The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has updated its guidance across several different areas relating to COVID-19 and the workplace, including when employees can be required to undergo COVID-19 testing, reasonable accommodations, and parameters around mandatory vaccination programs.<\/p>\n

The EEOC\u2019s prior guidance stated that conducting mandatory worksite COVID-19 testing always met the Americans with Disabilities Act standard that any mandatory medical test be \u201cjob-related and consistent with business necessity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new guidance states that, going forward, COVID-19 workplace testing is no longer automatically compliant with this ADA standard. Instead, employers will now need to assess whether testing is job-related and consistent with business necessity, based on current pandemic and individual workplace circumstances.<\/p>\n

The EEOC identified several \u201cpossible considerations\u201d employers may use when making this assessment:<\/p>\n

\n
• \u201cThe level of community transmission\u201d<\/li>\n
• \u201cWhat types of contacts employees may have with others in the workplace or elsewhere that they are required to work, such as working with medically vulnerable individuals\u201d<\/li>\n
• \u201cThe vaccination status of employees\u201d<\/li>\n
• \u201cThe degree to which breakthrough infections are possible for employees who are \u2018up to date\u2019 on vaccinations\u201d<\/li>\n
• \u201cThe ease of transmissibility of the current variant(s)\u201d<\/li>\n
• \u201cThe possible severity of illness from the current variant\u201d<\/li>\n
• \u201cThe accuracy and speed of processing for different types of COVID-19 viral tests\u201d<\/li>\n
• \u201cThe potential impact on operations if an employee enters the workplace with COVID-19\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  The guidance further states that mandatory COVID-19 testing will meet the \u201cbusiness necessity\u201d standard when it is consistent with current guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Protection, the Food and Drug Administration, and\/or state or local public health authorities \u2013 but notes that each of those entities may periodically revise and update its guidance based on new information and changing conditions.<\/p>\n

  The updates additionally clarify that this analysis only applies to COVID-19 viral testing and not to antibody testing. Antibody testing, otherwise known as serology testing, is a blood test conducted to determine if an individual has COVID-19 antibodies. Since the CDC\u2019s July guidance clarified that antibody testing may not show whether an employee has a current infection nor whether the employee is protected from being re-infected, the EEOC\u2019s updated guidance states that antibody testing would not meet the business necessity standard.<\/p>\n

  EEOC guidance did not change regarding other COVID-19 screening methods. Employers may still ask all employees who will be physically entering the workplace if they have tested positive for COVID-19 or have symptoms associated with COVID-19 and may exclude individuals from entering the workplace based on their answers to those questions. Further, in guidance that remains unchanged, if an employer wants to ask an individual employee (as opposed to general screening methods applied to all employees) questions regarding symptoms associated with COVID-19 or request the individual undergo a temperature screening or testing, the employer must have a reasonable belief based on objective evidence that the individual may have COVID-19.<\/p>\n

  The guidance regarding when employers may require personal protective equipment and other infection control practices also was updated. Whereas previous guidance stated employers could require such control measures, the new guidance states that \u201cin most instances\u201d the federal Equal Employment Opportunity laws allow employers to require PPE and other infection control measures, though the guidance does not provide examples of where such requirements may not be permissible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has updated its guidance across several different areas relating to COVID-19 and the workplace, including when employees can be required to undergo COVID-19 testing, reasonable accommodations, and parameters around mandatory vaccination programs. The EEOC\u2019s prior guidance stated that conducting mandatory worksite COVID-19 testing always met the Americans with Disabilities Act […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1230,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industry-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetlaundry.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetlaundry.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetlaundry.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetlaundry.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1230"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetlaundry.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/planetlaundry.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11847,"href":"https:\/\/planetlaundry.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11845\/revisions\/11847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetlaundry.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetlaundry.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetlaundry.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}