A human rights complaint arrived at a regional distribution company's head office 3 weeks after the company declined to renew the contract of a warehouse team lead who had worked in the role for 2 years. The complaint alleged discrimination on the grounds of disability, sex, and age, and it forced the company's leadership to re-examine a series of decisions made over the preceding 18 months.

The team lead, a woman in her early 50s, had been diagnosed with a chronic musculoskeletal condition approximately 14 months before the non-renewal. She had disclosed the condition to her supervisor and requested modified duties that would reduce the frequency of overhead lifting. The supervisor referred the request to the operations manager, who responded that the company's physical demands analysis for the team lead position required all incumbents to be capable of performing every task in the warehouse without restriction. The operations manager stated that this policy applied equally to everyone and ensured fairness across the workforce. No individualized assessment of whether the team lead could perform the essential duties of her role with or without accommodation was undertaken.

Over the following months, the team lead received 3 performance reviews that rated her as meeting expectations but included comments about her pace being slower than that of younger colleagues and observations that she seemed to struggle with certain tasks that other team leads handled easily. When her contract came up for renewal, the operations manager recommended against renewal, citing operational efficiency concerns and noting that the position required someone who could keep up with the physical demands of a fast-paced environment. The human resources coordinator flagged the decision for review but was told the matter had already been decided.

The complaint before the company names 3 protected grounds and references both the blanket physical requirements policy and the specific comments in the performance reviews. It alleges that the non-renewal resulted from the intersection of the team lead's disability, her sex, and her age, and that the company's neutral-seeming policy operated to exclude her without any genuine consideration of whether she could perform the job with appropriate accommodation. The company must now determine how to respond to the complaint, what evidence it would need to justify its decisions, and whether its existing employment practices can withstand the scrutiny that a human rights proceeding will bring.