More employees are struggling with mental health conditions, and as a result, employers are fielding more requests for accommodations and dealing with increased absenteeism. Pandemic-related stress at work and at home was a significant part of this trend during the last two years.
Under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and other nondiscrimination laws, most employers must provide reasonable accommodations to qualified employees with mental health conditions.
Forty-three percent of employers have seen a spike in reasonable accommodation requests related to mental health since the coronavirus pandemic started, according to a new survey from the law firm Fisher Phillips.
"We are seeing an increase of employees requesting remote work or a hybrid schedule to accommodate their anxiety and depression," said Emily Litzinger, a Fisher Phillips attorney in Louisville, Ky. "Additionally, there have been an uptick of requests relating to bringing an emotional support animal to the workplace to help ease the stress related to in-person work."
Accommodations aren't something that needs to break the bank. Almost half of employers said their telework, hybrid and other flexible schedules are helping to address their workers' mental health problems.
"Reasonable accommodations are almost always inexpensive fixes that get your workers on the right track and lead them to be more productive than they otherwise would have been," said Raeann Burgo, a Fisher Phillips attorney based in...
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