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Home›Courses›HR Compliance›Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)

Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)

15 minutesENHR ComplianceAmericans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Title I (42 U.S.C. 12111-12117); EEOC enforcement
Quick Answer

Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) is a 15-minute online course that covers the employment provisions of Title I of the ADA, including employer obligations related to hiring, reasonable accommodation, and non-discrimination for qualified individuals with disabilities. It is designed for HR professionals, hiring managers, and supervisors at companies with 15 or more employees, and includes a downloadable certificate of completion.

Course Overview

Disability discrimination claims represented 43.2% of all charges filed with the EEOC in fiscal year 2024, making ADA the single most common basis for employment discrimination charges. The EEOC filed 48 ADA-related lawsuits in FY 2024 alone - nearly half of all merits litigation. Across all discrimination bases, the agency secured nearly $700 million for over 21,000 victims of employment discrimination in FY 2024, the highest monetary recovery in the agency's recent history. Employers with 15 or more employees are covered by Title I of the ADA, and failure to provide reasonable accommodations or using inflexible qualification standards without considering accommodations are among the most frequently litigated issues.

This course trains your managers and HR staff on the core requirements of Title I of the ADA. Your team will learn how the law defines disability, what constitutes a qualified individual, and when and how to provide reasonable accommodations. The training covers the interactive process for evaluating accommodation requests, the undue hardship defense, and the types of employment actions the ADA protects - from application and hiring through termination and all terms and conditions of employment in between.

What You'll Learn

  • Title I of the ADA and its application to employers with 15 or more employees
  • The legal definition of disability under the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA), including substantial limitation of major life activities
  • Reasonable accommodation obligations and the interactive process for evaluating requests
  • Prohibited employment practices including discrimination in hiring, firing, promotion, compensation, and job training
  • Permissible and impermissible disability-related inquiries and medical examinations at each stage of employment
  • The undue hardship defense and factors used to evaluate whether an accommodation is reasonable
  • ADA protections against retaliation for employees who request accommodations or file complaints

Who Needs This Training

  • HR directors and managers responsible for employment policies and accommodation processes at companies with 15 or more employees
  • Hiring managers and recruiters who make employment decisions and need to understand permissible and impermissible disability-related inquiries
  • Supervisors and team leads who receive accommodation requests or manage employees with disabilities
  • Compliance officers developing or auditing the organization's ADA policies and training programs
  • Business owners at growing companies approaching or exceeding the 15-employee ADA coverage threshold

Regulatory Background

Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (42 U.S.C. 12111-12117) prohibits employment discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities by employers with 15 or more employees. The law is enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which received 88,531 new discrimination charges in FY 2024 - a 9.2% increase over the prior year. ADA-related claims accounted for 43.2% of all charges, making disability discrimination the most common basis for EEOC filings. The EEOC filed 48 ADA lawsuits in FY 2024, frequently targeting employers with inflexible qualification standards or policies that failed to consider reasonable accommodations. Monetary recoveries across all discrimination statutes totaled nearly $700 million in FY 2024. There is no cap on compensatory damages in ADA cases filed by the EEOC, though individual lawsuit caps range from $50,000 to $300,000 depending on employer size. The ADA Amendments Act of 2008 broadened the definition of disability, making it easier for individuals to establish coverage under the law.

Frequently Asked Questions

Title I applies to private employers with 15 or more employees, state and local governments, employment agencies, and labor organizations. The employee count includes part-time workers. Federal government employees are covered under Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act, which applies the same standards as the ADA.
A reasonable accommodation is any modification or adjustment to a job, the work environment, or the way things are usually done that enables a qualified individual with a disability to perform essential job functions. Examples include modified work schedules, reassignment to vacant positions, assistive technology, physical workspace modifications, and policy adjustments. According to the Job Accommodation Network, the majority of accommodations cost $500 or less.
An employer may deny a specific accommodation if it would impose an undue hardship - defined as significant difficulty or expense relative to the employer's size, resources, and operations. However, the employer must still explore alternative accommodations that would enable the employee to perform essential job functions. Simply asserting undue hardship without documenting the analysis is insufficient and can result in EEOC enforcement action.
In FY 2024, the EEOC most frequently challenged employer qualification standards that required employees to work without medical restrictions, inflexible attendance policies that penalized disability-related absences, and failures to engage in the interactive accommodation process. Retaliation against employees who requested accommodations was also a common basis for litigation, appearing in over 40 of the 111 merits lawsuits filed that year.
Yes. Medical information obtained through the accommodation process must be kept confidential and maintained in separate medical files, not in the employee's general personnel file. This information may only be shared with supervisors and managers on a need-to-know basis regarding necessary restrictions or accommodations, first aid and safety personnel if the disability may require emergency treatment, and government officials investigating ADA compliance.

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$24.95
per person
Volume Pricing
Team Size Price per Person
1 - 9$24.95
10 - 24$19.95
25 - 49$17.95
50 - 99$17.50
Subtotal $24.95

Certificate of completion included. Downloadable upon passing the final assessment.

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1-800-287-5942 Request a Custom Quote
$24.95
per person