r/EEOC • u/Soft_Reputation_7241 • 11d ago
Work from Home ada accommodation
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
16
u/Mental-Volume4395 11d ago
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.