The following is a short story taken from IN OUR SHOES: Practical Strategies for AODA Compliance, a catalogue of real-life situations where people with disabilities encounter barriers to inclusion. Those stories go on to also provide real-life solutions & best practices for addressing barriers across a variety of settings.
Scenario
After taking a leave from her job to serve with the military where she saw heavy combat, Renee is now glad to be resuming her duties as professor of history at a local college.
As the semester progresses she is finding it increasingly difficult to focus, is lethargic, depressed, and unable to get herself organized. She is coming to class late and sometimes not at all.
When she is there, her main history lesson is based on her experience in the military. Using the same course syllabus as she had in other years, she can’t seem to keep on track and isn’t covering all the material.
At the end of the semester many of the students are complaining that the final exam was unfair as it covered material not assigned to them. The final result is that test scores are markedly low with most students achieving lower than average grades.
The chairman of the department calls Renee in, telling her that there have been many complaints about her. He is quite upset and admonishes her severely. Trying to explain, she shares that she has recently been diagnosed with *post-traumatic stress disorder from her experiences in the war.
This diagnosis explains many of the troubles she has been having in the classroom. Military medical personnel are advising her to get treatment, perhaps even some time in the hospital.
After discussing what they could do to rectify the grades, she asks for a leave of absence to get the treatment that has been recommended. The chairman of the department indicates that he can’t guarantee her job will be available upon her return due to the way she handled this year’s course work, adding, “We all have stress, Renee.”
Questions
How might have this situation been addressed earlier so as not to have resulted in students achieving lower than average grades?
When confronting an employee about poor job performance and they disclose a medical problem that hadn’t been disclosed before, is the employer obligated to make accommodations?
Possible Solution
Renee was showing signs early in the semester of some kind of problem. While it is not the administration’s responsibility to fix the problem, it is their responsibility to oversee employee performance and should have confronted her at the onset of the problem.
In this instance Renee was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and perhaps if warned earlier of her poor job performance she would have come to terms with her situation. Perhaps it would have made her realize she needed treatment. Once accepted and disclosed, accommodations should be discussed and implemented.
An employee is not required to disclose a health condition unless that condition is impacting their work and they are seeking accommodations in order to more effectively handle their responsibilities.
Examples of reasonable accommodations for people with mental health challenges such as Renee could include:
– providing self-paced workloads and flexible hours,
– modifying job responsibilities,
– allowing leave (paid or unpaid) during periods of hospitalization or incapacity,
– assigning a supportive and understanding supervisor,
– modifying work hours to allow appointments with health care professionals,
– providing easy access to accountability and supports in the workplace and
– providing frequent guidance, coaching and feedback about job performance.
About *Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating condition that can occur after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened.
Traumatic events that can trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults such as rape or mugging, natural or human caused disasters, accidents, or military combat.
Many people with PTSD repeatedly re-experience the ordeal in the form of flashback episodes, memories, nightmares, or frightening thoughts, especially when they are exposed to events or objects reminiscent of the trauma.