October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, recognizing three decades since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The month’s designation also gives us time to reflect on how to accommodate Americans with disabilities in the workplace.
That’s important because disability discrimination last year was the second-most filed cause of action with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, behind retaliation.
In the past few years, the EEOC has been aggressively enforcing cases of disability discrimination.
Earlier this month over a period of two days, the federal workforce enforcement agency announced three separate cases involving allegations of disability discrimination.
On Oct. 2, the EEOC announced an $800,000 settlement against Oceanic Time Warner Cable for allegations of disability discrimination. The agency claimed the company, doing business as Spectrum, denied employees reasonable accommodations as required by the ADA, failed to engage in the interactive process and instead terminated workers with disabilities.
One day earlier, the EEOC announced a lawsuit against an Arizona health care hospital for disability discrimination and failure to provide reasonable accommodations. The EEOC claims the company fired employees or forced them to quit because of their disabilities or because they needed accommodations.
The EEOC stated that “employees with disabilities were repeatedly denied reasonable accommodations, including assistive devices, modified work schedules, and reassignment.”
Instead of engaging in the interactive process and discussing and providing accommodations, the EEOC claims the health care company forced employees to quit.
The EEOC also announced another case, this time with a Milwaukee hotel that agreed to pay $60,000 to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit brought.
In that lawsuit, the EEOC claimed the company fired an employee with epilepsy after she experienced a seizure at home after work. The employee asked for two days off from work following the seizure to recover. Upon return to work, she was terminated for disability-related absences during her probationary period.
While the facts of each case differ, the consequences are the same to workers — disability discrimination.
All companies that employ 15 or more workers must engage in the interactive process and provide reasonable accommodations when an employee advises his or her employer of the need for an accommodation, unless doing so presents an undue hardship.
Employers are entitled to receive medical documentation, where necessary, to show the extent of the medical condition and needed accommodations.
Employers need to carefully consider each request for accommodation and engage in flexible conversations about how to assist the employee to fully perform the essential job functions.
When a worker comes forward with a request for an accommodation, employers should simply ask, “How can I help you?”
In engaging in the interactive process, employers should remain open-minded to alternatives on how the job is performed, recognizing that you never have to eliminate an essential job function or lower job standards.
Employers should consider whether reassignment to a vacant open position can be provided as a reasonable accommodation if the worker is no longer able to perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodations.
In addition, unpaid leave or reduced hours also could be a reasonable accommodation.
Each situation is fact-specific, requiring individualized considerations.
The Job Accommodation Network (JAN.org) is a free resource available to employees and employers to explore reasonable accommodation alternatives.
As employers look to expose unconscious bias and develop a more inclusive work environment, they should make sure that workers with disabilities are included in their efforts.