Thursday, February 23, 2023

The need for workplace accommodations is a failure of the workplace

In a recent Globe and Mail article:

Researchers estimate that approximately one in eight Canadian women are likely suffering from an unrecognized brain injury related to domestic violence. 

I have an undiagnosed brain injury (not resulting from domestic violence, so you don't need to worry about that on my behalf) and I have to adjust all kinds of aspects of life to adapt to it. I have systems and backup plans for if I can't cope with my usual lightbulbs, or I wake up and my eyes won't open, or any one of the countless irritants of post-head-injury life.

And, essentially, the reason why I'm able to do this is that I work from home.

It occurred to me recently that if I still worked in the office, every one of these little adjustments to post-head-injury life would need to be a formal accommodation. 

Even just the light thing - I'd need to get a doctor's note, perhaps specifying what kinds of lights bother my eyes and what kinds I need instead. This would require a testing rabbit-hole, because I don't actually know the answer! I can point to certain places where the lights bother me all the time and other places where the lights bother me some of the time, but I haven't figured out exactly what types of lights do what. 

This is exacerbated by the fact that employees of businesses and other spaces where I'm not in charge of the lights often don't know what kinds of lights they have either. One example is actually my doctor's office: the lights used to bother me, now they don't. I asked the doctor if they'd changed the lights, and he said that the landlord had changed the lights, but he has no idea what kinds were used before or are used now.

This is also exacerbated by the fact that I didn't meet the diagnostic criteria for a concussion. Because the medical profession told me I'm fine, I didn't immediately seek the help of the medical profession when I realized I wasn't fine. So I'd be seeking a note confirming a problem where the only thing on my file is that I don't have that problem, and I never followed up further. Not the best for my credibility - especially when it requires a bunch of paperwork from my doctor!

Then, if I did manage to get a doctor's note, I'd need to get it approved by management, who may or may not send it back for more information. Then they'd have to figure out what adjustments can be made to the lights in the office, and send facilities people in to make the adjustments. (I've seen this done for others - they have to send a guy up a ladder to make adjustments to the lighting fixtures high on the ceiling.)

In contract, when I'm at home, I just flick a lightswitch. If it gets really hardcore, I change a lightbulb. 

This has me thinking about how many people need to jump through hoops just to function at work as a result of domestic violence.

And also has me thinking that if employees need to seek formal accommodations in a workplace, that means that the workplace is flawed.

Employees should be able to navigate and operate their workplace without having to ask permission or go through red tape for every little thing.

If you're an employer - especially if you're an employer who's worried about losing employees to work-from-home jobs - think about how your employees can and can't navigate and operate their workplace independently, without asking for permission or approval, and how that would compare with working from home.

If you can close that gap, you'll build a better workplace.

2 comments:

laura k said...

I have wanted to comment on this post several times, but I end up with too much to say.

100% it is a failure of the workplace and of society's conception of work.

In my experience, when I asked for a change in a workplace, if I asked as a general ergonomic need, it was easily met. Wrist support, back support, light bulb removed over my desk. I asked, I received.

But when I needed this as part of a health accommodation, it was a nightmare.

I also have experience representing a union member about a health accommodation. It was a nightmare 10 times over. And this in a unionized environment, where theoretically it should have been easier! It took SO LONG and this person was suffering, and missing so much work, and they were becoming anxious and depressed from missing work. And it could have been so easily resolved if the employer had just made it a priority.

It's maddening. Especially when I think of how many people worked and sacrificed, over decades and even centuries, to make safe workplaces and disability accommodations a matter of law. And yet employers still see workers as interchangeable parts, not humans with individual needs. No matter what it says in their corporate policies.

impudent strumpet said...

I've had similar experiences with accommodations being impossible vs. just asking for stuff being easy.

I've never successfully gotten an accommodation, but I've successfully adjusted all kinds of things by just asking, or telling, or just doing them.

As an example, one after-effect of my head injury is sometimes, unpredictably, I just can't do mornings. My eyes don't open, I can't make my morning routine happen, it just doesn't work.

I would never, ever, ever be able to get an accommodation getting me out of morning meetings.

But I've gotten enormous mileage out of saying "I'm available to meet any time in the afternoon." Or just grabbing the 2 pm timeslot on the calendar.

I've had literally two scheduled in-person morning meetings in the past 5 years, and probably no more than half a dozen camera-on virtual meetings.

We are literally doing exactly what I need over 99.5% of the time, but if I were to express it as an accommodation I need, it would suddenly become a nightmare of red tape.