[Emland]

Does anyone have experience in the Americans with Disabilities Act that can provide me some guidance?

Here is a short synopsis of the problem: We are a small business, employing approximately 35 people. We have a young woman who has worked for us for almost 3 years. She is in a wheelchair and due to her disability, has taken several unpaid terms of leave to handle her health issues. She has reduced her hours to part time because she is unable to work a full 40 hour week.

The most recent event involved this young woman texting a message to our Shift Supervisor that she was unable to come to work – she was ill. The message got passed along to the Ops Manager who rolled her eyes and told the Supervisor to respond to her “bring a Drs. note when you are well enough to come back.” She thought the issue done.

Half an hour later, there is an outraged woman on the phone screaming at the Ops Manager. It is the young woman’s mother. Apparently, our employee told her mother that we told her “she d@mned well better bring a note or never come back!” This had our Ops Mgr and Super scrambling. Thank goodness our system documents EVERYTHING that comes in and out. We sent “bring a note…” not the other one. So, either a stray message from Mars was sent to our employee or she made it up to appear sympathetic to her mother for whatever reason. (Hold on – it gets better.) Instead of the Ops Mgr stating to Irate Mommy that due to privacy concerns, she cannot discuss the matter with anyone beside the employee, she lets the woman chew her out. It gets to the point where our Ops Mgr says (you’re going to love this) “I had no intention of firing X, but now I’m going to make sure I do!” (Makes you want to beat your head on a concrete wall, doesn’t it?) Now the owner of the business is involved. Speaks to employee’s grandmother and invites all of them to come into the office and review our documentation, etc. Now employee is moaning that she is too embarrassed to return to work. The Boss is worried that we are going to get sued under the ADA and the Ops Mgr is hiding in her office after getting caught at doing something horrendously stupid. All this went down while I was out of the office.

I’ll throw in one more complicating factor. This young woman is a known diabetic. She has shared that with everyone she works with. She also openly smokes and drinks sugared sodas and alcoholic beverages (the last on her time.)

I’ve been on the EEOC website and this paragraph is of particular importance to me:

Reasonable Accommodation
Reasonable accommodation may include, but is not limited to, making existing facilities used by employees readily accessible to and usable by persons with disabilities; job restructuring; modification of work schedules; providing additional unpaid leave; (it goes on listing more info)

Now after all that here are my questions:
At what point do the accommodations become unreasonable? Most often this girl doesn’t call out of work until an couple of hours before she is due to come in. We cannot write a schedule and count on her to be here. We pay a monthly attendance bonus. She has earned it once in her tenure here.

How much unpaid leave constitutes an undue burden for the business owner? She was out for 6 weeks last summer due to complications of her diabetes. I know I have no control of what she eats and drinks, but if she isn’t concerned with taking care of her health and it impacts the business – what is my roll? If a non-disabled person couldn’t come to work because they were hungover, that wouldn’t be acceptable and I could take action.

I’m afraid we’ve already set predence with this young woman and she feels she can come and go pretty much as she wants with impunity. Now that the owner is spooked by a possible EEOC complaint, I feel it is even worse.

Can anyone advise? Just how far do we have to change our attendance policy to prevent from being in violation of the ADA?

[jillianleab]

From what I recall about my studies in HR, there are no specific guidelines about what "reasonable accommodation" means, or what constitutes "undue hardship" on a business. If would be up to the employer, in court, to prove the hardship and convince the judge they made "reasonable accommodation" for the employee.

Can you phone the EEOC for additional information on what is considered "reasonable accommodation" and "undue hardship"? Perhaps there is a secret math formula for calculating such things. Perhaps the disabled person is even required to, under most circumstances, provide as much notice of absence as any other employee, which from the sounds of it, this person isn't doing.