3 DMEC absence management conversation starters

He noted, for example, that California, Colorado, Michigan, Montana, Oregon and Washington state have allowed medical marijuana use but do not require employers to accommodate medical use of marijuana.

Alaska, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont allow medical use of marijuana, but they say employers need not accommodate medical use of marijuana at work.

Maryland, New Mexico and the District of Columbia allow medical use of marijuana and have not addressed employment issues related to marijuana use, Alvarez said.

3. Some health care providers send in what, to an employer, may look like absurd requests for accommodations.

Rachel Shaw, a human resources consultant, ran a session on “putting reasonable back in reasonable accommodations” in which she talked about employer efforts to wrestle with the ADAAA.

See also: 5 tips: Accommodating employees with disabilities

She gave one real example of a request in which a provider stated that an employee had a condition that made her unable to arrive at work at a specified time.

She gave another example of request for an employee who was feeling stress. The provider asked the employer to let the worker “avoid any work activities requiring complete/sustained mood stability or concentration in order to avoid injury to himself or others” and added that, “He would be recommended to avoid working with Tom or Chris.”

Although providers can submit those kinds of requests, in the real world, federal courts have held that an employee’s inability to work with another employee does not meet the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) definition of disability, and that “reasonable accommodation” does not include increasing an employee’s distance from another employee, Shaw said. 

She suggested that human resources managers use a methodical, interactive process for analyzing requests for accommodations.