Today’s labour market is increasingly faced with the need to take into account the specific personal circumstances and situations of employees - and at times also their personal family situations. Whilst the focus on work-life balance has highlighted in recent years the growing role of family needs - it is in recent years that attempts have been made to define a certain framework for the protection of the most vulnerable employees through Italian case law.

In this context, the need (or rather the obligation - which if not complied with would risk an employer being penalised for unlawfulness) to identify solutions (more commonly referred to as ‘reasonable accommodation’) is becoming increasingly evident at a company level. In these cases, we have to consider both the principles of personal protection together with the concrete organisational and productive needs of the employer’s business activities; both of these interests are protected by the Italian Constitution.

At the European and Italian national law levels, it is possible to identify the distinctive features of legitimately balancing these conflicting interests. The protection of employees is, in fact, imposed on the employer not as an external source of regulation of the employment relationship (and as such potentially limiting corporate organisational power) - but...