Return to work from Brain Injury

TinaND

I have an employee that suffered a brain injury on January 1, 2003 due to a DUI accident. He returned to work PT in July...I have been working with the doctor extensively and we finally have him back to 30 hours a week. He was previously working in our warehouse dept. This requires a fast-paced fork-lift driving atmosphere. Due to the pace of this work, we, along with the doctor's approval, have reassigned him to the shipping dept... This is the same type of work just slower paced. We are also thinking of the other 100 worker's safety in the plant. When he returned we also lowered his wage to that of a middle-wage warehouse employee. He is unable to fulfill the requirements of a top-paid warehouse employee. He is now complaining that he wants to be back into the warehouse. I've spoken with the doctor and he also feels that he needs to be able to work 40 hours with the workload he's on now before we should change his duties and increase his responsibilities - which also goes with wage. I have denied him pay increases at this time - mostly because he is getting paid more than the average shipping personnel. Are we legal in this aspect? He has a long way to go before he is to the top pay rate... Any help would be helpful. ND does not have any state laws that regulate - only federal.

Don D

It sounds to me as if you have done exactly what you should do and all you could do. I think you are on exactly the right track. His 'desire' to make more money is not a factor and your plan and actions are proper. Just my opinion.

sonny

I agree with Don and Hatchet and want to reiterate that you and your company are to be commended. Head injuries are TOUGH. .I like the idea of very concretely listing tasks/items to work on: goals to accomplish that might get him back. If he had voc. rehab. working with him there might be a job coach that could work with him on or off the job. I have been gone a long time ( from rehab), but the downside is it has been a year since the trauma and am not sure he will get a lot better. At this point, adjustment to disability counseling might help too.. so that he can deal with the new limitations in his life.

Hatchetman

Firstly, I congratulate you and your company for your effort and time with the emplyee rather than taking a quick way out of saying, "no job for you."

I generally agree with Don on this.

Just to note that, assuming the emplyee is disabled under ADA (and he might not be in reality), ADA does consider a reduction to a lower level job to be a reasonable accommodation.
This includes a reduction in pay.

But such a reduciton would be something that would bne implemented after other reasonable accommodations were tried and found not to be effective.

In this case, it appears, you and the doctor, and the employee had agree to try to work him part time as an accommodation, but found that even on a part time basis, he wasn't able to meet the demands of the job. Thus the reduction in responsibilities and level of pay. Whether there were other things you could have tried, I can't say. Or perhaps, based upon the doctor's evaluationafter seeing the actual performance, it was clear that he wasn't able to perform the duties of the faster-paced job even if there were other accommodations. If the latter is the case, you certainly have done right for this guy and have been consistent with the intent of ADA, in case the employee is ADA disabled.

I suggest at this point you and the doctor and the employee work out an agreement at what point the emplyee would be allowed to return to the faster-paced job (if it's still avaialable). This would not only include performance but a clearance from the doctor that he could perform those duties. This may provide some help to the empyee that his condition can get better, that he is still seen as a valued emplyee; his concern also may be the pay, but I suspect it's also the loss of pride he may have that he isn't doing the "tougher" job.