ILMA Compoundings September 2018 - 36

COUNSEL COMPOUND

Stand-Up Desks:
The 'Write' Stuff?
M
By Jeff Leiter

any of you probably have
the same experience as
me - seeing an increasing
number of offices where employees
are working from stand-up desks or
sit-stand workstations or are sitting on
fitness balls at their desks. The American
Medical Association has encouraged,
and continues to encourage, employers
to offer such work options for a healthier
work environment. The Society for
Human Resource Management has
identified stand-up desks as one of the
fastest-growing workplace trends.
I was recently asked by a client
whether an employee's request for a
sit-stand desk constitutes a request
for an accommodation under the
Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA), thereby triggering an interactive decision-making process on the
employer's part.
Workplace ergonomics is not a
novel concept. An ergonomically
correct workstation can include a
stand-up desk or sit-stand workstation.
While it is intuitive that sedentary
behavior can cause health problems,
I found limited research that helps us
understand the benefits of standing
versus sitting while at work to achieve
maximum health benefits over time.
There is an ongoing, vigorous debate
among researchers, including over
whether the human brain performs
certain tasks better while sitting.
I reviewed several studies that
concluded that employees using
stand-capable workstations were more
productive than the sit-only group, but

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SEPTEMBER 2018

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The stand-up desk/sit-stand workstation trend
is not going away, so employers should take
seriously employee requests for any type of
ergonomic furniture.

on average, the group with the standcapable workstations sat for only 1.6
hours less per day than the sit-only group.
The Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA) has
no current ergonomic standard that
addresses stand-up desks or sit-stand
workstations. However, the Occupational Safety and Health Act's "General
Duty Clause" requires each employer
to "furnish to each of his employees a
place of employment which is free from
recognized hazards that are causing
or are likely to cause death or serious
physical harm to his employees."
While OSHA has used the General
Duty Clause to cite employers for
ergonomic hazards, it is not clear to me
whether the agency takes the position
that stand-up desks or sit-stand workstations prevent ergonomic hazards.
Concerning the ADA, the statute
requires employers with 15 or more
employees to provide reasonable
accommodations to qualified individuals (i.e., job applicants and employees)
with a disability, unless doing so
creates an undue hardship or threatens
the safety of the employee or others in
the workplace.
There are no set words an employee
must use when requesting an accommodation under the federal law or its
state equivalents.

An employee who asks for a stand-up
desk or sit-stand workstation for
generic wellness reasons, such as losing
weight, probably has not made an ADA
accommodation request. The request
does not inform the employer that
the employee suffers from a physical
or mental condition and needs an
accommodation to perform his or
her essential job functions. Here, it
is within the employer's discretion
whether to provide the employee with a
stand-up desk or sit-stand workstation,
taking into account factors such as cost,
other alterations to the work area (e.g.,
gel floor pads), whether similar requests
previously have been granted and
employee morale. A possible alternative
would allow the employee to take
frequent, brief standing and walking
breaks throughout the workday.
The result, however, is different
where an employee (or his or her
health care provider) notifies the
employer that a stand-up desk or
sit-stand workstation is needed
to accommodate a specific health
problem, such as chronic lower back
pain after sitting for extended periods
of time. The employer in this scenario
would be obligated under the ADA
to engage in an interactive process
with the employee which includes
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