Workforce and culture · Intermediate

Accommodations Across Transitions and Accessible Leadership Pathways

Plan how accommodations carry across job changes, supervisors, locations and systems, and test leadership pathways so they are job related and open to staff with disabilities.

About 48 minutes, plus optional practice · 4 lessons · Voluntary learning

Start learning

Course outline

The accommodation cliff
Identify the workplace transitions where existing accommodations are most often lost.
12 minutes
Carrying accommodations forward
Assign a named owner for accommodations at each common transition.
12 minutes
Leadership criteria that are job related
List formal and informal criteria used to judge readiness for lead and supervisory roles.
12 minutes
Sponsorship and accessible leadership pathways
Distinguish mentoring, sponsorship and reverse mentoring.
12 minutes

Share this course

What you’ll be able to do

Explore and practice

Identify the workplace transitions where existing accommodations are most often lost.
Assign a named owner for accommodations at each common transition.
List formal and informal criteria used to judge readiness for lead and supervisory roles.
Distinguish mentoring, sponsorship and reverse mentoring.

What you can take into your work

Explain the distinction tested in each knowledge check.
Compare the responses to each fictional case and the reasons behind them.
Complete the course job aid for a situation you choose.

Draft a one-page pathway map for one lead or supervisory role you know well: what it requires, which experiences count, how to get them and how accommodation works at each step. Share it with your Human Resources partner for review.

Accommodations Across Transitions and Accessible Leadership Pathways: practice guide

A reusable guide for a situation you choose

Plan how accommodations carry across job changes, supervisors, locations and systems, and test leadership pathways so they are job related and open to staff with disabilities.

Use observable details rather than assigning motives.
Invite perspectives without requiring personal disclosure.
Keep learning separate from individual assessment or personnel decisions.

For every transition

Name one person who owns carrying accommodations forward.
Offer accommodation to everyone in the same message as logistics.
Ask what works, not why; medical details stay with the accommodation process.
Check afterward with everyone whether arrangements worked, and fix what did not.

Testing leadership criteria

List every criterion used, including unwritten ones.
Write the leadership duty each criterion predicts; replace any that are proxies.
Offer more than one way to demonstrate each behavior.
Use a written rubric, share questions in advance and prepare the panel on disability bias.

Pathways and ownership

Publish a pathway map for each lead or supervisory role.
Pair interested staff with sponsors who hold decision power and track outcomes in aggregate.
Gather input anonymously and never ask anyone to identify who is disabled.
Send accommodation decisions to Human Resources and the ADA coordinator; pathway design stays with leadership and the equity practice.

Try the guide and revisit it

Draft a one-page pathway map for one lead or supervisory role you know well: what it requires, which experiences count, how to get them and how accommodation works at each step. Share it with your Human Resources partner for review.
Who has sponsored you, putting your name forward when you were not in the room? Whose name have you put forward, and how did you choose?

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.

Sources and further reading

U.S. EEOC — Enforcement Guidance on Reasonable Accommodation and Undue Hardship under the ADA
Three categories of accommodation, including the application process and equal access to employer-sponsored training, and the ongoing nature of the duty. Formal determinations belong to the accommodation process.
Job Accommodation Network — Out with the Old, In with the New Supervisor
Risks of accommodations being rescinded when management changes, and advice not to demand new medical information for approved accommodations.
Minnesota Management and Budget — HR/LR Policy 1433, ADA Reasonable Accommodations
Executive branch roles for supervisors, Human Resources and agency ADA coordinators, and confidentiality of medical information. The policy does not itself address carrying accommodations across transitions; that practice is this course's recommendation.
Minnesota Statutes 16B.4805 — Accommodation Reimbursement
State accommodation account that can reimburse agencies for part of certain accommodation costs, including for applicants and ongoing services, as funds allow.
Minnesota Management and Budget — Connect 700 Program
Describes the up to 700-hour on-the-job demonstration for eligible applicants with disabilities as an alternative to standard selection. An entry program, used here to illustrate job-related assessment.
Employer Assistance and Resource Network on Disability Inclusion (EARN) — Professional Development and Advancement of Employees with Disabilities
Federally funded research brief on barriers to advancement and recommendations including mentoring and accessible development opportunities. The mentoring and sponsorship distinction in this course is program practice.

All research and sources across the program

Opening your page…

You can still use the navigation while it loads.

Course outline

The accommodation cliff

Identify the workplace transitions where existing accommodations are most often lost.

12 minutes

Carrying accommodations forward

Assign a named owner for accommodations at each common transition.

12 minutes

Leadership criteria that are job related

List formal and informal criteria used to judge readiness for lead and supervisory roles.

12 minutes

Sponsorship and accessible leadership pathways

Distinguish mentoring, sponsorship and reverse mentoring.

12 minutes

Sources and further reading

U.S. EEOC — Enforcement Guidance on Reasonable Accommodation and Undue Hardship under the ADA

Three categories of accommodation, including the application process and equal access to employer-sponsored training, and the ongoing nature of the duty. Formal determinations belong to the accommodation process.

Job Accommodation Network — Out with the Old, In with the New Supervisor

Risks of accommodations being rescinded when management changes, and advice not to demand new medical information for approved accommodations.

Minnesota Management and Budget — HR/LR Policy 1433, ADA Reasonable Accommodations

Executive branch roles for supervisors, Human Resources and agency ADA coordinators, and confidentiality of medical information. The policy does not itself address carrying accommodations across transitions; that practice is this course's recommendation.

Minnesota Statutes 16B.4805 — Accommodation Reimbursement

State accommodation account that can reimburse agencies for part of certain accommodation costs, including for applicants and ongoing services, as funds allow.

Minnesota Management and Budget — Connect 700 Program

Describes the up to 700-hour on-the-job demonstration for eligible applicants with disabilities as an alternative to standard selection. An entry program, used here to illustrate job-related assessment.

Employer Assistance and Resource Network on Disability Inclusion (EARN) — Professional Development and Advancement of Employees with Disabilities

Federally funded research brief on barriers to advancement and recommendations including mentoring and accessible development opportunities. The mentoring and sponsorship distinction in this course is program practice.