“Let’s upstage The Employer Handbook by releasing our vaccine guidance” — EEOC, possibly

Approximately 6 hours and 37 minutes after my blog post yesterday about “Preparing for Exceptions To Your Business’s COVID-19 Vaccine Program” went live, I received an email from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

It read something like this:

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Dear Passive-Aggressive Employment Law Blogger:

We read with interest your blog post entitled “Preparing for Exceptions To Your Business’s COVID-19 Vaccine Program,” in which you explained how to accommodate employees with disabilities and religious objections to COVID-19 vaccines. Although we found your tongue-in-cheek plea for jet fuel money to smack more of desperation than playful humor, overall, the post was generally well written. Kudos!

But while you dare to dream, please hold our proverbial drink as we now issue our ‘official’ COVID-19 vaccine guidance to our millions of subscribers and constituents. How do you like them  🍎🍏??

XOXO,

EEOC

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Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating just a bit about the EEOC email. You can judge for yourself.

Either way, the EEOC did update its COVID-19 vaccine guidance yesterday, which I then posted to LinkedIn as a way to generate cheap likes and comments to promote thought leadership and HR compliance.

You can also read it here on the EEOC’s website.

TL;DR, there are four main takeaways from the EEOC’s updated guidance:

1️⃣ Employers can require vaccinations, but they should be “job-related and consistent with business necessity.”
2️⃣ Employers can require proof of vaccination.
3️⃣ Be prepared to accommodate employees with disabilities and religious objections, which we explored yesterday.
4️⃣ Be careful with health pre-screens. They implicate the ADA and possibly GINA too.