Many agencies have requested assistance from the EEOC and OPM to ensure their implementation of the President’s instruction remains consistent with the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Image: Arturo Grados Luyando/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffOPM has told agencies that they “may revisit and reassess telework accommodations that have been granted in the past” due to a disabling condition or medical condition, to determine whether employees remain eligible for offsite work under that exception to the Trump administration’s broad return-to-office directive.
A memo to agencies notes that “both before and after the President’s return-to-office directive, many federal employees have requested and received telework as a reasonable accommodation.”
Similarly, “Many agencies have requested assistance from the EEOC and OPM to ensure their implementation of the President’s instruction remains consistent with the Rehabilitation Act of 1973,” says an accompanying question-and-answer document. That law provides equal employment opportunities for covered federal employees with disabilities, including through “reasonable accommodation.”
That document says it “aims to assist agencies in identifying when they are required to grant or continue telework accommodations, when they are permitted to rescind, modify, or deny telework accommodations, and how they can more effectively structure their processes for telework accommodations moving forward.”
In sum, the guidance states (in the memo’s words) that an agency:
• “may require that requests for telework accommodations be supported by medical documentation or other appropriate evidence;
• “may ask an employee’s health care provider about mitigating measures or self-accommodations;
• “is not required to ignore evidence tending to show that an employee is not entitled to an accommodation or requested one in bad faith; and
• “should centralize review of telework accommodations to ensure compliance and consistency.”
“Reasonable accommodations must relate to the employee’s employment, and need not be provided simply because they might personally benefit an employee,” it adds.
Prior guidance under the presidential memo “reflects that telework and remote work are only available in very limited situations: where telework is situational in nature (not routine or recurring), approved by the agency, and meets a compelling agency need; where telework or remote work are used by the agency as a reasonable accommodation for a qualifying disability or medical condition; or in cases where there are other compelling reasons certified by the agency head (such as in the case of military spouses, or where remote work or telework may be necessary to retain an employee with a critical skillset that cannot easily be replaced),” the memo says.
In a recent posting, OPM director Scott Kupor said that about 10 percent of federal employees fall under exceptions, although he didn’t specify how many were based on reasonable accommodations.
The memo follows an update of guidance on severe weather and other emergencies that among things addresses use of situational telework in such an event—a policy that experienced its first test with two recent major winter storms in the eastern half of the country.
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