Is the employer bound by the doctor's recommendation on workplace accommodation?
Workplace accommodation because of reduced working capacity can take many forms, ranging from adjusted working hours and ergonomic aids to home office arrangements or modified work tasks. But how far does an employee's right to accommodation actually extend?
We have received a growing number of inquiries from employers who find that employees are presenting specific accommodation demands, for example home office or a wish to avoid 1-to-1 meetings with particular managers. In several cases, these demands are supported by medical certificates. Doctors generally base their assessment on information provided by the patient and have limited insight into the business. As a result, the measures recommended in medical certificates are often poorly adapted to the employer's operational framework.
The question many employers are asking is how far the duty to accommodate actually extends, and whether the medical certificate must be accepted uncritically as the basis for decision-making.
Under section 4-6 of the Working Environment Act, the employer must, as far as possible, implement the necessary measures so that an employee with reduced working capacity can retain or obtain suitable work. The duty is individual and presupposes a specific assessment of the employee's needs weighed against the employer's operational conditions.
A medical certificate is not binding in the employer's assessment. The doctor assesses the employee's state of health but has neither the duty nor the basis to assess what is practically feasible within the employer's operations. The employer is therefore not obliged to implement a specific measure merely because it is recommended in a medical certificate. The recommendation is one factor in the assessment, but the employer must carry out an independent assessment of whether the accommodation measure can be implemented.
In the specific assessment, the employer should ask itself certain questions: Is the measure practically feasible within the operations of the business? Would it entail a significant additional burden for colleagues? Are there alternative, less intrusive measures that address the same need? Can the measure be time-limited and evaluated? Such assessments should be documented, both to ensure that they can be reviewed afterward and to demonstrate that the employer has fulfilled its part of the follow-up responsibility. Documentation becomes even more important if the employer does not adopt the recommendation in the medical certificate as the basis for its decision.
