Employer Advisory
What the new EEOC and OPM guidance means for private employers navigating return to office mandates and a coming wave of disability accommodation requests.
What Happened
On or around February 11–12, 2026, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) and the Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”) jointly released a technical assistance FAQ document addressing telework as a reasonable accommodation for employees with disabilities (“February Guidance”). The February Guidance explains how existing statutory requirements, outlined in the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and Rehabilitation Act, apply to telework. Although the February Guidance is not legally binding, the interpretive value is useful because both federal and private employers have to make individualized accommodation decisions that reflect the statutory scheme created by the ADA and Rehabilitation Act. Although courts are no longer required to defer to agency interpretations of statutes, agency guidance is still treated as persuasive authority.The February Guidance should be read as a signal of how federal anti-discrimination law may be enforced, not as a safe harbor.
Why Private Employers Should Pay Attention
If an organization has tightened or is considering tightening in-office expectations, disability accommodation requests tied to telework will follow.
Some will be straightforward. Others will involve anxiety disorders, autoimmune conditions, post-COVID complications, or other diagnoses that managers have never analyzed in relation to in-person work requirements. A handful will involve employees currently working from states where the company is not registered as an employer, which creates a separate category of legal and tax exposure that no accommodation FAQ resolves. Address those situations with employment counsel before anything else.
The guidance also does not address accommodation obligations under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act or Title VII religious accommodation provisions. Those generate their own accommodation requests in the same return-to-office context. Employers should treat those as parallel tracks requiring separate analysis.
What the Guidance Actually Says and What It Means for You
The FAQs address several areas with direct operational relevance for private-sector HR and legal teams.
1. Telework is not a single accommodation; it is a category.
The guidance distinguishes between full-time remote work, recurring hybrid arrangements, and situational telework. Each carries different considerations for essential function analysis, performance management, and documentation.
When evaluating a request, be precise about what the employee is actually asking for and whether a narrower form of telework would be effective.
2. Neither automatic approval nor blanket denial holds up.
Individualized assessment is required every time. Employers who respond to return-to-office pressure with a policy of denying all telework accommodation requests face significant legal exposure.
Equally problematic are employers who approved pandemic-era remote arrangements without documentation and now cannot distinguish informal flexibility from legally required accommodations. If it is unclear which remote employees have accommodation agreements on file, that is worth clarifying now.
3. Revisiting older telework arrangements is permissible but requires care.
A change in business circumstances, including a newly enforced return-to-office policy, can justify reopening an existing accommodation. What it cannot do is replace the interactive process.
Treat each revisitation as a fresh assessment. Request updated medical information where appropriate, consider whether in-office alternatives have become available, and document the reasoning.
4. Anxiety-related requests require analysis, not a default answer.
The guidance clarifies that the ADA does not create a general right to be free from workplace discomfort or distress, including anxiety. The operative question is whether the employee’s symptoms impose a material barrier to performing job functions or accessing a benefit or privilege of employment.
That is a factual determination, not a reflexive yes or no. Consider in-office alternatives such as environmental modifications, schedule adjustments, or reduced-distraction workspaces before concluding that telework is the only effective option.
5. Commute-related requests are generally not covered.
Employers are not required to eliminate commuting as an accommodation. However, flexible scheduling or limited situational telework may be appropriate in narrow circumstances, for example where commuting itself significantly worsens a qualifying condition.
Analyze the underlying functional limitation, not the commute in isolation.
A Word on Documentation
Telework accommodation requests often require more specific medical documentation than other accommodation requests. A note confirming a diagnosis is rarely sufficient. What is needed is information about functional limitations, specifically what the employee cannot do in an office environment and why telework would address that barrier.
Employers are entitled to request this information. What employers should avoid is treating every accommodation request as an open-ended investigation.
Contradictory evidence should be handled carefully, consistently, and with counsel involved when the situation is ambiguous.
Pandemic-Era Practices Do Not Rewrite Essential Functions
This is one of the more consequential points in the guidance and one that private employers sometimes get wrong.
The fact that a job was performed remotely for two or three years does not automatically reclassify in-person presence as non-essential. Essential function analysis is grounded in current operational needs, legitimate business judgment, and the terms under which the position was filled, not a temporary remote-work period.
Review and update job descriptions to reflect current requirements before a dispute arises where missing documentation becomes the problem.
Practical Steps to Take Now
None of the following requires waiting for a request to arrive:
- Audit job descriptions against current operational requirements and confirm which functions genuinely require in-person presence.
- Identify remote employees working from states where the company is not registered as an employer and escalate those situations immediately.
- Review existing telework accommodation agreements. Confirm what accommodations are documented and whether job functions have changed.
- Standardize the interactive process. Inconsistency across managers or departments is a common source of risk.
- Update accommodation request forms to focus on functional limitations, not simply diagnosis confirmation.
- Train managers on how to receive accommodation requests, what to say, what not to say, and when to escalate.
- Consider centralized review for high-impact telework decisions to promote consistency.
On the Multi-State Remote Work Issue
If an employee is working from a state where the company is not registered as an employer, the exposure begins well before any accommodation analysis.
State income tax withholding, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation coverage, and state employment law compliance are all triggered by work location. The accommodation FAQs do not address this. No interactive process or documentation protocol resolves it.
Address multi-state exposure before a return-to-office policy generates formal accommodation requests that reveal where the workforce is actually located.
Strategic Readiness, Not Reactive Scrambling
Return-to-office decisions intersect with disability law, wage compliance, documentation standards, and multi-state exposure. What appears to be a simple operational policy can quickly become layered legal risk.
A disciplined accommodation process protects both operational flexibility and defensible decision-making. Clear job descriptions, consistent interactive procedures, and documented reasoning reduce the likelihood that telework disputes escalate into formal claims.
Organizations preparing now will handle the coming wave of telework requests with structure instead of improvisation. If your telework accommodation process has not been pressure-tested recently, it may be time to take a closer look.