“Accommodating” out of work injuries
Does your business need to make reasonable adjustments to allow an employee to return to work on light or modified duties for an injury that they’ve sustained outside of work?
It’s an interesting question in that it could be rephrased does my business have to make accommodations for employees for things that are out of my businesses control? The short answer in this case is yes your business is required to make these accommodations.
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Transcript
Does your business need to make reasonable adjustments to allow an employee to return to work on light or modified duties for an injury that they’ve sustained outside of work?
It’s an interesting question in that it could be rephrased does my business have to make accommodations for employees for things that are out of my businesses control? The short answer in this case is yes your business is required to make these accommodations.
This lesson was rammed home in a recent case weather Federal Circuit court find an employer for not making these reasonable adjustments. And the exclamation point put on the decision by the court was that in their view the employer did not know or understand their obligations to do so but that lack of knowledge was immaterial. In other words, “I didn’t know” is not good enough.
The details of the case are fairly simple, the employee was a mechanic and injured his wrist boss walking his dog and nothing to do with work. The medical professional recommended he take three months off work and then not engage in any heavy lifting for an additional three months. Instead of accommodating this request the employer insisted that they require the employee to return to pre employment duties before returning to work.
Now you might be thinking why should an employer have to “bear the cost” Of a worker who cannot carry out the duties for which they were hired for three months. And on the one hand I see where you’re coming from. However, the Federal Circuit court decision remind us that when making determination’s as to the reasonableness of the employee returning to work we need to consider both the specific requirements of the employee the position and the circumstances of the employer to determine if making these adjustments would pose an unjustifiable hardship. Another way of saying this is that we must consider what is fair and reasonable in all the circumstances.
So if your business has a complex HR or industrial relations issue that you’re working through, why not reach out to on demand HR and will be happy to guide you through.