Clarifying undue hardship standard in response to accommodation requests

A post-pandemic tug of war is playing out between employers calling workers back to the office and employees who want to work from home. Among other reasons, employers focus on the importance of in-person collaboration, mentoring, and performance monitoring. On the other hand, employees who worked successfully from home during the pandemic may want to continue, particularly if remote work would be a reasonable accommodation of a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or a religious need under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Tension predicted

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) predicted this tension in its technical guidance entitled “What You Should Know About COVID-19 and the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and Other EEO Laws”:

[Q. D.15] Assume that an employer grants telework to employees for the purpose of slowing or stopping the spread of COVID-19. When an employer reopens the workplace and recalls employees to the worksite, does the employer automatically have to grant telework as a reasonable accommodation to every employee with a disability who requests to continue this arrangement as an ADA/Rehabilitation Act accommodation?