ADA: An employee is late. What would you do?
Every now and then, employees come in late, and often than once. These employees could then ask for some time off — including being late — for a condition. Such situations must be handled carefully to avoid violating laws like the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The information below can help navigate such situations.
What would you do?
An employee has been coming in late to work and just requested a couple hours off every other week. When you ask about the reason for being late and for the time off, he says he is suffering from depression and is on medication that makes him drowsy in the mornings, making it difficult to get the day started. He also says the time off is for counseling for the condition.
Solution
Because the employee has asked for a workplace change (time off) due to a medical condition (depression), you need to consider your and your company’s Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) obligations, including the interactive process.
This process is where you talk to and work with the employee toward finding an effective accommodation.
The best place to start is to ask the employee what you can do to help.
Depression has been recognized as a disability under the ADA, so an accommodation should be made unless it causes undue hardship to the company.
Don’t:
- Assume the employee’s condition is a disability;
- Make any disparaging comments regarding the employee, the request, or the condition;
- Immediately ask for a doctor’s note.
Let HR know about the situation, and show empathy to the employee.
From there, the interactive process is where the employee’s request is considered. During the process, since depression isn’t obvious, if the employee hasn’t already provided reasonable documentation of the condition and accommodation need, you may request it. The HR representative will likely take on that task.
Keep any medical information confidential and separate from the general personnel file(s). This is particularly true if you have your own employee files outside of those kept by HR.
Be open to accommodation ideas, including providing the requested time off. Other possible accommodations could include shifting the employee’s workday to a later start/end time, reducing his schedule temporarily, or allowing the employee to work from home either full time or on a hybrid schedule.
There is no list of accommodations for a particular condition, you must look at each situation individually.
Feel free to try a particular accommodation to see if it works. As a supervisor, you will be familiar with the employee’s job, and can have valuable input on how an accommodation might work.