Managers can’t expect HR professionals to do all of the heavy lifting when it comes to reasonably accommodating employees with disabilities.
“It’s incumbent on HR to educate managers that they have their own responsibility,” said Evan North, an attorney with Boies, Schiller & Flexner in Washington, D.C., who secured a $900,000 settlement on Jan. 29 for a former U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) employee. A manager can’t just pass off an accommodation request to HR and be considered done with the request, North asserted. Instead, a manager must be involved in the interactive process for identifying a reasonable accommodation, along with HR and the employee.
