What is considered "reasonable accommodations"

[boosmom]

Well - that is my question. Before I open the can of worms - I am tryng to figure out how much my company NEEDS to work with me before I cross a line I am not ready to cross.

Kathy

[voodoo]

Need more info

Your employer needs to give 'reasonable' accomodations. What that is, depends on your job description. What do you do?

[ewizabeth]

I just spoke to my manager about this today, but about a co-worker. He said that HR will send a form to the doctor asking what the employee CAN do. They want to keep us working in some capacity. We have a store employee with a broken leg and it is retail so he has a partial leg cast but can make it in to work though he has to sit all day. He can do parts of his job but not the physical parts until the cast comes off.

So I guess that reasonable accomodation will be something that will allow you to do your job but not hinder the operations otherwise. They need employees to be productive.

"... The ADA requires an employer to provide reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities who are employees or applicants for employment, except when such accommodation would cause an undue hardship. "

reference:

http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/accommodation.html

[boosmom]

... The ADA requires an employer to provide reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities who are employees or applicants for employment, except when such accommodation would cause an undue hardship. "

I work in social services and supervise a small team of people. Luckily a desk job. At this point 5 days at 8 hours per week is eating all my energy. The ADA statement makes me very nervous - I am obviously qualified ( I have had this job for several years). But who decides "reasonable" and "undue" hardship. The employer??

The company is mid size and does have an HR department but small enough that I am sure any HR conversation I have will get back to director.

Thanks for the feedback - hearing from all of you does really help.

Kathy

[wkikta]

The Employer has sole discretion as to what is reasonable. Most employers will try to work with you. If you don't like it you can sue, very little chance of success.

[boosmom]

Bill - I was afraid that was the answer. I am considering reducing work hours. I wonder if I should look into legal assistance before I start down this rabbit hole.
Thanks
Kathy

[Nabbosa]

NMSS

Talk to your local NMSS chapter - they can either give advice, or refer you to someone who can.

Just to keep you on the positive side: it may be more efficient for the company to keep you part-time with your experience, than to hire a new person full-time and train them!

Good luck!

[onlyairfare]

When I was in management, they gave us classes on "How we manage," and it was all about following the laws relating to HR and management.

We were told that it depended on the nature of the job and the employer. A large Fortune 500 company with tens of thousands of employees would be expected to do more to accommodate than a small mom and pop business.

One example was for employees with mobility challenges who needed an elevator (costing say $100,000 to install) to get to the second or higher floor. If the employer is a big company with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue, they probably already have an elevator but if they don't, it would be "reasonable" to install it.

If the company is a small shop with an owner and two employees, and annual revenues are $250,000, it might not be reasonable to install an elevator. If the business is an antique shop in a historic old building where installing an elevator is prohibited by law/regulation, then there is not a requirement to install an elevator there either as an accommodation.

A friend of mine was recently in a leg cast and had to walk with crutches and keep the leg elevated while at work. The workplace was small with narrow aisles, so her boss said for "safety reasons" (unable to evacuate in an emergency) she would have to go on short-term disability rather than be provided with a foot rest to do her job.

Corporate legal and HR backed up the boss and said it was true - her injury caused a safety hazard if she worked with cast/crutches, so she took the STD.

[boosmom]

Just to keep you on the positive side: it may be more efficient for the company to keep you part-time with your experience, than to hire a new person full-time and train them!

Thanks - MS is clouding me a bit. I do bring a lot of experience to the company which they are aware of.


I did forget that I am not asking for anything that will be cost to the company. I just need to reduce hours. I brought this up in passing to the director - her knee jerk response was "I need supervisors available to their staff five days a week". I am open to that - shortened days would work for me.

thanks for the responses

[pearlie619]

Employers have the upperhand in this, make no mistake. it is important for us to remember that a company's willingness to accomdate others, with say, a broken arm, may be much different than the attitude they take with some with MS. MS is not something that will go away, and often times is perceived as a path to more and more accomodations needing to be made. They can get very technical very fast. It is important to know if when you were hired you signed anything that outlines as company specifics about disclosure, and be sure to follow all the guidelines that the Dept of Human Rights/Labor Dept have on that subject. if you should be terminated and have not, you have no claim. Also really go over the job description and any company policies. Your job description may not make specific hours or amount of hours mandatory, but there may be a policy that people who do certain types of work be available certain hours. Be sure to document all discussions, and keep copies of all emails or faxes.

[andeolus]

I work for my local government and I needed to ask for a few accommodations. I asked to relocate to a vacant office in order to have better control over my temperature, the use of flex time to help with leave use for my appointments, and voice recognition software to help when I can't type as well or as accurately as I'd like. The process took a relatively long time to approve but eventually all of them were agreed to.