Reasonable Adjustments: Office vs Frontline Roles

There’s a persistent myth that reasonable adjustments only really work in offices.

You’ll hear it phrased politely.
“It’s easier in desk jobs.”
“This wouldn’t work on the shop floor.”
“Driving roles are just different.”

Some of that is half true. Most of it is misused.

The legal duty to make reasonable adjustments is the same across roles. What changes is not the obligation, but the shape of what is reasonable.

And that distinction matters more than most organisations realise.

Office-based roles: the lowest barrier to getting this right

Office roles are the most flexible environment for adjustments. That’s not ideological. It’s practical.

Most barriers here are cognitive, sensory, or organisational rather than physical. Noise. Interruptions. Vague expectations. Poor task design. Rigid working hours that exist more by habit than necessity.

Adjustments in office roles often include flexible start times, remote or hybrid working, written instructions, structured check-ins, reduced interruptions, lighting changes, assistive software, or clearer task prioritisation.

Many of these cost nothing. Some cost very little. Most improve outcomes for more than one person.

When adjustments fail in office settings, it’s rarely because they were unworkable. It’s because nobody owned the process or kept a clear record of what was agreed.

Shop floors and cafes: less flexibility, not no flexibility

This is where employers often throw their hands up too quickly.

Yes, customer-facing roles are different. You cannot move a barista fully remote. You cannot eliminate busy periods in a retail environment. Nobody is pretending otherwise.

But “different” does not mean “non-adjustable”.

Barriers in these roles tend to come from pace, unpredictability, sensory load, physical fatigue, and social demand. Adjustments are therefore more likely to be about structure, not location.

That might look like predictable shift patterns, adjusted break timing, quieter task rotations, visual checklists, buddy systems, modified duties during flare-ups, or reducing exposure to peak sensory overload without cutting hours.

What is often not reasonable is removing the core physical tasks of the role entirely.
What is often very reasonable is changing how and when those tasks are done.

The most common failure here is assumption. Employers assume customer-facing equals non-adjustable and stop thinking too early.

Driving and mobile roles: safety changes the equation

Driving roles are the hardest category, and it’s important to be honest about that.

Lorry driving and other mobile roles are safety-critical. You cannot adjust away alertness, reaction time, legal driving limits, or public safety obligations. In some cases, a condition genuinely makes certain driving duties unsafe.

That matters.

But even here, adjustments exist. Modified routes, adjusted start times, longer rest periods, reduced night driving, changes to paperwork processes, in-cab assistive technology, or redeployment to non-driving duties where appropriate.

In these roles, reasonableness often hinges on risk, not cost. Employers must be able to evidence why something is unsafe. Simply saying “health and safety” is not enough.

And yes, sometimes the reasonable adjustment is redeployment. That can be lawful. But only after proper consideration, not as a default or a shortcut.

What stays the same across every role

The legal test does not ask whether an adjustment feels inconvenient.
It asks whether it removes a substantial disadvantage without becoming genuinely impractical or unsafe.

Across offices, shop floors, cafes and driving roles, the duty to consider adjustments remains constant. What changes is the engineering.

Most legal risk does not come from saying no.
It comes from saying no without evidence, without dialogue, and without a clear record of how the decision was reached.

That gap between “this feels hard” and “this is genuinely unreasonable” is where problems quietly accumulate.

Where TryMosaic fits

One of the biggest reasons adjustments break down is not bad intent. It’s fragmentation.

Requests sit in emails. Decisions live in people’s heads. Follow-up gets lost. Months later, nobody can remember what was agreed or why.

TryMosaic gives organisations one clear workflow to identify, agree, track and evidence reasonable adjustments across all roles, not just office jobs.

Employees can explain the real barriers they face.
Managers get structure and statutory guidance at the point of decision.
HR gets a clear, auditable record that actually stands up.

Different roles. Same duty. One system that keeps it joined up.