Tips on making reasonable accommodations for employee vaccine mandates

You must provide a reasonable accommodation to employees who can’t take the COVID-19 vaccine because of a disability or a sincerely held religious belief, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While the process is similar to other employee accommodation requests, the Arizona attorney general recently issued an opinion offering additional guidance to employers mandating vaccinations, stating: “In most cases this will require employers to accommodate . . . employees by using the same measures [they used] for approximately the last [17] months of the pandemic (e.g., masking, spacing, increased sanitation measures, teleworking, etc.).” Many companies employed the measures with the understanding they would be temporary. What steps must you take to accommodate an employee under the circumstances?

Accommodations for disability-related reasons

Unless you can show an unvaccinated employee poses a “direct threat” to others’ health or safety in the workplace, you must consider alternatives to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate that allows the individual to perform the essential job functions. “[The] fact that most businesses have operated for months during the . . . pandemic without requiring employees to obtain a . . . vaccine will make the showing exceedingly difficult,” the opinion says. It ignores the facts that: