According to Mercer’s “Employers Take on the Vaccination Challenge” – consistent with other surveys we have noted - very few of the 776 organizations recently surveyed have mandated or have decided definitively to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for their employees, and just 20% are considering it. Decisions not to mandate are most commonly based on: (i) compliance with employment and labor laws (57%), (ii) employee concerns about vaccine safety (56%), and (iii) concerns about potential liability if an employee has a bad reaction to the vaccine (46%). Mercer suggests companies consider incentivizing rather than mandating the vaccine. In that regard, corporate communications encouraging vaccinations and providing additional PTO to get the vaccine and/or recover from any side effects are the most common incentives.
See our recent reports: “Workforce Insights: Return-to-Workplace; COVID-19 Vaccine” and “Corporate Vaccine Policies” and additional resources on our Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources page. This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!