Assignment Task:
Joe, a Welding employee in your steel manufacturing company, has been employed with you for 7 years and works full-time. He is known to suffer from sleep apnea. He has a CPAP machine that was prescribed following an overnight sleep study and discusses his progress with his sleep specialist and primary care physician. Joe's inability to get a good night's rest causes him to be groggy and tired in the mornings. This tiredness/exhaustion causes Joe to be tardy to work on an almost daily basis
Your manufacturing company works 3 shifts and it's a very firm, set schedule (7a-3p, 3p-11p, 11p-7a). If Joe shows up at 7:01 am, he's considered late and gets attendance demit points. Joe senses his job may be at risk, and shows up in your office to explain his medical situation. It's Joe's opinion that his Sleep Apnea chronic condition disrupts his ability to perform a major life event (i.e., that of sleeping). Since due to family reasons, he can't change to the 2nd or 3rd shift, he's requesting an accommodation from the company to work from 8:30 am - 4:30 pm. Your skepticism kicks in, and you're pretty sure Joe just wants to get his kids on the bus in the morning.
Take 400 words to share your next steps, insights into what the interactive process might look like, potential solutions, etc. Be sure to ultimately answer the question of: Is Joe's accommodation request reasonable? If so, why? If not, under what grounds (undue hardship, essential function, or coworker displacement) would you claim and justify unreasonably? Utilize and quote laws, regulations, best practices, etc. This is your chance to be a practitioner in a real-life situation. Yes, this exact scenario happened to an HR colleague. Need Assignment Help?