Yesterday’s Advisor covered the many reasons that telecommuters are suing their employers; today, the Americans with Disabilities Act’s impact on telecommuting, plus details on how to become a virtual manager.
No. The ADA does not require an employer to offer a telework program. However, if an employer does offer telework, it must allow employees with disabilities an equal opportunity to participate in such a program, and employers may need to waive certain requirements as a reasonable accommodation.
For example, an employer that requires employees to work at least one year before they are eligible to participate in a telework program may need to waive that one-year rule as a reasonable accommodation.
May permitting an employee to work at home be a reasonable accommodation, even if the employer has no telework program?
Yes. Changing the location where work is performed may fall under the ADA’s reasonable accommodation requirement of modifying workplace policies, even if the employer does not allow other employees to telework. However, an employer is not obligated to adopt an employee’s preferred or requested accommodation.
How should an employer determine whether someone may need to work at home as a reasonable accommodation?
This determination should be made through a flexible “interactive process” between the employer and the individual. An individual must first inform the employer that he or she has a medical condition that requires some change in the way a job is performed.
Then, the employer and the individual need to discuss the person’s request so that the employer understands why the disability might necessitate the individual working at home.
Telecommuting employees? How do you know they’re working? Order the recording of our popular webinar, The Virtual Workforce: How to Empower Your Remote Employees and Improve Productivity. Click here for details.
How should an employer determine whether a particular job can be performed at home?
An employer does not have to remove any essential job duties to permit an employee to work at home. However, it may need to reassign some minor job duties or marginal functions if they cannot be performed outside the workplace and they are the only obstacle to permitting an employee to work at home.
After determining what functions are essential, the employer and the individual with a disability should determine whether some or all of the functions can be performed at home. Clearly, for some jobs, the essential duties can only be performed in the workplace—food servers, cashiers, and truck drivers, for example.
Several factors should be considered in determining the feasibility of working at home, including:
- the employer’s ability to supervise the employee adequately
- whether any duties require use of certain equipment or tools that cannot be replicated at home
- whether there is a need for face-to-face interaction and coordination of work with other employees
- whether in-person interaction with outside colleagues, clients, or customers is necessary
- whether the position in question requires the employee to have immediate access to documents or other information located only in the workplace.
If the employer determines that some job duties must be performed in the workplace, then the employer and employee need to decide whether working part-time at home and part-time in the workplace will meet both of their needs.
Telecommuting—it’s happening whether we like it or not. And managing telecommuting employees takes a different approach. How different? Find out April 5th at BLR’s special new webinar, The Virtual Workforce: How to Empower Your Remote Employees and Improve Productivity.
Gone are the days when everyone worked at the same physical location. Your best employees may now be working from a home office, or even from a different state or country. There might even be a few of them you’ve never met.
Virtual employees need virtual management. Order the recording of our popular webinar, The Virtual Workforce: How to Empower Your Remote Employees and Improve Productivity. Click here for details.
While telework arrangements can decrease costs while boosting flexibility and employee loyalty, they’re not ideal. Virtual teams can suffer from a lack of morale, motivation, and supervision—which can easily create misunderstandings and missed performance targets.
Learn how to make the most of your virtual workforce—and avoid common pitfalls—ordering this insightful webinar recording.
You and your colleagues will learn:
- The various virtual workplace policies, practices, and systems that you might consider to maximize your business productivity
- The best ways to communicate with workers who are in different time zones, locations, cultures, and areas of the company
- How to remotely build teamwork when, in some cases, coworkers have never met face-to-face, or when they don’t even work for the same boss or company
- What kinds of technologies are available to support communication and collaboration
- How to avoid the 5 most common pitfalls of virtual workplaces
- How to apply the four-step LEAD model to train managers to supervise virtual teams and create a corporate culture to maximize remote employee effectiveness and satisfaction
For more information on the conference and the experts who presented presenting it, or to register or to pre-order the CD, click here.
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