Accommodating mental disabilities in the workplace

▤ Summary

Medical advice can be an important tool, and you should obtain it, not as a matter of course or as a means to deny an accommodation request, but for the specific purpose of understanding the impact a condition has on an employee. When an accommodation is in place, you may have to tolerate a certain level of inefficiency or suffer a hit to your bottom line, or your workforce may be inconvenienced by having to work harder. You will not be required to create a superfluous position that serves no purpose, or tolerate material substandard performance or extreme unpredictability in the employee’s attendance at work. If an accommodation requires a substandard departure from the terms of a collective agreement, you may be able to argue that your normal business operation has been unduly impaired — particularly if there is a material impact on the rights of other employees, such as their job security. If workplace morale were to suffer as the result of an accommodation — if, for example, employees are consistently short-staffed or overworked due to a disabled employee’s unreliable attendance at work — that, too, could be considered undue hardship.

▦ Linked Companies

First Reference

$1M to $5M