Winter weather brings renewed attention to seasonal vaccines—and to employers’ interest in encouraging employees to remain healthy and productive, including potentially through efforts to require or incentivize workers to be vaccinated. While not as widespread today as they were during the pandemic, such rules and incentives trigger legal obligations to provide reasonable accommodations to employees who assert that vaccinations contravene a sincerely held religious belief or are inadvisable—even harmful—given a pre-existing disability.

This article explains the current legal landscape employers face in evaluating requests for accommodations on the basis of religion or disability. It begins by explaining the recently announced standards for assessing requests for religious accommodations and summarizing the longstanding standards for assessing requests for disability-related accommodations.