Starbucks has found itself in hot water after dismissing a barista with psychiatric problems. Although the employee's former managers had accommodated her condition, the employee claims a new manager refused to do so and fired her. In September, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against the company.
Consider these statistics: Nearly 15 million American adults experience major depression in any given year. More than 10 million Americans are bipolar. Another 2 percent to 5 percent have panic disorder, meaning they have recurring panic attacks that disrupt their lives.
If you think an employee has a psychiatric problem, focus conversations on performance to avoid an Americans With Disabilities Act claim. "A manager would never attempt to deal with, counsel or advise on a physical condition the way some might on an emotional condition," says Jonathan Segal, vice chair of employment services at Wolf, Block, Schorr and Solis-Cohen in Philadelphia. "Don't guess; don't speculate."
If an employee discloses a condition, request medical documentation and ask if there are reasonable accom-modations he or she would like you to consider making. "Consider is the operative word," Segal says. "What you're really doing is reframing this not as a disability issue, but as a functions issue."
Keep all accommodations reasonable--and be consistent with their application. "When you've gone beyond [what] the law [requires] the first time," Segal says, "you run the risk [that] the accommodation you've done before comes back to bite you."
This story appears in the February 2007 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »
