Every employer in the United States with 15 or more employees must provide “reasonable accommodations” to staff members who have disabilities, and mental health disorders do fall under the requirement. If an employee requests mental health accommodations at your practice, you must be ready to work with them to avoid violating the law.
The accommodation you offer a particular staff member should be based on their actual disorder and symptoms, but it can be helpful to review what other practices are providing.
Check out eight mental health accommodations you might consider offering your staff members who have qualified disabilities.
1. Apps for Anxiety and Stress
A variety of apps have come out in recent years that provide anti-anxiety coaching, including meditation, deep breathing, mindfulness and stress reduction techniques. Some of them are free, while others cost money. Some medical practices might consider paying for these apps if they help staffers manage mental health disorders.
2. Counseling or Therapy
If you and your staff members believe it might be a helpful mental health accommodation for your employee, you can consider providing them with mental health counseling or psychotherapy. As the employer, your role might simply be to provide them with the time off they need to go to therapy, or you might put them in touch with therapists in your insurance network. If your medical insurance doesn’t allow coverage for therapy, consider getting coverage to help your staff members.
3. Sound Machines
Some staff members get overwhelmed when they feel distracted or overloaded. In some cases, simply providing the staffer with a white noise machine can help them focus on their work and relax. Some of these provide sounds of the ocean or rain, while others simply release a consistent hum that reduces other noises around the person.
4. Flexible Schedule
If your staff member needs to rest their mind now and then, you might consider offering them a flexible schedule. This allows them to take time when they’re feeling, stressed, anxious, depressed or overwhelmed, and gives them the flexibility to do work in smaller chunks when they’re most productive.
5. Job Changes
If your employee’s mental health disorder is particularly triggered during certain tasks, you might shift their job responsibilities so they spend less time doing those. For instance, suppose a staffer develops social anxiety and they spend 10% of their time at your office talking to new patients. You might consider reducing that 10% down to 1% and allow them to spend more time on back-office responsibilities so their anxiety doesn’t get worse.
6. Work at Home When Needed
If a role can be performed remotely, you might consider offering telework for employees who would benefit from it as part of their mental health accommodation. For instance, if an employee gets serious anxiety when it’s thundering outside, you might have an agreement that they can work at home during thunderstorms.
7. Support Animal
Emotional support animals may help staffers better manage their mental health. If your employee needs an emotional support animal, they’ll need a note from a medical professional outlining the disability and the benefit that the emotional support animal can provide.
8. Reducing Other Triggers
If your employee is comfortable sharing their mental health triggers with you, you can work together to pinpoint accommodations that you can offer that may help them avoid those factors. For instance, if a nurse at your office is only anxious when she’s alone in a room with a man, you can ensure that she only takes female patients into the examining room alone.
Looking for more detail about how to handle mental health in the workplace? Look no further! Let HR attorney Don Phin, Esq. walk you through the specifics during his online training, Avoid Violations for Mishandling Workplace Mental Health Issues. Register today!
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