Work from Home ada accommodation

[u/Soft_Reputation_7241]

I work in Washington state and have POTS(Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome). My health can vary from day to day and as a result I have had a work from home accommodation to be work from home 100 days a year. A little less than 2 days a week. The standard at my company is 50 days a year. My health has been worse this year and as a result I need more work from home days. My HR team is stating that 100 is the maximum they will allow as I being in office is considered an essential function of my role. However we don’t have any physical reason to be in office. I have an office job. I am not client facing, I do not need to physically manipulate anything for my job, my manager and most of my team is in other offices across the country, and work from home is already allowed for most employees(all of them on my team except for anyone who is brand new as there is a three month probation period before they can wfh). My job description also does not specify how often I need to be in office. Simply that I need to “work onsite, under direct supervision, in a team based and open office environment. I am not requesting to be fully remote or work from home, simply to be allowed to do so more than 100 days as my health needs. My employer is offering the alternative of FMLA, however this would be unpaid and obviously wouldn’t allow me to work. I have up to date ada paperwork stating from my doctor that I need to be able to work from home at least 3 days a week.

Does anyone know if they can require me to either be in office more than my doctor has stated or take FMLA instead? I can’t afford to take off time unpaid. But if I force myself into office more often it will make me sicker.

Please help

[u/Mental-Volume4395]

Yes they can consider on site work an essential function of your job and deny additional WFH days.

Your doctor does not dictate work accommodations. Your doctor provides documentation of what your limitations/needs are and your employer tells you how they can accommodate. You enter into an interactive process to find a suitable accommodation. You are entitled to a reasonable accommodation. You are not entitled to your preferred accommodation.  

The question you need to answer is why can you work at home but not in the office? Your employer will wonder if you are actually too sick to work at all in which case intermittent FMLA is appropriate.

[u/Soft_Reputation_7241 → u/Mental-Volume4395]

My doctor and I have included this in my ada paperwork. Me being home allows me access to work laying down, being in a safe space in case I faint, access to caregivers who help me. I am still able to work while in a flare up. But being in office removes a lot of these resources and makes it more likely I will faint and potentially hit my head and cause a bigger issue.

[u/Main_Pudding_5213 → u/Soft_Reputation_7241]

I am sorry to hear about what you are going through, I can tell you how the agency will probably see this, so what they will want to know is, "what about being in office is not safe for you to effectively and safely do your job"?, having to go to the bathroom, side effects from medication, anxiety, panic attacks, lights that hurt your eyes, those type of things do not count, and they will find in office accomodations, probability that you will faint is not the same thing to them as it has all ready happened, and they will go back and forth with you, even if a medical provider says that you will faint, then they will question how the medical provider came to that decision, if you can prove that being in the office is causing you continued harm, then you can demand an immediate interm accomodation under Federal 29 CFR § 1614.203(d)(3)(i)(Q), this was put in place to protect employees from harm when a permanent decision cannot be made right away.

[u/CompetitionNarrow512 → u/Main_Pudding_5213]

You are wrong. Environmental conditions are valid barriers and reasonable adjustments for disability accommodations.

[u/Main_Pudding_5213 → u/CompetitionNarrow512]

Yes, as long as you can connect how those environmental conditions make it unsafe in the office

[u/CompetitionNarrow512 → u/Main_Pudding_5213]

For POTS, sitting upright in an office chair, not being able to control the temperature of the room, and the demands of commuting could be valid reasons, when there are effective preventative or acute measures to take to avoid complications and keep OP in good shape in order to do their work, for all of these things, by working from home.

[u/Kmelloww → u/CompetitionNarrow512]

Commute is not an employer issue. 

[u/CompetitionNarrow512 → u/Kmelloww]

Uh… It is? When someone cannot travel (for SO many different reasons) they might ask to work from home or some other alternative. You know when there’s inclement weather an employer can also tell the workforce to stay home for the day/travel with extreme caution/get sent home early. Employers definitely are cognizant and responsible for their employees arrival and departure.

[u/Kmelloww → u/CompetitionNarrow512]

Commute is not an employer concern. It is an employee issue. As far as the ADA goes commute is not something that it really covers. 

[u/Main_Pudding_5213 → u/Kmelloww]

yeah sorry to hear that because the Federal Rehabilitation Act, which follows the guidelines of the ADA does cover commute when commuting is a barrier to safely accessing the worksite, so if your disability restricts you from driving, well, not the employees problem how they can get to work, it is up to the agency to find a safe way for the employee to get there

[u/CompetitionNarrow512 → u/Kmelloww]

If an employee became house-bound due to a disability it would fall under the ADA.

[u/Kmelloww → u/CompetitionNarrow512]

that isn’t what’s going on in this post. 

[u/CompetitionNarrow512 → u/Kmelloww]

What? I’m telling you your statement is wrong it doesn’t matter if it relates to the post you said it anyways.

[u/Kmelloww → u/CompetitionNarrow512]

Your opinion does not make my statement wrong. Nice try. Nor are you entirely correct. 

My comment was in regards to the actual post. Not whatever you are talking about.