How Return-to-Office Mandates Are Driving Workplace Accommodation Requests: WorkWell Evals 2026 Demand Report

Over the last three months of 2026, WorkWell Evals completed 45 ADA workplace accommodation evaluations for employees across 21 states. This report summarizes what those intakes tell us about who is asking for workplace accommodations right now, why they're asking, and what their clinical and employment context looks like.

The headline: return-to-office mandates have become the single largest driver of accommodation demand at WorkWell, and federal employees are responding disproportionately. The customers seeking accommodations are not new hires looking for shortcuts. They are tenured employees, most with prior mental health diagnoses and many already engaged in active treatment, who are using clinical documentation to navigate a workplace that has changed under them.

Key findings at a glance

• 53% of customers cite an active or announced return-to-office mandate as the context for seeking accommodation

• 86% of federal sector customers cite an RTO mandate, compared to 39% of private sector customers

• 80% of customers have a prior mental health diagnosis before reaching WorkWell

• 31% of customers work for federal civilian agencies, the largest single sector

• 73% have been at their current employer for 2 or more years; 47% for 5+ years

• 89% had submitted, were planning to submit, or already held an accommodation before completing a WorkWell evaluation

• Anxiety appears in 83% of customer diagnoses; depression in 47%

• 49% are actively engaged in mental health treatment at the time of evaluation

About this report

This report draws on 45 intake forms completed by WorkWell Evals customers between February 14, 2026 and May 19, 2026. All findings are aggregate and de-identified in accordance with HIPAA Safe Harbor de-identification standards described in 45 CFR 164.514(b)(2). No individual customers, employers, or identifying details appear in this report. Findings are reported only where the underlying cell size is sufficient to prevent re-identification.

WorkWell Evals is an administrative platform; clinical evaluations are conducted by independent PSYPACT-licensed psychologists who exercise full clinical judgment. Sample size at N=45 is modest and findings should be read as patterns in an early customer cohort rather than population-level estimates. This report will be updated quarterly as the dataset grows.

Finding 1: Return-to-office mandates are the dominant driver of demand

Over half of all WorkWell customers (53%) reported that their employer had announced or implemented a return-to-office mandate or significant work arrangement change at the time they sought an accommodation evaluation. This is the single most common contextual factor cited in our intake data.

The pattern reflects the broader policy landscape. In January 2025, the federal government issued an executive order directing executive branch employees to return to in-person work, and a wave of large private employers including Amazon, Dell, and JPMorgan implemented their own RTO mandates through 2025 and into 2026. In response, the EEOC and Office of Personnel Management issued joint technical guidance in February 2026 clarifying when telework must continue as a reasonable accommodation under the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Our intake data suggests employees are responding to this environment by formally documenting accommodation needs that, in many cases, predated the mandate. Of customers currently working in fully remote arrangements at the time of evaluation, almost half reported an active or announced RTO mandate threatening that arrangement.

Finding 2: Federal employees are responding at scale

Federal civilian agencies account for 31% of WorkWell customers, making them the largest single sector represented. This is well above what federal workforce share would predict at the national employment level, where federal civilians make up roughly 2% of the U.S. workforce.

The federal cohort is also concentrated around RTO. Among federal sector customers, 86% cite an RTO mandate, compared to 39% in the private sector. The 47-point gap reflects the uniformly applied nature of the federal directive. Where private employers' RTO policies vary by company and role, the federal directive affected millions of workers at once.

The federal pattern in our data is consistent with the regulatory attention this issue has received. The EEOC's February 2026 FAQs were explicitly written to help federal agencies navigate accommodation requests in the context of the executive order, and legal commentary has highlighted that federal accommodation processes are likely to be a leading indicator of how private sector RTO accommodation cases will be handled.

Finding 3: Customers are tenured employees with established clinical histories

The accommodation-seeking population in our data does not match the "new hire trying to game the system" caricature that sometimes appears in policy discourse.

• 47% have been at their current employer 5 or more years

• 27% have been there 2-5 years

• 73% combined are tenured employees at 2+ years

• 80% have a prior mental health diagnosis

• 49% are actively in mental health treatment

This profile suggests that workplace accommodation requests at WorkWell are not impulsive or opportunistic. They come from employees with stable employment histories and existing clinical relationships, who are formalizing documentation to navigate a changing workplace environment.

The diagnosis distribution further supports this. Of customers with a prior diagnosis, 42% have a comorbid presentation of both anxiety and depression, and 53% report having been diagnosed by a psychiatrist. These are not first-time clinical encounters being created for the purpose of accommodation. They are existing conditions being formally documented for ADA purposes.

