Telling your family and friends you have a disability can be tough. Telling your employer can be much tougher. When it comes to disclosing their disability, or requesting an accommodation, many people with multiple sclerosis (MS) worry that they’re damned if they do, but might be damned if they don’t.
I’ve seen this problem from both sides. When I was first diagnosed with MS, I was working in the news department of a major radio station in a large metropolitan area. I was a manager, and I was up front about this change in my life with both my bosses and the people who worked for me. I called a meeting and told everyone that I didn’t think my illness would be a problem and that it would be hardly noticeable to them. But (thinking of possible upcoming steroid treatments) I wanted them to know what was going on if I occasionally needed to be hospitalized. Three months later I was fired. Was this because my work was poor or because I was diagnosed with MS? I’ll never know for sure.
After several months of unemployment, I was hired by a former colleague who was a manager in another broadcast newsroom in the same city. He knew I had MS and he didn’t care. Eventually, I became a news manager again, hiring people and evaluating my staff. One day, a woman who worked for me came into my office and, tearfully, told me she had just been diagnosed with MS. She had no idea that we shared that illness. She didn’t need to reveal her diagnosis to me but I’m sure she was glad that she did. Her disclosure worked out best for both of us. There would be no surprises for me as her manager, there would be less uncertainty for her about handling her MS at work, and I gained an excellent journalist.
It’s hard to know when to disclose
Title I of The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the U.S. prohibits most employers from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities in job application procedures, hiring, firing, advancement, compensation, and other employment areas. But when to make that disability disclosure, or to request an accommodation for it, is a tough decision.
To make this easier, the U.S. Department of Labor has worked with experts at West Virginia University to create the Job Accommodation Network (JAN). JAN’s website says it’s “the leading source of free, expert, and confidential guidance on job accommodations and disability employment issues.” Although primarily aimed at helping employers deal with these issues, it’s also a great source for employees and healthcare providers. JAN’s consultants offer one-on-one guidance on workplace accommodations, the ADA and related laws, and self-employment and entrepreneurship options for people with disabilities. Assistance is available both over the phone and online.
There’s a tool to help your disability disclosure decision
There’s no legal requirement to disclose a disability. If you choose to do it when applying for a job JAN suggests only providing basic information about your handicap and the possibility that you may need some sort of accommodation in the future. If a person waits to disclose until after being hired, JAN suggests the accommodation be requested before it’s actually needed or your job performance is affected.
Recently, JAN has made case histories available on its website. Its Situations and Solutions Finder provides access to more than 700 accommodation scenarios shared by JAN users that can be explored, simply by entering the applicable situation. I used the tool’s pull-down menus to enter my disability and a possible work limitation. (There’s a third menu for occupation and a space to enter a keyword.)
Clicking “Find Results” provided 30 problems reported by people with MS, or a similar illness, and the solutions that were worked out. These include providing periodic rest breaks and a flexible work schedule for someone with MS-related fatigue, installing sound-baffle panels to reduce distractions and providing written job duties at the start of each day for a woman with cognitive problems, and installing a railing along the wall between a worker’s the restroom, the break room, and the copy machine room for someone who had been tripping.
Solutions are possible to find if the person with the disability, the employer and, sometimes, a healthcare professional collaborate to find them.
Oh, about that job I landed after I had been fired. Thank you to the managers at The Associated Press for working on accommodations with me as I moved from walking easily, to using a cane, and then to riding a scooter. I retired from AP after working there for more than 32 years.
[SEE MY BOOK ABOUT LIVING WITH MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS]
(This post first appeared on the Rare Disease Advisor website.)
(Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)
