I was recently talking to my good friend Steve, a business owner, who shared a story about one of his former employees. I’m not going to lie, at the beginning of the story I was laughing hysterically at the visuals that were forming in my head. But as he shared more details, the story became troubling. Then I put myself in his shoes and realized that a happy ending for everyone would be a real challenge.
Steve has been in a family business for over 20 years. A few things that make him successful is his sharp intellect of his industry coupled with a deliberate focus on his priorities and goals. Equally important is that his loyalty and commitment to both his clients and employees is unwavering.
On to the story…
One of Steve’s employees named Denise was working at the organization for 10 years and Steve “inherited” her when he joined the company. Shortly afterwards, Denise developed narcolepsy and everything changed.
“Narcolepsy is a chronic sleep disorder that causes a person to fall asleep at inappropriate times, like work, school, driving, etc.”
You get the idea. Scary stuff for both the employee and the employer. Steve’s department was on the third floor but he set up a cot in the conference room on the first floor so Denise could sleep at lunch time or any time she needed rest. Steve would wake her every day and walk up to her desk after lunch. Throughout each day, Denise would randomly fall asleep — while at her desk, on the phone, in a meeting, riding in the car, walking or eating. She would be escorted by someone when she left her desk due to the danger of falling down the stairs or simply falling. She was fortunate enough to have a co-worker live near her and offered to drive her to and from work each day. This continued for two and a half years.
As a human being, you want to do all that you can to support someone who wants to work. As a business owner, you have to consider the cost of a full-time employee, the expected productivity and the actual productivity. Obviously, you also need to be compliant with the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). Steve went above and beyond the requirements for reasonable accommodation as required by the ADA and may even have been able to claim an undue hardship since many of the accommodations were disruptive to other employees’ ability to perform their jobs. In this case, the productivity was not there for this small business yet Steve persevered and worked with Denise until she was ready to stop working.
This story intrigued me because of the conflict between what’s right for the business and what’s right for the human. We can all quickly answer that you do what’s right for the business, but then maybe you’ve never worked in a small company before. Think about being a business owner in this situation. What would you have done differently? How would you have handled this employee? Being a small company, it isn’t possible to get creative with job sharing and flexible work schedules.
I am very interested in hearing your thoughts and opinions.
In the law there is a saying: hard cases make bad law. This means that you can’t base decisions on the tough, particularly heart-wrenching circumstances, because you will get stuck with precedents or practices that make no sense when applied to the common, more frequent circumstances.
I come from a small business (under 40 people; 20 million in sales) and there is absolutely no way our business could afford to do what Steve did for that period of time. I would have given Denise some time to prepare for her eventual dismissal (presuming she cannot recover or otherwise manage this disease). Not only would my small business not been able to afford her, it would not have been able to afford others who may come afterwards with less extreme issues.
My angle is a bit different because I work in Canada and our employment legislation protecting workers is very different. There are a couple of perspectives on this case. Perspective #1: purely from a legislative standpoint we have a duty to accommodate unless you can prove in court undue hardship based on a couple of factors, with financial hardship being one of them. It is extremely uncommon for an employer to go through the process (i.e. headache, time, expense, etc…) to make a case for undue hardship, particularly in this situation. The only way it would be favorable is if the employee requires special equipment with an expense far exceeding anything you could feasibly afford.
Perspective #2: 100% related to brand image. Canada is as diverse a country as you can get on this planet, and diversity is seen as a significantly positive thing in corporate Canada. There is also strong evidence to support the positive correlation between employee diversity and employee engagement. We all know what happens in organizations with strong engagement… strong business results. Further, this example of workplace accommodation is simply “doing the right thing” which from a broad perspective can be leveraged in various arenas such as customers, employees, public, investors, future talent, etc… In this day and age of enormous penny pinching, cuts, lay-offs, etc… having an employee who will “take care of you” and enable you to feel safe is a rarity and can be significantly leveraged for gain in multiple ways.
The easy way out is to shake your hands and get rid of the “problem”, but the more appropriate and difficult decision is the right one, which from a long-term business sustainability perspective is the right decision.
It is a difficult situation for everyone involved. I know what a large company would do. If it happened in Australia, the person would be deemed medically unfit for work and receive some sort of payout and then be placed on a disability pension.
I’d contact support services for narcolepsy and find out what they recommed in this case – perhaps they have support people who can assist.
My main concerns would be danger to the employee (ie falling down whilst asleep) and impact on the company. The other issue is the precedent that Steve set with his behaviour. What message has this sent to other employees who may develop illnesses?
What would I do if I was Steve? After gathering as much information from the relevant bodies as I could, I would have to let the employee go as she could no longer fulfill the duties of her job.