The Explorer Winter 2018 Explorer Winter 2018 | Page 19

(CONT.)
Reasonable accommodations can take
many forms, including use of assistive
animals in the workplace.
As with any request for accommodation,
the answer to whether an employer must
allow an assistive animal is, “it depends.”
Each request for accommodation is
unique. You should always conduct an
individualized assessment to determine
whether the requested accommodation
would be reasonable under the
circumstances.
If an employee asks to bring an assistive
animal into the workplace, you should
engage in a timely, good-faith interactive
process with the employee.
As part of this process, you can require
that the employee provide medical
certification from a health care provider
confirming that he/she has a disability
and explaining why the employee
requires the assistive animal in the
workplace (e.g., why the animal is a
necessary accommodation to allow the
employee to perform the essential
functions of the job).
Assuming that the employee has a
disability and the use of an assistive
animal is a reasonable accommodation,
you must allow the employee to bring
the animal to work unless doing so would
impose an undue hardship.
As a condition of allowing an employee
to bring an assistive animal to work, you
can ask the employee to confirm that the
animal will behave appropriately in the
workplace and meet minimum standards,
such as being free from offensive odors,
being housebroken, and not endangering
the health or safety of anyone in the
workplace. If the animal doesn’t behave
appropriately, you can challenge whether
the animal meets the minimum standards
for being in the workplace. However,
you can only do so during the animal’s
first two weeks in the workplace, so pay
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close attention and promptly address any
issues that arise.
Requests for assistive animals in the
workplace can also give rise to a variety
of other issues, including complaints
from other employees about the animals
or conflicts with other laws that may
preclude an animal from being present in
certain workplaces. If an employee claims
to be allergic to another employee’s
assistive animal, you may have two
employees to accommodate — the
employee requiring the assistive animal
and the employee with the allergy. You
can work with both employees to figure
out how to best accommodate everyone
involved, such as providing the
employees with fans or air filters. If
allowing an animal to be present at work
may violate other laws, such as health
and safety requirements, you can take
that into account when determining
whether the requested accommodation is
reasona