Why Hospitality Has A Hard Time Accommodating

The phrases “interactive process” and “reasonable accommodation” are familiar to many. Simply put, employers must try to adjust a disabled employee’s job duties to allow them to continue to work. Though this seems straightforward, going through the process rarely is, especially for hospitality companies during a pandemic.

Here are the legal principles, unique challenges for the industry, and the top 20 interactive process mistakes to avoid. 

The Interactive Process To Reasonably Accommodate Workers With Disabilities

Federal law – the Americans with Disabilities Act, known as the “ADA” – is the nationwide standard protecting the rights of workers who are physically or mentally disabled.

According to the EEOC, reasonable accommodations are “adjustments or modifications provided by an employer to enable people with disabilities to enjoy equal employment opportunities” unless doing so would cause “undue hardship” to the employer.

The interactive process is where employers and employees with disabilities who request accommodations work together to come up with reasonable accommodations.

The pandemic sent the interactive process into overdrive at many workplaces insofar as more workers are disabled and in need of accommodations.

Otherwise healthy workers who are older or have preexisting conditions may need accommodations (like working from home) because of the pandemic.

Pandemic-related mental disabilities require accommodations too: “employees with certain preexisting mental health conditions, for example, anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or post-traumatic stress disorder, may have more difficulty handling the disruption to daily life that has accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Accommodating Hospitality Workers

There are countless stories of restaurants dealing with customers who claim disabilities (like those refusing to wear a mask). Less discussed is how restaurants must accommodate their own employees with disabilities.

The interactive process is more difficult in the hospitality industry, for several reasons:

• Managers wearing many hats must recognize when to initiate the interactive process. Pandemic-related layoffs and limited resources exacerbates this. Rarely are HR employees present at every location to assist.
• The available accommodations are limited. For instance, the nature of restaurant work is almost always on-site, eliminating work from home as an accommodation.
• Physical tasks — like serving customers, preparing food, and opening and closing — are often essential.
• Ever present are concerns about how an accommodation may impact customer service.

Top 20 Common Mistakes To Avoid

The interactive process is flexible by nature, since it must apply in different environments and situations. Unfortunately, the flexibility can breed confusion.

Here are 20 common mistakes made during the interactive process.

1. Ignoring an apparent medical issue impacting an employee at work to avoid having to accommodate.
2. Requiring an overly-technical process that makes employees jump through hoops for an accommodation.
3. Limiting the method of communication during the process to just writing, instead of allowing in-person, virtual or phone.
4. Not getting input from the disabled employee, and instead having a one-sided process.
5. Not documenting the process with memos or emails along the way showing the ideas exchanged, efforts to accommodate, conclusions reached and next steps.
6. Managers not coordinating with HR during the process.
7. Disclosing an employee’s medical information or accommodation to co-workers without a need to know.  
8. Going through the process without medical information, such as a doctor’s note, to support the employee’s medical restrictions.
9. Not getting updated medical information — including and especially clearance to return to work — when the current information expires.
10. Relying on an outdated or inaccurate job description.
11. Broadly defining what is an “essential” job duty as a reason to not accommodate.
12. Being quick to determine a proposed accommodation would be an “undue hardship” on the business.
13. Deeming restrictions incapable of accommodation with paid modified duty and instead only accommodating the disabled employee with unpaid leave.
14. Relying solely on the workers’ compensation claim procedure rather than the employer conducting the process.
15. Not considering unpaid leave as an accommodation if an employee is not eligible for or exhausts other leave (like FMLA or state sick leave).
16. Not checking in periodically to ensure the accommodation is working.
17. If the employee’s job cannot be accommodated, not looking at options to transfer the employee to other open jobs in the business for which they are qualified (the law gives disabled employees preference for these jobs).
18. Conducting only a superficial review of open positions or providing disabled employees little or no help to do so.
19. Skipping the process when the medical restrictions appear incapable of accommodation.
20. Setting inflexible policies barring certain accommodations, such as a blanket refusal to accommodate with modified or light duty, remote work, a reduced schedule, or leave beyond a certain time.