Workplace Accommodations

General Inquiries

Students with Paid Employment at Harvard

Students with paid employment at Harvard who wish to explore reasonable accommodation within their employment should follow the process outlined below for Faculty & Staff. 

For academic, housing or other accommodation requests, students should contact their Local Disability Coordinator (LDC). Many LDCs have resources and forms posted on their website to initiate a request. Please see the LDC List to find your School’s contact for this interactive process. 

Faculty and Staff

Harvard University explores requests from faculty, staff, and job applicants with disabilities for workplace reasonable accommodations under the guidelines of the Americans with Disabilities Act as amended, and other applicable disability laws. 

A reasonable accommodation is any reasonable change or adjustment to a job or work environment that permits a person with a disability to participate in the job application process, to perform the essential functions of a job, or to enjoy benefits and privileges of employment equal to those enjoyed by staff without disabilities. For example, a reasonable accommodation may include, but is not limited to: 

  • acquiring or modifying equipment or devices 
  • job restructuring 
  • modified work schedules 
  • removing physical barriers in a work area 

Staff wishing to initiate the interactive reasonable accommodation process or receive further information should contact their local Human Resources office. Faculty wishing to initiate the interactive reasonable accommodation process or receive further information should contact their local accommodation coordinator (Faculty Affairs or University Disability Resources). For more information regarding this process, please refer to the Reasonable Accommodation Fact Sheet.

  • The reasonable accommodation process, following the guidelines established by Title I of the ADA as amended, is a collaborative and interactive process between the employee, Human Resources, the manager/department head, and/or other subject matter experts such as UDR. While Harvard considers an employee’s preference when assessing requests for necessary reasonable accommodations, at times Harvard may offer an alternative accommodation, so long as the alternative is effective.