NEW YORK–Companies across the country are sending surveys, offering cash rewards and requiring disclosures to find out how much of their work force is vaccinated, according to a new report.
“The message from many companies to their office workers is clear. It will soon be time to shed the slippers for hard shoes and return to your desk,” noted the New York Times in its overview. “But many companies are still puzzling over a single quandary: What to do about vaccines. Should they require employees to get them? Encourage or cajole or bribe them?”
“We’re all kind of, you know, flying by the seat of our pants,” Wayne Wager, the CEO of Remote Medical International, a consulting firm in Seattle that is helping companies that are reopening offices, told the Times.
Wager said his own company had not decided what to do yet, but would probably demand that anyone coming back be vaccinated.
EEOC Statement
According to the Times, most companies are hoping to avoid requiring vaccines, with the EEOC saying a company can require vaccination of employees returning to the workplace, as CUToday.info reported here.
But many CEOs fear vaccine mandates would lead to lawsuits, invite political upheaval and be hard to enforce. But they’re worried about safety, the Times stated. “An outbreak could force a company to retrench on masking and social distancing policies, making it even harder to get back to normal. So they are trying everything short of a mandate, without yet ruling one out,” the report added.
The Times noted nearly a third of companies have yet to develop any vaccine policy, according to a survey of 770 companies conducted by the human resources software company Tinypulse.
‘Mandatory’ Disclosure
Last week, Goldman Sachs sent an email telling employees they had to report their vaccination status within two days.
“Goldman is among the few firms making such disclosures mandatory,” the Times reported. “Though it won’t require proof, the bank informed employees that lying about their status could result in disciplinary action, including termination.”
The Times further noted other companies are effectively paying employees to share their status, or encouraging them to do so without quite mandating it. Walmart, for instance, is offering $75 to any worker who shows proof of vaccination. Bank of America told employees who want to return to the office that they had the option to upload their vaccination status into the company’s internal system.