Additional Leave May Be A Reasonable Accommodation

When managing an employee with a medical condition, the issues regularly implicate the FMLA or ADA – or both. It is critical that employers understand that even though an employee’s FMLA leave may have expired, the circumstances may require employers to consider an additional period of unpaid leave as a reasonable accommodation for an employee’s condition under an ADA analysis. “Automatic termination” provisions and requiring employees to return to work without restrictions can be problematic and even unlawful.

Recently, the EEOC issued a guidance document – Employer-Provided Leave and the Americans with Disabilities Act – intended to explain to employers and employees in a “clear and practical way how to approach requests for leave as a reasonable accommodation so that employees can manage their health and employers can meet their business needs.”

Join us for our webinar, Intersection of ADA and FLMA, on February 16, 2017, to review this new EEOC guidance and examine some of the common FMLA and ADA overlap problems, such as:

• Handling an employee’s request not to work overtime
• Managing an employee’s sporadic yet frequent absences after FMLA leave has been exhausted
• Responding to an employee’s request for a new supervisor due to workplace stress
• And how many extensions of leave is an employer legally obligated to provide after an employee exhausts FMLA leave