Navigating Reasonable Accommodations in the Time of COVID-19

In a bylined article in Crain’s Detroit Business, Susan Hartmus Hiser, Regional Managing Partner in the firm’s Detroit office, offers insight into how employers should handle accommodation requests during the pandemic. While remote work became widespread during COVID, employers are not necessarily required to offer remote schedules in perpetuity. “The fact that employers excused employees from certain essential functions during COVID, such as in-person work, does not mean that they must continue to do so after the workplace reopens if it would mean continuing to excuse the employee from performing an essential function.”

Susan also discusses religious exemptions and vaccine mandates. “While employers may be required to accommodate employees’ sincerely held religious beliefs, practices and observances, employees do not get a free pass just because they personally or philosophically object to receiving the vaccine.”

To read the article visit Crain’s Detroit Business.