildings, a person's needs shift. An accommodation that was effective in March may be useless in October. Check at the agreed date, and check again whenever the job, the tools or the person's circumstances change. Ask a plain question: “Is this still working? What has changed?” If the answer is no, you are back in the interactive process, not at the start of a new one, and interim access should not wait.
Finally, look at the pattern. When three people have asked for written instructions, a quieter workstation or a longer appointment, the organization has learned something about its defaults. Changing the default, posting all changes in writing, adding a quiet area, making the longer appointment the standard, removes the barrier for the fourth person before they have to ask, and often improves the work for everyone. This is the difference between an accommodation process and an accessible organization, and it is the sixth step of the sequence for a reason.
