Amazon is among the companies issuing new RTO mandates for 2025, but it’s taken its policy a step further. The company recently announced a strict new review process for disabled employees who want to work remotely, but disability advocates say such policies are unnecessary and can create a culture of distrust.
Catch up. After announcing in September that employees will be expected to report to the office five days a week in 2025, Amazon recently introduced new requirements for disabled employees to work remotely as a reasonable accommodation, Bloomberg reported. The new roadmap is a “multi-level executive review” of an employee’s disability and need for accommodation.
Disabled employees who want to continue or begin working remotely will need to provide medical documentation to an “accommodation consultant” and may need to work in the office for up to a month to prove to the company that they need the accommodation. Even if the request is approved at one level, it could be denied at the next, according to Bloomberg. Some Amazon employees with disabilities have reportedly been asked personal medical questions and have had to repeatedly answer others.
“We understand that this is going to be a transition and we’re working with our employees to make it as easy as possible,” Margaret Callahan, an Amazon spokesperson told HR Brew in an emailed statement. The company claims it provides “many” types of accommodations in the office and “consult” with employees on their needs. “We continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant. When in-person accommodations are needed, we’ll provide them, and in some cases, offer an exception to working from the office.”
Some disabled professionals see Amazon’s new approach as a signal that disabled workers are not welcome at the company. “They might as well advertise that people with disabilities are not wanted,” Nathan Chung, a cybersecurity engineer and self-identified neurodivergent worker with nearly 19,000 LinkedIn followers, said on the social network.
What HR leaders should consider. Remote work has been found to be largely responsible for recent record employment of disabled people, but it isn’t a guaranteed accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Workers must prove that their job can be done effectively and (like other accommodation requests) without an “undue burden” on their employer. Many disabled workers being called back to the office have been doing their jobs at home for years, and remote work has allowed them to be more productive.
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“The problem with eliminating all remote work is that you’re hindering people with disabilities to be gainfully employed, or a large population of them,” Meg O’Connell, founder and CEO of Global Disability Inclusion, which advises employers on disability policies, told HR Brew. “People with disabilities have what they need in their homes. They don’t have to ask for accommodation [because] they’ve already built out their space.”
O’Connell said that employers should create accommodations processes that address the majority, and not just the rare bad actors that may take advantage of the system. “The spirit of a well crafted and implemented accommodations policy is to get employees what they need so they can most effectively do their job.” She said that policies like Amazon’s tell disabled workers, “We don’t really believe you.”
Legal teams are often responsible for creating accommodations policies and processes that comply with the law, but that doesn’t mean they address employees’ needs. O’Connell said “common sense” policies that take direction from employees are vital.
Disabled workers may also be concerned that invasive processes will expose their personal medical information to too many people. O’Connell recommended that HR leaders try to move away from medical documentation requirements and instead trust their disabled employees to tell them what they need, which has been the trend in recent years.
When employees have to prove their disability and needs, it can create distrust and disengagement, O’Connell said. Truly inclusive companies talk openly about disability accommodations and create space where employees feel safe sharing their needs. “In any organization where you have employees who are not engaged, they’re going to leave at one point or another.”
As Dannie Lynn Fountain, who handles disability accommodations at Google, put it, a lengthy accommodations process could cause an employee to quit, and “is still disability discrimination.”