Disability Accommodation
Here’s a common situation, an employee calls in sick and a couple of days later you receive a doctor’s note taking the employee off work for 2 weeks. If you are an employer with 5 or more employees in California, you are subject to the anti-discrimination provisions of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”). If you have 15 or more employees, you are also subject to the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). Both laws require employers to find a reasonable accommodation for an employee who suffers a physical or mental disability so that the employee could return to work. California employers have the added duty to engage in the interactive process in good faith. The interactive process is simply engaging the employee in a dialogue to understand their restrictions and available accommodations. Why does it matter? From a management perspective, truly engaging in the interactive process and making the appropriate efforts to accommodate a disabled employee shows all your workers that they are valued beyond being merely disposable workers. From a legal/monetary standpoint, doing it right will prevent … Continue reading
Disability Accommodation – The Interactive Process
What is the interactive process and why should I care? If you are a disabled employee, you should care because unless your disability is obvious, it is incumbent upon you to initiate the conversation with your employer regarding your limitations and necessary accommodations. As an employer, California law requires you engage in this thing called the “interactive process” with your disabled employees and failure to do so subjects you to liability separate from the failure to reasonably accommodate itself. Now on to the nitty gritty. The law Both the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) require employers to engage in a “timely, good faith, interactive process” to determine effective reasonable accommodations with an individual who has a known disability or medical condition and requests accommodation. However, liability exists only if a reasonable accommodation is in fact possible. Since California generally afford employees more protection than federal law, under California law, an employer’s duty to engage in the interactive process with and reasonably accommodate extends to employees and applicants who do not actually … Continue reading