Pregnant Workers Fairness Act: What HR Teams Must Do Now

For decades, pregnant employees fell into a gap between two federal laws. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 barred discrimination but never required an employer to change anything about the job. The ADA required accommodations, but only for conditions that met its definition of "disability" - and normal pregnancy symptoms usually didn't. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), signed into law in December 2022 (Pub. L. 117-328, codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000gg) and effective June 27, 2023, closes that gap by putting an affirmative duty on employers: accommodate limitations from pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions, unless doing so is genuinely an undue hardship. This is already one of the most actively enforced areas of employment law, and HR teams that don't know where the PWFA's obligations diverge from the ADA's are the ones who end up explaining a denial to the EEOC.

Understanding the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

The PWFA covers all private and public sector employers with 15 or more employees, as well as Congress and federal agencies (EEOC, "What You Should Know About the PWFA"). It protects "qualified employees" - a term defined under the PWFA somewhat differently than under the ADA. Under the PWFA, an employee is qualified even if they are temporarily unable to perform one or more essential functions of the position, provided the inability is temporary, the employee could perform the essential functions in the near future, and the inability can be reasonably accommodated (EEOC Summary of Key Provisions of the Final Rule; the EEOC’s final rule interprets "in the near future" as generally up to approximately 40 weeks, assessed case by case). This is a major departure from the ADA, which requires the employee to be able to perform essential functions with or without accommodation.

The EEOC issued final regulations interpreting the PWFA on April 15, 2024 (published in the Federal Register on April 19, 2024, effective June 18, 2024), providing detailed guidance on what constitutes a "related medical condition." The regulations, codified at 29 CFR Part 1636, explicitly include: current pregnancy, past pregnancy, potential pregnancy, lactation, fertility treatments, contraception use, menstruation, menopause, termination of pregnancy (including miscarriage, stillbirth, and abortion), and any physical or mental condition related to these. This list is illustrative, not exhaustive; see the EEOC’s Summary of Key Provisions of the Final Rule for additional context, and the full regulatory text at 29 CFR Part 1636 for the complete, authoritative definition. The breadth of this list means HR teams must treat a far wider range of medical circumstances as potentially triggering PWFA accommodation obligations.

Responsibilities of HR Teams

HR teams administer PWFA compliance day to day, and most of the work happens before a request ever lands on a desk. Accommodation policies and manager training need to be rewritten to cover PWFA requirements specifically, not just patched onto existing ADA and FMLA processes. That distinction matters more than it sounds: most accommodation policies were built around the ADA’s "disability" standard, which requires the employee to show substantial impairment. The PWFA has no such bar. An employee with ordinary pregnancy fatigue is entitled to the interactive process even though that fatigue would never qualify as an ADA disability.

Key HR responsibilities include:

• Updating the employee handbook, accommodation policy, and manager training materials to specifically address PWFA rights and procedures
• Posting the updated EEOC "Know Your Rights" poster, which reflects PWFA protections, in all covered workplaces
• Training managers and supervisors to recognize PWFA accommodation requests - which may be informal and do not require the employee to mention the PWFA by name - and to route them promptly to HR
• Establishing a consistent, documented interactive process for every PWFA accommodation request
• Maintaining records of accommodation requests, the interactive process, decisions made, and the rationale for any denial
• Monitoring for retaliation risk: the PWFA expressly prohibits retaliation and coercion against employees who request accommodations, oppose PWFA violations, or participate in PWFA proceedings (42 U.S.C. § 2000gg-2(f))

What Counts as a Reasonable Accommodation?

The EEOC’s final regulations identify four accommodations - referred to in the regulation as "predictable assessments" - that will, in virtually all cases, be found reasonable and not an undue hardship (29 CFR § 1636.3; EEOC Summary of Key Provisions). These include:

• Allowing the employee to carry or keep water near them and drink as needed
• Additional restroom breaks beyond standard policy
• Allowing the employee to sit when their position normally requires standing, or to stand when it normally requires sitting
• Breaks to eat and drink

Past those four automatic cases, the range gets much wider, and the right answer depends on the job. A warehouse role might mean temporarily pulling an employee off tasks that involve heavy lifting or chemical exposure. An office role might mean a later start time or a stretch of remote work. Other common requests: reassignment to a vacant light-duty position, time off for prenatal appointments, or a uniform adjustment for physical comfort. None of these is owed automatically the way the "predictable assessment" accommodations are - each has to go through the interactive process on its own facts.

The interactive process under the PWFA does not require the employer to provide the employee’s preferred accommodation - only an effective one. However, the employer must genuinely consider the employee’s request, explain in writing why an alternative is being provided if the requested accommodation is denied, and document the full discussion.

