EEOC issues additional COVID-19 guidance

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued additional COVID-19 guidance for employers on September 8, 2020. In the updated guidance, the agency said employers that allowed employees to work from home during the pandemic wouldn’t be required to grant telework automatically as a reasonable accommodation:

Any time an employee requests a reasonable accommodation, the employer is entitled to understand the disability-related limitation that necessitates an accommodation. If there is no disability-related limitation that requires teleworking, then the employer does not have to provide telework as an accommodation. Or, if there is a disability-related limitation but the employer can effectively address the need with another form of reasonable accommodation at the workplace, then the employer can choose that alternative to telework. . . . The fact that an employer temporarily excused performance of one or more essential functions when it closed the workplace and enabled employees to telework for the purpose of protecting their safety from COVID-19, or otherwise chose to permit telework, does not mean that the employer permanently changed a job’s essential functions, that telework is always a feasible accommodation, or that it does not pose an undue hardship.