How to Handle Workplace Disability Accommodations
When you think “disability” you may think of someone who’s blind, deaf, or in a wheelchair. But the Americans with Disabilities Act relates to a wide variety of disabilities, and you’re likely to come across these conditions in job applicants and/or current employees. These might include:
Joint problems that result in limited function
Back pain
Chronic headaches/migraines
Diabetes
Auto-immune disorders
Severe allergies
Drug abuse and mental health (considered disabilities in some situations)
Your company reaction to having an employee with a disability should be a balancing act, weighing the needs of the employee, the customers, the company as a whole, along with your legal responsibilities.
The federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) only applies to companies with 15 or more employees, but many states have enacted similar laws that apply to smaller companies. Plus, the “court of public opinion” can cause you grief even if you’ve hired only one employee. For this reason, we recommend always assuming that the ADA or similar requirements are in place, regardless of your company’s size.
The ADA requires companies to provide “reasonable accommodations” to employees with disabilities, so let’s dig into what this means and how to do it.
Before getting into any specific situation, make sure your job descriptions have thorough, detailed physical requirements listed so there are no surprises. This can be harder than you think! It needs to be a list that is truly required to perform the job AND everyone minimally successful in that position MUST be able to do everything on the list. Here are some examples of where we’ve seen job descriptions that go a little overboard:
Climbing ladders – Do employees need to climb a 100-foot ladder? Maybe just a 20-foot ladder would be enough.
Kneeling – Do workers truly need to kneel for 8 hours with no breaks? It may be more fitting to list 30 minutes.
Sitting – your field employees may need to sit for 30 minutes, but how about your office staff? Perhaps theirs would need to list “8 hours with intermittent breaks.”
Alight, now let's say an employee claims the need for an accommodation due to a disability.
First, ask for certification. Some short-term disabilities, like a “standard” pregnancy, may not need certification for you to know what’s going on and what accommodations may be needed. However, every long-term disability claim should require doctor certification of the disability, along with the accommodations that will be required in the workplace. Because every physical impairment is unique, it’s best for everyone if you get a professional statement. Anything else – even the employee’s statements – can lead to legal liabilities if something goes wrong.
Then, once you've received the doctor’s list of required accommodations, compare it to the detailed physical requirements for the employee’s position. Even if you didn’t take the steps to make a detailed list, you can still work through the process, it’ll just be legally riskier. When comparing, first determine if you can easily integrate the request into your operation. Sometimes a few administrative adjustments can allow the employee to keep working. For example, if a knee issue prohibits a worker from crawling long distances but does not impact other movements, an accommodation could be to only assign the employee to jobsites that don’t have confined spaces. Or if a technician can’t drive due to problems with long-distance vision, and you normally have a helper go along with the technician to the jobsite anyway, a reasonable accommodation might be to have the helper drive. Accommodations don’t always need to be burdensome.
That said, if the requested accommodations can’t be managed without posing an undue burden on other employees, the company, and/or your customers, you need to work with the employee (and the doctor) to see if there’s another option or middle ground. If you truly can’t find a resolution, and the company legitimately can’t accommodate a need, you can move towards offering the employee a different position that doesn’t have the same physical requirements or a separation of employment.
Whether the disability in question is caused by an injury, long-term stress on the joints, or an underlying medical condition, you need to approach this carefully in the workplace. You want to do what’s best for your employee, the company, and your customers, while also staying compliant. Reach out to us if you have any questions about a specific situation.
