Mandating Employee Vaccinations? Think it Through!

As president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management, I should know. SHRM is the voice of all things work, workers, and workplaces. Few issues dominate our organizational bandwidth more than the historic Covid reset.

We too are beset with questions from our 300,000-plus human-resources and business-executive members about vaccination policies. HR professionals and people managers are business’s frontline workers in reimagining the post-pandemic world of work. 

There are really two questions being asked about instituting a mandatory vaccination policy for employees: Can we? And should we? Depending on the question, you may get different answers.

First, can we? As a matter of federal law, you as an employer can require or encourage Covid vaccinations at work. Policies must comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and other federal workplace laws. If an employee has a medical condition or disability, or sincerely held religious belief, that prevents them from getting vaccinated, the employer must provide a reasonable accommodation, absent undue hardship. 

You as an employer also are permitted to ask employees if they have received a Covid vaccination. A simple yes or no suffices. Employers should instruct employees not to provide additional information about the reason the employee may not have received a vaccination.

The tougher question remains should we? An organization’s vaccination policy can have an impact on the retention and hiring of new talent, company culture and morale, and customer perceptions.

An increasing number of brand-name businesses are already requiring employees to be vaccinated, including Walmart, Disney, and Tyson Foods. The pace of other employers following suit is likely to accelerate with the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to fully approve the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

According to the job search site Indeed, the percentage of job postings stating that a new hire must be vaccinated has doubled in the past month. While most of these job openings are in Covid-sensitive sectors, like education and food services, vaccination requirements are also rising in areas like software development, marketing, and sales. The trend is likely to ramp up.

Here are some of the major reasons businesses give for instituting a mandatory employee-vaccination policy:

• Protect employees and customers: Universal workplace vaccinations reduce the likelihood that employees will contract the virus and the severity of Covid-related illnesses if they are infected.  

• Curtail work absences and medical-related costs: Fewer illnesses and work absences related to Covid can mean greater employee productivity and lower health-care costs.

• Clarify customer confusion: Customers may feel more at ease coming into a place of business if they know the vaccination status of employees. 

• Improve workplace morale: Similarly, uniform vaccination standards may increase team morale and workplace camaraderie if employees know most, if not all, colleagues have been vaccinated. According to SHRM research conducted this summer, over 60% of employed Americans said they support their employer requiring that all employees get vaccinated as a condition for employment. That represents a double digit increase in just a few months.

Still, most businesses have yet to require employee vaccinations, fearing employee resistance or recruiting difficulty in an economy with over ten million open jobs. 

Many businesses have opted for a “softer” approach, encouraging rather than requiring employees to be vaccinated. Some of these incentives include vaccine-information campaigns; cash, gifts, or paid time off; or other benefits. Other businesses have imposed disincentives on unvaccinated employees, such as Delta Airlines increasing the cost of their health insurance premiums, as some businesses do with tobacco users. In my experience, employees respond more favorably to “carrots” than to “sticks.” 

As businesses contemplate instituting mandatory vaccination policies, let me offer up one idea that has yet to be widely discussed: empathy. Anyone watching the polarized climate surrounding all things Covid can tell you: America is facing a profound empathy gap. This is bearing itself out in the workplace, where the dividing lines are political, racial, gender-based, generational, you name it. And add to that list, vaccinated versus unvaccinated.

According to SHRM research, 92% of workers say if they were looking for a job, they would look for a company that demonstrates empathy. And 78% believe that employees who demonstrate empathy at their organization are viewed as better overall performers. Empathy directly impacts performance and ultimately the bottom line.

Empathy results in the creation of authentic connection in the workplace. It opens the door to advancing productivity and building a culture of innovation to sustain growth in and out of crisis. It’s not just the “right” thing to do. It’s the smart thing. 

Whatever path a business chooses, whether on mandatory vaccination policies or anything else, the worst decision is one that results in stigmatizing or shaming any segment of its talent pool. Putting the “human” back in human resources turns work from a transactional exchange into a transformational connection.

In our new book, RESET, we at SHRM address the key role emphasizing empathy and other leadership skills will play as businesses rethink, reimagine, and reinvigorate their organizational cultures. The process by which business leaders determine policymaking may reveal more about the emerging world of work than the policies themselves. Think it through. 

Guest commentaries like this one are written by authors outside the Barron’s and MarketWatch newsroom. They reflect the perspective and opinions of the authors. Submit commentary proposals and other feedback to [email protected].