Enforcement Guidance: Reasonable Accommodation and Undue Hardship Under the Americans with Disabilities Act
28. Does an employer have to notify an employee with a disability about vacant positions, or is it the employee's responsibility to learn what jobs are vacant?
The employer is in the best position to know which jobs are vacant or will become vacant within a reasonable period of time.(87) In order to narrow the search for potential vacancies, the employer, as part of the interactive process, should ask the employee about his/her qualifications and interests. Based on this information, the employer is obligated to inform an employee about vacant positions for which s/he may be eligible as a reassignment. However, an employee should assist the employer in identifying appropriate vacancies to the extent that the employee has access to information about them. If the employer does not know whether the employee is qualified for a specific position, the employer can discuss with the employee his/her qualifications.(88)
An employer should proceed as expeditiously as possible in determining whether there are appropriate vacancies. The length of this process will vary depending on how quickly an employer can search for and identify whether an appropriate vacant position exists. For a very small employer, this process may take one day; for other employers this process may take several weeks.(89)When an employer has completed its search, identified whether there are any vacancies (including any positions that will become vacant in a reasonable amount of time), notified the employee of the results, and either offered an appropriate vacancy to the employee or informed him/her that no appropriate vacancies are available, the employer will have fulfilled its obligation.
87. See Hendricks-Robinson v. Excel Corp., 154 F.3d 685, 695-96, 697-98, 8 AD Cas. (BNA) 875, 883, 884 (7th Cir. 1998) (employer cannot mislead disabled employees who need reassignment about full range of vacant positions; nor can it post vacant positions for such a short period of time that disabled employees on medical leave have no realistic chance to learn about them); Mengine v. Runyon, 114 F.3d 415, 420, 6 AD Cas. (BNA) 1530, 1534 (3d Cir. 1997) (an employer has a duty to make reasonable efforts to assist an employee in identifying a vacancy because an employee will not have the ability or resources to identify a vacant position absent participation by the employer); Woodman v. Runyon, 132 F.3d 1330, 1344, 7 AD Cas. (BNA) 1189, 1199 (10th Cir. 1997) (federal employers are far better placed than employees to investigate in good faith the availability of vacant positions).
88. See Dalton v. Subaru-Isuzu Automotive, Inc., 141 F.3d 667, 678, 7 AD Cas. (BNA)1872, 1881 (7th Cir. 1998) (employer must first identify full range of alternative positions and then determine which ones employee qualified to perform, with or without reasonable accommodation); Hendricks-Robinson v. Excel Corp., 154 F.3d 685, 700, 8 AD Cas. (BNA) 875, 886-87 (7th Cir. 1998) (employer's methodology to determine if reassignment is appropriate does not constitute the "interactive process" contemplated by the ADA if it is directive rather than interactive); Mengine v. Runyon, 114 F.3d 415, 419-20, 6 AD Cas. (BNA) 1530, 1534 (3d Cir. 1997) (once an employer has identified possible vacancies, an employee has a duty to identify which one he is capable of performing).
89. If it will take several weeks to determine whether an appropriate vacant position exists, the employer and employee should discuss the employee's status during that period. There are different possibilities depending on the circumstances, but they may include: use of accumulated paid leave, use of unpaid leave, or a temporary assignment to a light duty position. Employers also may choose to take actions that go beyond the ADA's requirements, such as eliminating an essential function of the employee's current position, to enable an employee to continue working while a reassignment is sought.
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