Disability accommodations at Labor get extra scrutiny with annual reviews

Labor Department employees with workplace accommodations in place for disabilities or medical conditions will soon have to justify them annually, as part of an agencywide review that begins next month. 

The Labor Department told employees Tuesday that its Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management (OASAM), starting in November, will conduct an annual “recertification” of reasonable accommodations currently in place for employees with disabilities and pregnancy-related medical conditions.  

“This is a review of existing, already-approved accommodations to confirm they meet employees' current needs and job duties,” OASAM wrote in the email obtained by Government Executive. “If the review identifies a change in medical needs, job duties, or accommodations' effectiveness, accommodations may be adjusted.” 

The email states that this review is “part of ongoing efforts to strengthen the RA program,” but doesn’t shed much light on the department’s motivations for carrying out these changes. A Labor Department spokesman did not immediately comment, but referred Government Executive to the contents of the staff email.

The Office of Personnel Management and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in updated guidance on telework as a reasonable accommodation, wrote in February that agencies may “find it helpful to reevaluate a significant accommodation such as recurring or full-time telework once a year to confirm the accommodation remains effective and manageable.” 

Agencies have broadly scrutinized federal employees’ use of telework since President Donald Trump directed them to return to the office full-time at the start of his second term. 

The department will begin its review with reasonable accommodation agreements approved on or before September 30, 2025. Accommodations approved in fiscal 2026 or later “will be reviewed on a separate schedule announced at a later date.” 

According to the email, OASAM will establish standardized criteria and procedures for “annual recertification reviews” later this fiscal year. 

“This review will provide DOL with a more complete and accurate record of existing accommodation agreements and strengthen the Department's ability to consistently document, administer, and track accommodations,” the email states. 

Employees may be asked to provide updated medical information “confirming their continued need for the accommodation.” Supervisors may also be asked to provide information about an employee’s essential job functions and how accommodations are being implemented. 

The Labor Department said current accommodations will remain in effect while the review is underway, unless employees are “individually notified otherwise.” 

Linnet Griffiths, a former senior advisor to the chief operating officer at the Centers for Disease Control Prevention and equal employment opportunity director at CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services, said she has “never seen this practice” for someone already approved for a permanent RA. 

“There are sometimes temporary or limited RAs that require renewal, but that is stipulated on the approval of the original RA,” Griffiths said. 

Jodi Hershey, a former reasonable accommodation specialist at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the founder of the workplace accommodation firm EASE, LLC, said “checking in on whether an accommodation is still working is good practice,” but that requiring every employee with a reasonable accommodation to recertify “is not how this has traditionally worked.”

Hershey said these new annual recertifications are “quickly becoming the pattern” across several federal agencies. 

In their updated guidance, OPM and EEOC wrote that agencies are not required under the Rehabilitation Act to continue all previously granted telework accommodations, and that “an employee is not necessarily entitled to their preferred accommodation in perpetuity.”

They wrote that after an accommodation has been granted, agencies are allowed to “assess whether there continues to be a need for reasonable accommodation based on individualized circumstances [including] whether alternative accommodations might meet those needs.”

“An agency may therefore reevaluate a previously granted telework accommodation and replace it with an effective alternative reasonable accommodation,” they wrote. 

The guidance states that agencies may replace a previously granted recurring or full-time telework accommodation with a “reasonable and effective in-office option,” such as alternative work schedules or specialized equipment. 

OPM and EEOC cautioned that agencies “should not take a blanket approach to rescind and deny all recurring or full-time telework accommodations.” 

Hershey said that DOL’s review “reaches every accommodation, for disabilities and pregnancy-related conditions alike, every year, which goes well beyond" what OPM and EEOC outlined in their guidance. 

The Labor Department’s email states that it notified employees in February 2025 that it “intended to review and recertify previously approved reasonable accommodations.” 

This annual review of reasonable accommodations is likely to add more strain to the department’s human resources workforce, which has already been spread thin by staff reductions. 

Labor Department employees told Government Executive last month that the agency is facing a backlog of hundreds of reasonable accommodation requests, and that they have waited months or longer for the agency to address their cases. A bipartisan group of lawmakers recently expressed concerns about the department's backlog. 

Government Executive first reported in August that the Labor Department is turning to artificial intelligence tools to triage new reasonable accommodation requests. 

“I'd be curious how DOL plans to do individualized re-reviews without slowing decisions for the people still waiting on an answer to their original request,” Hershey said. 

Meanwhile, the department announced this summer that sensitive personal and medical information for more than 3,000 employees seeking RAs was improperly shared to someone’s personal email account.

Hershey said many employees should consider submitting updating medical documentation, even if it isn’t required right now.

“Medical documentation is the crux of a telework accommodation, and the documentation that got telework approved a few years ago may very well not hold up now,” she said. “Agencies are starting from the position that the answer is anything but telework, and backing into the decision from there.”

Hershey said medical documentation that holds up to this new level of scrutiny does three things: clearly identifies an employee's limitations and ties each one to their job; explains what traveling to and being present at a worksite does to an employee's ability to work, and what working from home makes possible; and addresses in-office alternatives an agency is likely to offer, and whether those alternatives will be effective. 

“None of this is easy. Updating documentation takes appointments, time, and money, and that burden falls on people who are already managing a health condition. And the uncertainty is its own harm," she said. "When people are told the support that lets them do their job is up for review, the stress affects their health long before any decision is made.”