Jamie Hasty, SESCO Management Consultants

With much of the country seeing rapid increases in COVID cases and/or exposures, continued push for vaccination and ever-changing direction from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) or even your respective state governing body, employers are left frustrated and searching for answers. 

The media also plays a large role in pushing vast information which, at times, can be tedious and confusing. Can I mandate the vaccine? What if someone refuses to get the vaccine, can I terminate? Can I offer incentives to my staff to get vaccinated? So on and so forth. Let’s review what is legal for employers to do regarding COVID vaccine and how to avoid potential discrimination issues with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or in civil litigation.

As a reminder, The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has issued new COVID-19 vaccine guidance for employers. Consider key points:

Confidentiality

– Information about an employee’s vaccination status is considered “confidential medical information” under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

– Like all medical information, information about an employee’s vaccination status must be kept confidential and stored separately from the employee’s personnel file. Unfortunately, with this general rule in mind, the EEOC has not yet offered guidance for employers on how to easily identify the vaccination status of employees at the workplace to enforce ongoing mask mandates for non-vaccinated workers (e.g., via a badge or other outward identifier).

Employer Inquiries

– Employers may ask employees to provide documentation or other confirmation of the vaccination from such sources without the request being a “disability-related inquiry.”

Vaccinating Subsets of Employees

– Employers may offer vaccinations to certain groups of employees and not to others (e.g., assembly versus office workers), so long as the employer does not discriminate in the offering based on a protected class.

Vaccine Incentives

• Employers may offer incentives to employees who voluntarily receive the vaccine from a third-party vaccine provider (health department, pharmacy, personal medical provider, etc.).
• Employers may offer incentives to employees to voluntarily provide documentation that they received the vaccine from a third-party vaccine provider.
• Employers may offer incentives to employees who voluntarily receive a vaccination administered by the employer or its agent, so long as the incentive is not “so substantial as to be coercive.” One gap in the guidance provided by the EEOC is any further discussion of what constitutes a “coercive” incentive. What is so substantial as to be coercive and thus no longer voluntary under the ADA? Hopefully, the EEOC will further clarify this question but an incentive under $500 would likely be permissible. 
• Employers may not offer an incentive to an employee in return for the employee’s family member getting vaccinated by the employer or its agent.

So how does an employer handle a mandatory vaccination policy? Employer required vaccinations, like the flu shot, have been a common practice for years and the COVID-19 vaccine is no different. Employers who want to require employees to take the vaccine should know that federal law allows employees to ask to be exempted from the requirement due to medical or religious reasons. 

Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires employers to provide reasonable accommodation to qualified applicants and employees with a disability, unless the employer can demonstrate that doing so creates an undue hardship to the employer or poses a direct threat to the safety of the employee or others in the workplace.

Employers also have an obligation to accommodate an employee’s sincerely held religious belief under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (Title VII), unless the accommodation creates an undue hardship. A sincerely held religious belief can include an employee’s religious-based objection to vaccinations.

Below are the proper steps to handle a current employee’s accommodation request to be exempt from the employer’s vaccination requirement(s).

1. Is the Employer Covered by the ADAA and Title VII?

All employers, including state and local government employers, with 15 or more employees are covered under the ADA and Title VII. Federal government employers are also covered by Title VII; however, for disability accommodations, federal government employers must comply with the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 instead of the ADA, although the protections are very similar.

Please also note that states have their own EEO laws that apply to businesses with fewer than 15 employees. It is imperative that businesses consult their employment attorney or HR Consultant to ensure they understand which law(s) is applicable to their organization. 

2. Have a Policy to Handle Reasonable Accommodations 

Organizations should implement or review policies and procedures for handling requests for medical and religious accommodations.

Existing job descriptions should also be reviewed to confirm they include all aspects of the job and include any requirements for mandatory vaccinations.

3. Review Requests for Exemption from Vaccine

Employee requests for exemption from the vaccination requirement should be reviewed to determine if the request falls under the ADA or Title VII obligations for the employer to consider accommodation. A request for exemption due to a personal preference not to receive a vaccine is not protected by law, and the employer should reiterate the company policy and the consequences for not complying with the vaccination mandate.

