How To Conduct A Reasonable Accommodation Discussion

For instance, are you aware of the requirements for accommodations for employees injured while on military duty? The various state laws that mandate accommodations for pregnant workers? That applicants with disabilities — not just employees — are entitled to reasonable accommodations?

Do too little and you will have trouble, but how much is enough? How do you even start the conversation? Throw in an uncooperative employee, a poor approach from management, and a complicated impairment and you can actually create trouble beyond your wildest dreams that a simple conversation may have averted.

Learning Objectives:

This training session will help you develop a process to handle ADA requests respectfully, efficiently, discretely and expeditiously. Specifically, you will learn:

• How the ADA Amendments Act changed how HR handles reasonable accommodation requests
• How much medical information should you gather, if any?
• What about mental impairments that are hard to get a handle on?
• When is an impairment a safety threat?
• How much is too much accommodation, and when is it not enough
• Documenting the discussion
• Following up on accommodations
• What if an employee won't cooperate?
• What to do about impairments that are increasing in severity

About Your Speaker:

Ann Kiernan is an attorney who focuses on preventive law for employers.

As part of her commitment to helping management create fair and respectful workplaces and prevent costly employee lawsuits, Ann presents in-person workshops and online classes on managing within the law, corporate compliance, legal pitfalls in e-mail and internet use, harassment prevention, wage and hour issues, legal and effective hiring, and workplace violence prevention for employers large and small, around New Jersey and around the country.

Since 2004, she has also presented courses for human resources professionals on employment law issues, especially the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, and on conducting internal investigations.

HRCI Credits

This program has been approved for 1.5 re-certification credit hours for HRCI's PHR and SPHR designations through the HR Certification Institute. For more information about certification or re-certification, please visit the HR Certification Institute website at www.hrci.org. The use of this seal is not an endorsement by HRCI of the quality of the program. It means that this program has met HRCIs criteria to be pre-approved for re-certification credit.

SHRM Professional Development Credits

This program is valid for 1.5 Professional Development Credits (PDCs) for the SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP designations. For more information about certification or re-certification, please visit www.shrmcertification.org.

Reasonable Accommodation Compliance Training Course, Reasonable Accommodation Requirements