Finding 4: Anxiety dominates the condition mix, with significant comorbidity

Among customers with a prior diagnosis, the most frequently reported conditions are:

Additional conditions including bipolar disorder, OCD, autism spectrum disorder, and sleep disorders appear in our data but at sample sizes too small to report individually with confidence.

The 42% comorbidity rate between anxiety and depression is notable. It tracks with broader epidemiology — the National Institute of Mental Health estimates substantial overlap between anxiety and depressive disorders in the general population — and it complicates the documentation requirements employers may face during the interactive process. A single accommodation request may need to address functional limitations stemming from multiple co-occurring conditions.

Finding 5: Customers are proactive, not reactive

89% of WorkWell customers had already taken action on accommodation before completing their evaluation. Specifically:

• 42% had submitted an accommodation request to their employer

• 38% were planning to submit a request imminently

• 9% already held accommodations that needed renewal or supporting documentation

Only 11% of customers (a combined "No" and "first request") were starting completely from zero with no prior or planned engagement on accommodation.

This pattern challenges the assumption that telehealth accommodation services are primarily reactive. The data suggests customers are using WorkWell as a preparation tool — either to obtain documentation before an upcoming conversation with HR, or to defend a recently denied request with stronger clinical support. The EEOC's guidance on the interactive process emphasizes that an employee's role in the documentation process is collaborative, and our data suggests customers are taking this seriously rather than treating documentation as an afterthought.

Industry, role, and geography

Sector representation among customers:

Top job functions:

• Operations and specialist roles (claims, analysts, customer service, specialists): 40%

• Engineering and technical roles (software, data, cybersecurity, IT): 24%

• Management roles (director, VP, manager): 11%

Geographic distribution:

Customers represent 21 states. The five states with the largest customer counts are Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Virginia, and Texas. The breadth of geographic distribution reflects PSYPACT's interstate telehealth coverage; customers across diverse regional labor markets are seeking accommodation evaluations through telehealth.

What this data suggests

A few patterns are worth pulling out:

The accommodation question is not going away. As long as RTO mandates are being implemented and modified, the demand for clinical documentation to support accommodation requests will continue to grow. WorkWell's intake volume has been steadily growing in customers per month over the reporting period.

Federal sector demand is leading the curve. The federal cohort's concentration around RTO suggests that future private sector waves of RTO implementation will likely produce similar accommodation demand spikes in those industries.

The "fraud" framing of accommodation requests doesn't fit this data. When 80% of customers have prior diagnoses, 49% are in active treatment, and 73% have 2+ years of tenure with their employer, the population is not characterized by opportunism. The harder policy question is how the interactive process should function when accommodations have to be re-evaluated against changed workplace expectations.

Telehealth has expanded access. The geographic spread across 21 states would have been impossible without PSYPACT-licensed providers operating across state lines. Employees in states without strong local clinical capacity are accessing the same documentation pathway as employees in major metros.

Methodology

This report is based on intake form responses from 45 customers who completed a WorkWell Evals workplace accommodation evaluation between February 14, 2026 and May 19, 2026. All data has been aggregated and de-identified per HIPAA Safe Harbor de-identification standards. No individual records, identifying combinations of attributes, or employer-specific data are presented. Statistics are not reported where underlying cell sizes are too small to meaningfully aggregate.

Findings reflect the WorkWell Evals customer base specifically and should not be interpreted as a representative sample of the U.S. accommodation-seeking population. The sample is shaped by how customers find WorkWell (primarily through Google search and direct referrals), which states our PSYPACT-licensed providers can serve, and the conditions our providers evaluate.

This report will be updated quarterly as the dataset grows. Researchers, journalists, and employers who would like to reference these findings are welcome to do so with attribution to "WorkWell Evals 2026 Workplace Accommodation Demand Report."

This research is also referenced on the researcher's Washington University in St. Louis page.

Suggested Citation

WorkWell Evals. (2026). 2026 Workplace Accommodation Demand Report. Retrieved from https://www.workwellevals.com/articles/2026-workplace-accommodation-demand-report

About WorkWell Evals

WorkWell Evals is a telehealth platform that connects employees with PSYPACT-licensed psychologists for ADA workplace accommodation evaluations. We operate across 40+ states with HIPAA-compliant infrastructure. Customers complete a 15-minute video evaluation with a licensed psychologist and receive an ADA-compliant accommodation letter within 3 business days when clinically appropriate. WorkWell is an administrative platform; providers exercise full clinical autonomy. Learn more at workwellevals.com.

For media inquiries or to reference this report, please contact us at support@workwellevals.com.