Employee gets doctor's note to excuse them from being on-camera during video calls, boss balks at their excuse: 'This is completely unacceptable in my opinion'

This boss is trying to figure out if their employee is asking for an accommodation in good faith, or if they're just not suited for their job.

Workplace accommodations are generally a very good and important thing, and we should never take for granted that we've made huge strides in employee equality through them.

However, you might know a person or 2 who takes advantage of their accommodations, and it gives the entire concept a bad name.

This boss is wondering if their employee is doing exactly that with their new request, and it's an odd one, to be sure.

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via May Gauthier on Unsplash+

Irritated boss calls employee, who smiles while using her laptop in a coffee shop.
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Employee has provided a note from a GP stating I must no longer call or message them on Teams as it causes anxiety. It also states they do not have to turn their webcam on during meetings.

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Despite their actual question, it could be worth noting that the employee is taking too long to answer emails. It might help their case about the video call accommodations.
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As this person advised, the best thing to do here is to leave it to HR to decide if the note is legitimate or not

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Accommodations can only take an employee so far! Like if your main job involves a lot of heavy lifting, but after getting hired you reveal that you can't actually do it, you can't just ask for an accommodation to get out of your duties. That might be the case here — the employee's job clearly needs them to be able to verbally communicate things. If they're too distressed from doing that, they might just not be able to complete their tasks, and they shouldn't be in that role. But importantly, this person needs to let HR figure that out to avoid getting themself into any hot water.
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They expanded on their concerns, and I totally agree!

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Taking a video call off-camera for a job like this would be the complete and utter wrong move. There's too much money on the line to be goofing around!
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via Ivana Cajina For Unsplash+

Employee works from coffee shop, smiling at her laptop.
_{The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.}
Perhaps this whole situation, regardless of how it plays out between the boss, HR, and the worker, will be a wakeup call for that employee. Afterall, if they dislike several of the core tenants of the job — traveling and being an on-camera presence — perhaps they aren't suited for this line of work. Not everyone can do every job, and that's ok! You can always start fresh and find a job that you love instead of trying to fit a square into a round hole. I hope that at their next job, the employee doesn't feel the need to request doctor's notes like this. Maybe they'll find a remote work job that's more suited to their needs, or something similar that works within their capacities. It's a tough situation overall, but with accommodations at this level, I don't really know what else the employee could do to salvage their role.