Ten Emerging Issues to Consider for Disability Accommodation Post-Pandemic

Littler Law Firm created a list of emerging issues U.S. businesses should consider as their employees return to the office after the pandemic. Public health experts, economists and policymakers increasingly speak of “endemicity,” a phase in which COVID-19 transmission rates fall to a constant but manageable baseline level, perhaps confined to certain regions, rather than actively accelerating, and spreading throughout the population in epidemic fashion. Some refer to this next phase as “living with COVID” or even consider it a “return to normal.”
 
In the employment law context, however, “living with COVID” does not represent a return to normal. Rather, developments since 2020 make clear that human resources professionals can expect—and are already encountering—numerous COVID-19 related challenges to their disability accommodation practices.
 
This insight reviews a top ten list of emerging issues in this area, broadly relating to increased claims for accommodation, administering the interactive process, and assessing the reasonableness of proposed accommodations. 
 
Read the list.