Case Study Sunday: When “Fitness for Duty” Gets Blurry

Someone submits FMLA paperwork.

Shortly after, their employer requires a fitness-for-duty evaluation.

Not a quick return-to-work clearance.
A full evaluation—an hour and a half interview, plus personality testing.

They work an office job.
It’s not safety-sensitive.
There’s no clear performance issue on the table.

They’re placed on fully paid leave while this is pending.

And the question they’re left with is a reasonable one:

What is my employer actually trying to figure out?

What these evaluations are meant to do

If we zoom out for a second, fitness-for-duty evaluations aren’t unusual on their own.

At their best, they’re meant to answer a very specific, very practical question:

Can this person do their job, as it’s actually defined—especially if something has changed?

When they’re used well, they’re focused. Grounded. Limited to what’s needed.

But that’s also where this case starts to feel off.

Because the more you look at it, the harder it is to identify what question is actually being asked.

Where this starts to drift

There’s no clear concern being named.

No “we’ve observed X and need to understand Y.”
No tie back to a specific job function that’s in question.

And without that, the evaluation starts to drift.

Instead of:

Can you perform these parts of your job?

It can start to feel like:

Let’s take a broader look at you as a person.

That’s a very different exercise.

Scope matters more than people think

The scope matters here too.

A long-form clinical interview and personality testing aren’t inherently inappropriate—but they’re broad tools.

And broad tools tend to surface broad information.

Which raises a quiet but important question:

How much of what’s being assessed is actually necessary to answer a job-related question?

Timing shapes the process

Then there’s the timing.

This all starts right after FMLA paperwork is submitted.

That doesn’t automatically mean anything is being done incorrectly. There are situations where additional evaluation is appropriate.

But in practice, timing shapes how a process functions.

Because when something like this is triggered by medical disclosure, it can shift the focus—intentionally or not—from:

“How does this affect your work?”

to:

“What does this mean about you overall?”

What this often reflects

So what’s actually going on here?

In many cases like this, it’s not one clear motive.

It’s a mix of things:

An employer trying to follow process.
An HR team trying to reduce risk.
Uncertainty about how to handle psychiatric conditions in a structured way.

And without a clearly defined question, the process expands to fill the gap.

Where I’d slow this down

If I were working with this employee, I wouldn’t start by assuming intent.

I’d start by getting specific.

Because before you can respond to a process like this, you need to understand the shape of it.

What I would want clarified

I’d want answers to a few grounding questions:

• What specific job functions are being evaluated?

• What prompted this evaluation—was there a documented concern?

• What information has been shared with the evaluator about the role?

• What exactly is the employer asking the evaluator to determine?

• How will the results be used in decision-making?

Not in an adversarial way. Just… clearly.

Because right now, the process feels bigger than the question it’s supposed to answer.

How I’d approach it (employee side)

From the employee side, this is one of those moments where it’s easy to feel like you have to either fully comply without question—or push back hard.

There’s actually a middle path.

One that looks more like:

• Staying engaged in the process

• Asking for clarification in writing where possible

• Keeping the focus on job function, not diagnosis

• Documenting what’s being asked, and how it’s being framed

The goal isn’t to escalate immediately.

It’s to bring the process back into alignment with what it’s meant to do.

What this looks like from the employer side

If I were advising the employer, this is where process discipline really matters.

Before initiating an evaluation like this, I’d want to be able to clearly answer:

• What concern are we trying to assess?

• How does it connect to the essential functions of the job?

• What is the narrowest way to get that answer?

Because when those answers aren’t clear, the process can unintentionally become more invasive than intended.

Even when the goal is to be responsible.

The throughline

There’s one more piece here that’s easy to overlook.

The employee is on paid leave during all of this.

And while that can be protective in some ways, it also reinforces the weight of what’s happening.

It creates a pause. A sense that something significant is being decided.

Which makes clarity even more important.

At the center of this case is a simple tension:

Workplaces are allowed to ask whether someone can do their job.

But how that question is asked—and how much information is pulled in to answer it—matters.

Because there’s a line between evaluating function and evaluating the person.

And when that line gets blurry, the experience of the process changes—even if the intention doesn’t.

If I were working with someone in this situation

My role wouldn’t be to jump straight to conclusions.

It would be to:

• Translate what’s happening into something concrete

• Identify where the process is clear—and where it isn’t

• Shape the questions that bring it back into focus

• Support a response that keeps the conversation grounded in the actual job

Because most of the time, the issue isn’t that a process exists.

It’s that no one has clearly defined what the process is for.