Requesting reasonable adjustments during a grievance or disciplinary process

You’re heading into a grievanceA formal complaint raised by an employee against their employer, triggering a legal obligation to investigate and respond. or disciplinary process, and something about how it’s set up isn’t going to work for you, memory, concentration, anxiety, or something else covered by your disability. You can ask for that to be changed. Here’s how to do it properly.

What counts as a reasonable adjustment here

A reasonable adjustment in this context is any change to how the meeting or process runs that removes a disadvantage you’d otherwise face because of your disability. There’s no fixed list, because it depends on what you actually need. Common examples include:

• Extra breaks during a hearing, or a shorter meeting split across two sessions
• A written summary of what was discussed, sent in advance or straight after
• Permission to record the meeting, where memory or processing difficulties make it hard to retain what’s said in real time
• Extra time to prepare a written response, or to respond to evidence
• A quieter room, or a specific time of day that suits you better
• Bringing an additional support person alongside your usual right to be accompanied, where your condition genuinely requires it

The Equality Act 2010The main piece of legislation protecting employees from discrimination at work. It covers nine protected characteristics including age, disability, sex, race, and religion, and makes it unlawful for a... gives you a legal right to reasonable adjustmentsChanges an employer must make under the Equality Act 2010 for a disabled employee, where without them the employee would be at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled colleagues. What coun... if you’re disabled within its meaning. A grievance or disciplinary process is not exempt from that duty just because it’s already a formal process with its own rules.

Why ask before rather than after

Ask for the adjustment before the meeting, not after something has gone wrong. A request made in advance, explained in terms of what you need in order to participate fully, carries real weight. It puts your employer on notice and gives them a fair chance to accommodate it. Explaining the same need only after a problem has already surfaced, for example after you’ve struggled to follow a hearing or after a covert recording is discovered, is a much weaker position to argue from.

You can still ask even if you’re already partway through a process. Ask now rather than staying quiet. But where you have the choice, ask early.

How to make the request

Put it in writing. Even if you’ve already said it out loud, get it down in an email too. An email to whoever is running the process, HR, or your manager is enough. Keep it specific and practical rather than general.

Include:

• What the adjustment is, described plainly
• Why you need it, linked to your disability, without needing to share more medical detail than is relevant
• When you need it in place by, if there’s already a hearing date

You don’t need a formal diagnosis on file, or sign-off from your employer’s occupational healthAn independent medical service that employers use to assess how a health condition is affecting your ability to work. A referral to occupational health is not a step toward dismissal, but the report p... team, for this to apply. If you’ve already been through an occupational health assessment, referencing its recommendations helps.

What your employer must do

Your employer has to consider your request properly, not dismiss it out of hand. That means genuinely weighing up whether the adjustment is reasonable, given things like the size of the organisation, the cost, and how practical it is to put in place. Most of the adjustments people ask for during a grievance or disciplinary, extra breaks, written notes, more time, a recording, cost little or nothing and are straightforward to arrange.

Your employer doesn’t have to grant exactly what you asked for if there’s a genuinely workable alternative that meets the same need. What they can’t do is ignore the request or delay it without explanation. They also can’t proceed as though it was never made.

The duty to make reasonable adjustments does not wait for you to ask first. If your employer already knows about your disability, they are expected to think about what the process might need to change, not just wait for a request. Silence alone isn’t what tips this into a discrimination claim. A real disadvantage that follows, one your employer could reasonably have avoided, is what does. One recent tribunal case shows the difference clearly. An employee’s unfair dismissalA legal claim you can bring if your employer dismissed you without a fair reason or without following a fair process. You normally need two years of continuous employment to qualify, though some dismi... and disability discrimination claims succeeded because his employer failed to properly consider how his ADHD affected the disciplinary process. His separate claim that the employer had specifically failed to make reasonable adjustments did not succeed on the same facts. The lesson holds either way. An employer who waits to be asked is taking a real risk, and you should not assume you have to ask first.

If your request is refused

Ask for the refusal in writing, with reasons. A refusal with no real explanation is hard to defend later, and that matters if the process ends up in dispute.

If you believe the refusal is unreasonable, say so, and say why, before the meeting goes ahead if you can. If it isn’t resolved and the process continues without the adjustment you needed, keep a clear record of what you asked for, when you asked, and how it was refused. That record matters if the outcome of the process is later challenged, whether through an internal appeal or a tribunal claim, because a failure to make reasonable adjustments can be a discrimination claim in its own right, separate from whatever the grievance or disciplinary itself was about.

Getting advice

If your employer is refusing a reasonable adjustment during a live process, or you’re not sure whether what you need counts, it’s worth talking it through with someone who can look at your specific situation. We offer a fixed-price call where we can talk through where you stand and what your realistic options are.

Asking for what you need is not a complication in the process. It’s what makes the process fair for you in the first place.