About to be ‘stuck’
Employer jitters over coming vax mandates
Most employers plan to require COVID vaccines but they don’t know if it will help or hurt recruiting — or even lead to resignations, according to a survey.
Thirty percent of employers fear a vaccine mandate could drive away staff, the Willis Towers Watson survey found. But 48 percent said they believe a mandate would help recruiting and retention efforts.
Willis Towers Watson found only 3 percent of employers reported a surge in resignations after implementing a mandate.
Of the 543 US employers surveyed in mid-November, only 18 percent currently require staffers to get the jab.
But 32 percent plan to require vaccinations if the Biden administration’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration vaccine mandate goes into effect. The companies polled employ a total of 5.2 million workers.
The issue of vaccine exemptions is also divisive. A little over half said they will allow medical and religious exemptions.
The mandates controversy comes as the labor market heats up and employers fear losing workers.
It also comes amid rising fears of the latest coronavirus variant, Omicron.
There was wider agreement on safety precautions: 87 percent of employers will continue to offer COVID testing and 90 percent will continue to require masking indoors, the study found.
Of course, as uncertainty continues, one way to sidestep a vaccine mandate is by delaying a return to the office. The study found 34 percent of all employees are now working remotely.
On Wall Street, most banks, including Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, already require jabs to return to the office.
Even before vaccine mandates, the vaccination rate at big Wall Street firms topped 90 percent, The Post previously reported. So the unvaccinated minority may be viewed as barriers to getting back to business as usual.
“They are certainly social outliers and maybe social pariahs,” one bank employee told The Post. “Whether it’s explicit or implicit, there will be a view about that employee — people will question whether they can do their jobs.”