Managers and supervisors should understand how to recognize a request for accommodation and who to relay the information to within the company. 

Requests for accommodation due to a disability or religious belief should be further reviewed following the steps below. 

4.  Engage in the Interactive Process

Employers should engage in a process in which the employee, his or her health care provider or religious leader, and the employer share information about the nature of the disability or religious belief and the limitations on receiving an employer-required vaccination. This process is referred to as the interactive process and involves a good-faith effort by the employer and the employee to discuss the employee’s specific circumstances. The purpose of this discussion is to determine what (if any) accommodations may be needed.

The interactive process involves a review of the accommodation request from the employee. Neither the ADA nor Title VII requires the request to be put in writing; however, having documentation of the request is a best practice.

For ADA accommodations, the employee should be asked to provide appropriate documentation from his or her health care provider regarding the nature of any impairment(s), the duration of the need for accommodation and the extent to which the impairment(s) conflict with the employer’s vaccination requirement.

For religious accommodations, the employee should be asked to provide an explanation of his or her sincerely held religious beliefs and, if necessary, appropriate documentation from his or her religious leader regarding the religious belief that conflicts with the employer’s vaccination requirement.

5.  Determine Which Accommodation May Apply

Organizations should use the definition of a “disability” and a “qualified individual with a disability” under provisions of the ADA, along with information obtained during the interactive process, to help make this determination. The ADA defines disability as an impairment that substantially limits a major life activity. 

Title VII requires employers to accommodate only those religious beliefs that are “sincerely held.” Because the definition of religion is broad and protects beliefs and practices with which the employer may be unfamiliar, the employer should ordinarily assume that an employee’s request for religious accommodation is based on a sincerely held religious belief. If, however, the employer has an objective basis for questioning either the religious nature or the sincerity of a particular belief or practice, the employer would be justified in seeking additional supporting information.

6. Review for Undue Hardship or Direct Threat

The ADA requires employers to grant an accommodation request, unless the accommodation would result in undue hardship on the employer or poses a direct threat to the health and safety of others. 

Employers should conduct an individualized assessment of four factors in determining whether a direct threat exists: the duration of the risk; the nature and severity of the potential harm; the likelihood that the potential harm will occur; and the imminence of the potential harm. If an employer determines that an individual who cannot be vaccinated due to disability poses a direct threat at the worksite, the employer cannot exclude the employee from the workplace—or take any other action—unless there is no way to provide a reasonable accommodation (absent undue hardship) that would eliminate or reduce this risk so the unvaccinated employee does not pose a direct threat.

Under the ADA, undue hardship must be based on an individualized assessment of current circumstances that show that a specific reasonable accommodation would cause significant difficulty or expense. Under Title VII, the undue hardship defense to providing religious accommodation requires a showing that the proposed accommodation in a particular case poses a “more than de minimis” cost or burden.

If an employee cannot get vaccinated for COVID-19 because of a disability or sincerely held religious belief, practice, or observance, and there is no reasonable accommodation possible, then it may be lawful for the employer to exclude the employee from the workplace. 

7. Notify the Employee

The next step is for HR to notify the employee in writing that his or her requested accommodation has been approved or denied. If the request is denied, the employer should communicate and document any available alternative accommodations.

HR must maintain all copies of accommodation requests, supporting information and documentation, including denials, in a file separate from the employee personnel file, consistent with the confidentiality requirements of the ADA and to protect sensitive religious preference information.

Managers and supervisors must understand that it is unlawful to disclose that an employee is receiving a reasonable accommodation or to retaliate against an employee for requesting an accommodation.

About the Author

SESCO Management Consultants will continue to monitor and report on developments with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic and will post updates in the firm’s COVID-19 Resource Center as additional information becomes available. SESCO specializes in human resources consulting services and federal and state employment law compliance.  We welcome your call to discuss compliance questions as well as provide to you, as an ASA member, free telephone and email consulting for human resource related questions or needs. Contact a SESCO Management Consultant today at (423) 764-4127 or via email at sesco@sescomgt.com