Defining Undue Hardship Under the PWFA

The PWFA adopts a definition of undue hardship modeled on the ADA’s: "significant difficulty or expense" for the employer. Per the EEOC’s final regulation at 29 CFR § 1636.3(j), the factors considered - with no single factor being dispositive - are: (1) the nature and net cost of the accommodation; (2) the overall financial resources of the facility or facilities involved, the number of persons employed there, and the effect on expenses and resources; (3) the overall financial resources of the covered entity, including its size, number of employees, and number, type, and location of its facilities; (4) the type of operation of the covered entity, including the composition, structure, and functions of its workforce, and the geographic and administrative relationship of the facilities in question to the covered entity; and (5) the impact of the accommodation upon the operation of the facility, including the impact on the ability of other employees to perform their duties and the impact on the facility's ability to conduct business.

Critically, the PWFA’s undue hardship bar is high for the four "predictable assessment" accommodations described above - the EEOC’s own guidance states these will, in virtually all cases, be reasonable and not an undue hardship. For other accommodations, employers denying a request should be prepared to document the specific factors above with concrete, verifiable detail rather than general or speculative operational concerns. Because an improperly documented or improperly reasoned denial exposes the organization to an EEOC charge, HR teams should consult qualified employment counsel before denying any PWFA accommodation request on undue hardship grounds, and should not rely on this article as a substitute for that review.

The PWFA and the Hiring Process

The PWFA applies from the point of hire through the entire employment relationship - including the application and selection process. An employer may not refuse to hire a candidate because of pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition if the candidate could perform the essential functions of the position with a reasonable accommodation. Hiring managers must not ask about pregnancy status, plan to become pregnant, or related medical conditions during the interview process, and must evaluate candidates on their qualifications for the role, not assumptions about future accommodation needs.

That has a direct effect on how job descriptions get written. "Essential function" needs to mean what it says: something the role genuinely requires, not something that's merely traditional or convenient to list. A function that could be reassigned temporarily without undue hardship shouldn't be marked essential if the accommodation analysis is going to hinge on that label later.

Best Practices for HR Teams: A PWFA Compliance Checklist

The following checklist reflects current EEOC guidance and best practices for PWFA compliance as of 2026:

• Confirm that your EEOC "Know Your Rights" poster is the updated version that includes PWFA protections
• Revise your accommodation policy to explicitly cover pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions as separate PWFA-triggering categories, distinct from ADA disabilities
• Update manager training to include PWFA-specific recognition triggers, escalation steps, and prohibited conduct (denial without interactive process, retaliation, forced leave)
• Create a PWFA intake form that employees can use to initiate accommodation requests; include space for the employee to describe the limitation, the requested adjustment, and any supporting information they wish to provide
• Establish a written interactive process protocol: who initiates it, what documentation is collected, who has decision authority, and what the response timeline is. Neither the PWFA statute nor the EEOC’s final regulations specify a fixed number of days for a response - the EEOC has said only that delays in the interactive process may themselves violate the Act given the time-sensitive nature of pregnancy-related limitations (see 29 CFR Part 1636, Appendix A). Set an internal response-time target that fits your organization and document the reason for any delay; consult counsel if you are uncertain whether a given timeline creates legal risk
• Build a log of all PWFA requests, outcomes, and any follow-up actions in a secure, access-controlled HR system
• Review your anti-retaliation training to confirm it covers PWFA-specific protected activities
• Audit any forced-leave policies that automatically remove pregnant employees from work before a certain gestational stage. The PWFA prohibits requiring an employee to take leave, paid or unpaid, if another reasonable accommodation would let the employee keep working (42 U.S.C. § 2000gg-1); a blanket forced-leave policy is unlikely to satisfy this standard unless the specific essential functions genuinely cannot be accommodated - confirm your policy with counsel

PWFA in the Broader Compliance Landscape

The PWFA doesn't replace the PDA, ADA, FMLA, or Title VII - it sits alongside them, and it doesn't override state or local rules that offer more protection (EEOC, "What You Should Know About the PWFA"). And several states go further than the federal floor. California's Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) is broader. So is New York's Pregnant Workers' Fairness Act, which predates the federal version by eight years. New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination adds its own layer on top. The specifics, covered employer size, leave duration, available remedies, differ by state and shift over time, so don't treat this summary as the final word: check current requirements with local counsel for each location where you have employees. If your workforce spans multiple states, the practical task is mapping which standard applies where and making sure policy and training reflect the strictest one in force at each site.

Treegarden's HR workflows are configurable by location, so a company running accommodation processes in California and New Jersey does not have to build two separate systems by hand.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act?

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) is a US federal law that requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for pregnant workers unless it causes undue hardship.

Who is covered under the PWFA?

The PWFA applies to employers with 15 or more employees and protects qualified employees from discrimination related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.

What are examples of reasonable accommodations under the PWFA?

Reasonable accommodations may include modified work schedules, ergonomic support, temporary reassignment, or lighter duties, depending on the employee’s specific needs.

Can an employer deny an accommodation request under the PWFA?

An employer can only deny an accommodation request if it would impose an undue hardship, which is defined as causing significant difficulty or expense to the business.

How can HR teams ensure compliance with the PWFA?

HR teams should update policies, train managers, establish clear processes for accommodation requests, and use tools like Treegarden to streamline compliance tracking.