Best practices for ending pandemic-related work-from-home arrangements

As the COVID-19 outbreak begins to subside, many employers are preparing to call employees back to the workplace. What’s the best way to go about it? And can you now refuse to let employees work from home as a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) even though they may have been teleworking for upwards of an entire year?

Telework set-ups ‘weren’t perfect’

Many employers turned to telework during the COVID-19 pandemic. Often they will tell you the arrangements “weren’t perfect” but were necessary to survive the unprecedented circumstances.

My clients often changed (or were forced to alter) the nature or extent of the duties performed by teleworking employees. They simply couldn’t perform certain tasks from home.

In addition, the pandemic itself eliminated certain job duties. For example, under normal circumstances, attendance in the workplace may have been considered an essential function so an employee could supervise direct reports or participate in significant staff meetings. During the outbreak, many of those duties went away.

5 steps to get back to normal

Give employees advance notice about termination of teleworking arrangements. Being summoned back to the workplace can have a tremendous impact on your employees, who have likely adapted their own altered schedules and routines during the pandemic. Provide as much advance notice as possible so they’ll know when they are expected to return.