Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash

It’s Veterans Day. A great day to honor all those that have served our country in the military. For employment lawyers, businesses, and Human Resource professionals, it is a great time to review some of the special requirements of employing veterans.

The Benefit of
Employment Veterans

Companies love veterans. The Center for Talent Innovation
found that efforts to hire veterans can “consume
as much as 20 or 30 percent of recruiting budgets at some large corporations
.”
There are a number of reasons for the efforts that these companies put forth to
hire veterans.

First, military veterans often gain valuable skills while
they perform their service. Sometimes these are hard skills like working on
airplanes, coding various programs, and engineering. Oftentimes, it is the soft
skills
that are gained through military service
. Typical Army
training
includes a lot of
activities that help improve discipline, communication and working with a team,
and a ton of confidence through overcoming obstacles. All of these are
transferable to the workplace.

Of course, some of this
recruitment may be due to requirements for federal contractors and subcontractors.
The
Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs requires these companies to make
special efforts to recruit veterans
as part
of the requirements to complete affirmative action plans.

One other advantage is that employers can receive a tax
credit for hiring veterans (it is going to potentially go away if it is not renewed
by December 2019). Employers
can get $1,500-$9,600
in tax credits for the first year of their
employment.

Possible Disability
Issues

Many companies that employ veterans have concerns about PTSD and other disabilities that affect many veterans. About twenty-nine percent of recent veterans report having a service-connected disability. This compares to the nearly one in five people in the US (approximately 56.7 million people) that have a disability. A quick reminder, most disabilities are relatively easy to accommodate. Two-thirds of disabilities require less than $500 to accommodate and one quarter cost nothing at all. Having a disabled person can even be an advantage in the workplace as they may bring a different and often valuable perspective that would otherwise be missed. And after all, what would the world be without Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (composed when he was almost completely deaf), the music of Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles who were both blind, the inspirational story of Helen Keller (who as a deaf-blind woman lived a fascinating life and graduated from college nearly 90 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed), and the challenges Franklin Delano Roosevelt faced from polio. The possibility of a disability should not deter companies from hiring veterans unless they cannot perform the job duties even with an accommodation.

PTSD and Veterans

One of the biggest challenges many
companies face in employing veterans is Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
PTSD is not limited to individuals in the military but can affect anyone. It affects approximately 3.5 percent of U.S. adults, and an
estimated 1 in 11 people will be diagnosed PTSD in their lifetime
. Studies
have shown that around 11% to 20% of combat veterans have PTSD
.

A person develops PTSD when they are directly exposed to death, threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence. A person with PTSD has intense and disturbing thoughts that recur long after the traumatic incident that caused them ends and seeks to avoid any triggers that remind them of the traumatic event. These experiences can range from flashbacks; nightmares; intense sadness, fear or anger; and a sense of detachment from the world and other people. People with PTSD often seek treatment through therapy and medication.

How can employers accommodate PTSD at work? JAN
has a great list of questions to consider
to
accommodate these individuals:

What limitations is the employee experiencing?

How do these limitations affect the employee and the employee’s job performance?

What specific job tasks are problematic as a result of these limitations?

What accommodations are available to reduce or eliminate these problems? Are all possible resources being used to determine possible accommodations?

Has the employee been consulted regarding possible accommodations?

Once accommodations are in place, would it be useful to meet with the employee to evaluate the effectiveness of the accommodations and to determine whether additional accommodations are needed?

Do supervisory personnel and employees need training?

Common accommodations for these individuals can include a
flexible schedule and a modified break schedule. Employees with PTSD may be
eligible for leave under the FMLA and the ADA. They may be eligible for
intermittent leave under the FMLA based on the medical diagnosis of their
doctors. As is common with accommodations, accommodating an individual with
PTSD is likely a cost neutral accommodation (the accommodations involve changes
to the workplace that do not require the employer to spend money, such as by
purchasing special equipment, to accommodate the employee and allow them to
work).

Service Dogs

Service animals cause many companies to panic. Many
people have read about pets being claimed to be service animals
when they lack any sort of training and are
concerned about bringing animals into the workplace. However, services animals
can be integrated into most workplaces relatively easily.

 As with any other
request for an accommodation (and assuming that the ADA applies), an employer
needs to go through the interactive process with the employee to accommodate
their request. I’ve written about that here.

JAN has a
great explanation
of how to assess whether
to allow these animals in the workplace as an accommodation.

What this means for employers: When an employee with a disability requests to use a service animal at work, you have the right to request documentation or demonstration of the need for the service animal (when the need is not obvious) and that the service animal is appropriately trained and will not disrupt the workplace. However, while documentation demonstrating that an employee has a covered disability may come from a health care provider, you may need to consider documentation from other sources that explains the need for the service animal and that shows the animal is appropriately trained.  Another option is to have a trial period; allow the employee to bring in the service animal on a trial basis to see if allowing the animal is effective and does not pose an undue hardship. There is no set time frame for a trial period, but one to six weeks might be enough time to assess the situation.

What this means for employees: In addition to documenting they have a disability, employees who use service animals need to be able to show that the service animal is needed for disability-related reasons and that the service animal is trained to be in a work environment without disrupting the workplace or otherwise behaving inappropriately. If your doctor recommended the service animal, then your doctor should be able to verify that you need the service animal for disability-related reasons. Regarding your service animal’s training, in some cases documentation from the service animal trainer would be helpful. In other cases, you may want to offer to demonstrate how the service animal behaves in the workplace.

Service
dogs can serve a variety of functions
including helping those with autism,
individuals that are hard of hearing, limited mobility, diabetics, individuals
with allergies, and those with a disease or condition that causes seizures,
PTSD, and other issues. Many people fail to recognize that an individual with a
service animal may have an “invisible” health issue that the dog is meant to
accommodate or help with.

If there is an employee that is allergic to dogs, then the
company should work with that individual to address the issue. Possible
solutions can include ensuring that the service animal and the employee with
allergies work in different parts of the building, that they have a different
pathway to areas of the building than the service animal, and the use of
portable air filters.

Of course, service animals may not be able to work in all
environments and it may not be possible to accommodate an individual with a
service animal. Anyone that must work in a sterile environment (think surgery)
may not be able to have a service animal while they are in that area, places
where food is prepared or food processing plants in the areas where the food is
made (they must still be permitted in cafeterias and dining areas), and
anywhere else where they may not be able to physically go (places that can only
be accessed by ladders, etc.).

Where to Recruit
Veterans

As I mentioned, many companies actively seek veterans. So
where are the best places to recruit veterans?

Conclusion

Veterans have a lot to offer companies through the valuable
training that they gained through their military service. There are a number of
resources to help veterans find jobs, and there are a lot of resources to help
employers interested in benefitting from the soft and hard skills many military
members possess as a result of their service.

Lastly – Happy Veteran’s Day. Thank you so much to those of you who have served our country. We are thankful to have individuals like you who are willing and able to serve our country!

The information provided in this blog is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, then you should speak with a lawyer about your specific issues. Every legal issue is unique. A lawyer can help you with your situation. Reading the blog, contacting me through the site, emailing me or commenting on a post does not create an attorney-client relationship between any reader and me.

The information provided is my own and does not reflect the opinion of my firm or anyone else.

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