Commentary: What a cancer survivor’s wrongful dismissal case tells us about the employer-employee relationship

Illness is only one reason employees may become temporarily less available to their employers. Similar challenges also arise in pregnancy, injury recovery and caregiving for elderly parents. The recent National Day Rally announcement of expanded childcare leave is, in effect, an acknowledgement that employees will become temporarily less available to their employers at various points in life – and that this is a normal feature of a working life, not an exception to be managed away.

For employers, this means accepting that some tension between operational demands and employees’ needs may be inevitable. Yet, reasonable accommodation to the latter is not about employers automatically saying yes. It is about engaging in a genuine problem-solving process.

The ECT’s findings in the recent case illustrate this. While the international school was not obligated to approve the administrative assistant’s work-from-home request, the magistrate found that the school showed no genuine willingness to consider or discuss her concerns. 

A range of outcomes might have emerged from honest dialogue: one work-from-home day instead of two, temporary coverage during absences or a time-limited trial arrangement. Yet, these were not meaningfully explored, according to the judgement issued on Aug 12.