EEOC Says Employers Must Justify Mandatory COVID-19 Testing

Jul 26, 2022, 10:09 AM

(from Society for Human Resources Management) Employers will need to assess pandemic and workplace circumstances in order to justify mandatory COVID-19 testing of employees going forward, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced in a July guidance update. The EEOC said employers must show that coronavirus testing is job-related and consistent with business necessity, as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The agency provided several possible factors to consider when making an assessment, including:

The level of community transmission.
The vaccination status of employees.
The degree of breakthrough infections of vaccinated workers.
The transmissibility of current variants.
The possible severity of illness from a current variant.
Contacts employees may have with others during the course of their work.
The potential impact on operations if an employee enters the workplace with COVID-19.