As businesses around the world chart recovery paths out of the COVID-19 pandemic, private companies are having to grapple with a complex question – how do they ensure that their employees return to office fully vaccinated so that workplace safety isn’t compromised? 

On the heels of the US Food and Drug Administration granting full approval to the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, several large conglomerates like Deloitte, American Express, McDonald’s, Cisco, Citigroup and Facebook have already issued notifications mandating full vaccination of those that do return to offices. 

However, Google appears to have taken a more hardline approach, communicating to its US staff earlier this week, that if they do not comply with its company vaccine mandate by January, they will face repercussions beginning with a pay cut and ending in eventual termination. Employees were informed that they were to declare and upload proof of their vaccination status, or apply for medical or religious exemption by December 3, according to an internal memo first reported on by CNBC. 

Those who missed a January 18 deadline to comply with the company’s rules would initially be placed on ‘paid administrative leave’ for 30 days and then an additional six months of ‘unpaid personal leave.’ If they remained non-compliant after that period, Google would, ultimately, terminate their employment. 

But the memo doesn’t appear to have gone down well with all of its staff. CNBC reported that some 600 employees have inked a manifesto urging Google’s leadership to bin the mandate and replace it with another that is ‘inclusive of all Googlers.’ 

Google’s dilemma is, perhaps, the most high-profile but is not unique in the least. Over the last year, employers have turned to various measures like financial incentives, flexible work schedules, and premium healthcare surcharges to spur employees into getting jabbed. But when these have failed or had poor results, vaccine mandates have increasingly been issued. 

In some cases, where the risk of spread is high like hospitals and care homes, vaccine mandates may be apt but in other situations, employers run the risk of alienating their employees and, potentially, losing talent to competition if they force workers to get vaccinated. 

Developing an appropriate workplace policy around vaccination not only involves assessing the ease at which a vaccine mandate can be implemented but also weighing the economic cost of such a requirement against not having one. 

In the US, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission requires employers to offer exemptions on vaccinations on medical or religious grounds. However, the law also permits employers to reassign or axe unvaccinated employees if their actions are deemed unsafe for the workplace or cause ‘undue hardship’ for the business. 

In the UK, laws appear to favour workers’ rights which is why businesses have sought to tread more carefully with regard to mandating vaccination, fearing an avalanche of workplace discrimination lawsuits. Court challenges are already gradually clarifying the law with the European Convention of Human Rights recently dismissing two appeals against vaccine mandates for workers in France and Greece. It is likely that, in the coming months, several more of such cases will spring up. 

A recent survey conducted by job portal Indeed, published in October found that 82 per cent of workers and employers were in agreement that vaccination should be made mandatory in the workplace. Roughly 70 per cent of employers surveyed said they wouldn’t permit unvaccinated employees back into the workplace and may ask them to leave the organisation instead. The survey also showed that 94 per cent of employers and 87 per cent of employees wanted those returning to the office to have been vaccinated with, at least, a single dose. 

Vaccine policies come in all shapes and sizes in India and while some companies have organised in-house vaccination camps for their employees, others have refrained from formulating a rigid policy beyond encouraging full vaccination. However, with the emergence of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant, it’s far from implausible that hiring decisions will now also be guided by one’s vaccination status.