Remote work is now the top requested workplace accommodation
HR leaders and managers are getting buried under a sea of remote work requests.
The ability to work remotely was the most requested workplace accommodation last year, according to a survey from AbsenceSoft, a platform for leave of absence and accommodations management, which included responses from 2,400 HR leaders and employees.
It comes as more major companies shift away from the hybrid arrangements they were in last year, and are requiring staff to work from offices five days a week. JP Morgan is one example, along with others in finance like Goldman Sachs, and some in tech like Amazon. Meanwhile, agency holding group WPP caused waves internally when it announced staff would have to be back in the office four days a week from April.
Employers are required to offer reasonable accommodations to staff with disabilities who request them under the Americans with Disabilities Act, though many employees are taking their requests directly to their managers, who may not be equipped to deal with compliance issues like HR teams. Almost half of employees approach managers before HR with such requests, according to AbsenceSoft’s report.
Remote work is now the top requested workplace accommodation which are only expected to grow, with HR leading the entire process rather than individual managers, said Seth Turner, chief strategy officer at AbsenceSoft.
“We’ve done a lot of talking about the fact you need to educate your managers on recognizing these requests and getting them to HR, because you don’t really want your managers going through the interactive process and making the accommodation, you want that done in HR, where they are trained to do that,” Turner said.
The accommodation process is typically an interactive back-and-forth or negotiation. First an employee presents their condition with medical documentation along with the workplace issue they are facing and accommodations they’re requesting. Then HR can evaluate whether that request is reasonable and feasible for the organization, based on the role and responsibilities.
“The important part with accommodations is there’s not really a one-size-fits-all. Every job is different, every person’s medical diagnosis is different, and every request is different,” Turner said.
Staff recovering from an injury or surgery, or those dealing with a chronic health condition, might request scheduling flexibility in order to attend appointments or physical therapy, or may request more frequent breaks.
But employers can also reject requests for accommodations if they pose an undue burden on the company. For instance, allowing a line cook, or kindergarten teacher, to work from home wouldn’t be feasible and would cause an undue burden for the organization.
But in most cases, there can be room for compromise. For instance, if an employee who is neurodiverse requests to work from home because the office is too loud or distracting, employers can create a separate quiet zone in the office, or noise-cancelling headphones, Turner said. They can also grant such staff the ability to work from home some days, but not entirely.
“It’s OK to deny accommodations, but you need to make sure that you’ve done the process so that if the EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] comes knocking, you can say we took these steps and here’s why we denied it,” Turner said.
Of course, many people enjoy working from home and do not want to return to offices for a range of reasons. Accordingly, “employers are much more skeptical about approving these accommodation requests,” said Lulu Seikaly, employment law advisor at Payscale. But they have to go through the interactive process and get documentation to protect themselves legally.
One proactive step HR can take is to update their job descriptions to clearly state on-site requirements, Turner said.
But even then, “these are such individualistic requests, and employers cannot take a one-size-fits-all,” Seikaly said. “They can’t just say we are never going to approve remote work as an accommodation, because that is running afoul of the law, and shows the employer is not willing to engage in the interactive process,” she said.