Comments concerning EE's health on performance evaluation.
gi_janearng
44 Posts
I had a couple completed reviews come in to be filed and as I was reviewing them, one of them jumped out at me because the supervisor wrote that the employee does "everything needed within his health boundaries." In the summary, he went even more in depth as to label what was the medical issue with the employee and said it could force the employee into early retirement and never knows what the next check-up will show. The employee signed off on the evaluation, so now what?
Comments
Do the comments suggest to you that the person being evaluated has or is regarded as having a disability? If so, apply ADA. There may not really be anything for you to do. The review now has to be filed with medical docs, and you might want to drop a note in the review or EE folder indicating that there is a review doc in the medical file. If there is evidence of improper medical inquiry, training is definitely called for.
You probably want to spend some time with the supervisor training them about how to do and document performance appraisals. Either the performance is acceptable or it is not. If it is not, then seek reasonable accomodation routes that will bring performance where it belongs.
[quote user="gi_janearng"]I don't think I need to do anything to accomodate him as it appears to me that is being taken care of and is doing his assigned job to standard. I also don't think there was an improper medical inquiry. I just feel that the comment "He's holding his own very well but you never know what the next check up with show." as well as stating the employee is having issues with *insert body function here* was inappropriate to put on a review as it seems it's a privacy violation. From the rest of the review, it seems he is doing his job well so why put that comment in, you know? Perhaps this is just me. I just wanted to see what others thought if I should just notify the supervisor, have him rewrite it, or what? [/quote]
I will now ramble on about the two sides tugging at me about this philosophically. The short answer is that I'd have the supervisor rewrite it because that's the right thing to do for the Company's sake and also train him to do better documenting these or anything else.
Obviously, none of these comments are good. There's room to wonder about the appearance of an ADEA issue here. If the supervisor didn't make an improper medical inquiry, nothing in the review is false, nothing in the review is something the employee regards as something he wanted to keep secret from the employer, could this just be smoke with no fire? I'm not saying this is a sterling example of how to document things. The added phrase "within his health boundaries" is not really necessary. Does the same supervisor say "within his health boundaries" regarding health male employees?
What if it's the person being appraised who told his supervisor that he didn't know what his next checkup will reveal and he may have to retire early and the supervisor was merely noting that? Unfortunately, without that important contextual background information in the document, itself, this could be a problem later when it is framed differently by someone who is questioning actions taken or decisions made by the company some time down the road into the future.
So, on the face of it, this suggests a need for training for the supervisor because he has gotten off the safe trail of discussing performance and performance only. Although there is nothing immediately illegal in the document, let us look toward the future and see how this may be viewed later. Imagine when "that checkup" finally happens and he doesn't like his ADA/FMLA/LTD/WC outcome. So, when he's cranky, he talks to an attorney. The attorney finds him sincere and compelling and he gets some documents. That document is the kind that will help his case even if it's completely innocent because he will be able to frame it in a sinister manner.