You may have to provide a reasonable accommodation for a qualified employee even when you think it is not needed. Say what?
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a qualified individual is a person who can perform essential job functions with or without a reasonable accommodation. Oftentimes, employers believe the ability to do the work without an accommodation means no action is required. But a recent court case reminds us that an employee with a disability could be entitled to an accommodation even when the essential functions are performed without one. The with or without language in the ADA opens the door to exploring reasonable accommodations in these instances.
TAKEAWAYS:
- The best practice is to engage in the interactive process whenever a request for accommodation is made. Dismissing or making assumptions is risky and bad for workplace culture.
- The question to consider is: Can the qualified employee be accommodated without imposing an undue hardship–not whether the accommodation is needed to do the essential functions of the job. Think of the phrase with or without (cue U2 song ear worm here).
- Each ADA accommodation request requires an examination of the case at hand. There is no one size fits all due to the nature of the job, the workplace and the employee.
- Make sure your policies and handbooks are in step with the broader reading of ADA protections.
We Can Help. We have created two fixed fee services to better handle the ADA. Our firm’s most commonly requested service is the ADA Reasonable Compliance Toolkit. To create a complete process for compliance, we have created our Reasonable Accommodation & Undue Hardship Assessment Service.
Questions? Contact us.