When to Request a Work-Capacity Assessment
HR/legal review recommended.
A work-capacity assessment answers a practical question that sits at the heart of many accommodation and disability decisions: what work can this employee do right now, and under what conditions? Knowing when to request one - and when not to - is a core disability-management skill.
Good reasons to request one
- You're building an accommodation plan and need to know actual functional limits
- A return-to-work is being planned and readiness is unclear
- Medical information is vague, conflicting, or out of date
- An employee's stated limitations and observed function don't align, and decisions depend on clarity
Poor reasons
To pressure an employee, to build a case against them, or as a substitute for a difficult conversation. A capacity assessment requested in bad faith is both ethically wrong and legally risky.
What a good assessment gives you
Not a diagnosis to share around - a functional picture: what the person can safely do, what accommodations would help, and a realistic timeline. For mental health, that functional lens (concentration, stress tolerance, interpersonal demands) requires clinical expertise to assess properly.
CorpCARE conducts clinically grounded work-capacity assessments focused on function - the input your accommodation and RTW decisions actually need.
Sources
- Bottiglia v Ottawa Catholic School Board, 2017 ONSC 2517 — when an employer may require an independent medical examination as part of the duty to accommodate (commentary). https://www.mondaq.com/canada/employee-benefits-compensation/748394/when-employers-can-require-an-independent-medical-examination-as-part-of-the-duty-to-accommodate
- Alberta Human Rights Commission. "Duty to accommodate at work." https://albertahumanrights.ab.ca/issues-at-work/duty-to-accommodate-at-work/