An employee can have an accommodation that works well in their current role and lose it the moment something changes. They apply for a promotion and the interview is a rapid-fire panel. They join a leadership cohort where materials arrive the night before and activities are timed. They start an acting assignment in another building. A new supervisor arrives with a different view of telework. The agency moves to a new case management system that their screen reader cannot use. This course calls that pattern the accommodation cliff: the accommodation existed, but nobody owned carrying it across the transition, so the employee falls off the edge and has to start again, often while trying to make a good impression.
The law does not stop at the current desk. The EEOC's guidance on reasonable accommodation describes three kinds: changes to the application process, changes that let a person perform the essential functions of a job, and changes that let an employee enjoy equal benefits and privileges of employment, including employer-sponsored training. The EEOC also describes the duty as ongoing, since needs can change over time. So an interview, a leadership program and a new position are all places where accommodation applies, even when the employee's current arrangement was set up for different work.
New supervisors are a common point of failure. The Job Accommodation Network notes that accommodations are sometimes rescinded or changed, on purpose or by accident, when new management arrives, for example through a new telework or attendance rule. JAN advises that a new supervisor should not automatically demand fresh medical information for an accommodation that was already approved, and that it helps to tell the whole team that the new supervisor is available to talk about accommodations. A reasonable step is to confirm the arrangement is still working, not to reopen whether the person deserves it.
The cliff is structural. It happens because each transition has a different owner, no one is told what works, and the employee is left to disclose again to a stranger. That repeated disclosure has real costs, and many people choose to go without rather than explain their disability one more time. Seeing the cliff as a gap in ownership, rather than as an employee's failure to ask, is the first step toward closing it.
