Leave accommodations without the headache

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) has been in the works for a long time. It was signed into law in December of 2022, became effective in June of 2023, final regulations were released in April of 2024 and it finally went into effect on June 18, 2024. The PWFA requires that all employers with 15 or more employees provide reasonable accommodations for a qualified applicant’s or employee’s known limitations related to, affected by, or arising out of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions unless the accommodation will cause the employer “undue hardship.”

Short answer: yes. There are two ways Cocoon will prompt employees to explore a leave accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). 1) If an employee does not qualify for medical leave based on applicable leave laws and your company policy, and 2) If the employee tries to extend a medical leave but has exhausted all their time under applicable leave laws (known as “entitlements”) or your policies. In either scenario, Cocoon will prompt employees to consider a leave accommodation and walk them through their options and the process.

To be protected under the ADA, an employee or job seeker with a disability must also be qualified to perform the “essential functions of the job” with or without reasonable accommodations that do not pose undue hardship on the employer.

Like the ADA, an employee is qualified if they can perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodation that does not pose an undue hardship. “With or without” reasonable accommodation just means that employees can perform essential job duties on their own or with the help of a reasonable accommodation. Under the PWFA, “essential functions” of a position are “the fundamental duties of the job (vague, we know, but you’ll have to take that up with Congress). Unlike the ADA, an employee is also qualified if they cannot perform the essential function of the job and if these three things are true:

1. The inability to perform the essential functions is “temporary” 
2. The employee can perform the functions “in the near future”
3. The employee’s inability to perform the essential functions can be reasonably accommodated

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No, at this time Cocoon only handles leave accommodations.

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These are often (unhelpfully) defined as the basic job duties. This phrase exists to ensure that anyone with a disability will not be deemed unqualified because of their inability to perform marginal job functions. If there is a written job description, that’s usually a good place to start to determine essential job functions.

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At Cocoon, we think of accommodations under laws like the ADA and PWFA in two categories: leave accommodations, and non-leave accommodations. For leave accommodations: a reasonable accommodation can include modifying existing leave policies and providing leave even when it’s not covered by existing policies or state/federal leave laws (EEOC). But there is no rule that says an employer must always provide leave as an accommodation. It depends on the facts in each situation (hence the case-by-case assessment).

Cocoon charges an upfront annual per employee per year fee based on company size plus a one-time implementation fee, giving employers transparency and predictability into their annual costs. All leave types are included in Cocoon’s standard pricing. Check out our pricing page for more details.