Northland councils setting up ‘vaccination day’ to encourage employees to get their Covid jabs

Four-hundred Far North District Council staff will have the opportunity to get vaccinated against Covid19 at a special employee vaccination day.

The event will be held at the council’s Kaikohe head office on Friday, September 17.

More than 1100 people around Northland work for the region’s four councils. Far North District Council (FNDC) staff make up about 35 per cent of these and the council remains one of the Far North’s biggest employers.

Chief people officer at FNDC, Jill Coyle, said the council was encouraging all of its staff to protect themselves, their wha¯nau and their colleagues by getting vaccinated as soon as they were eligible to do so.

Whanga¯rei District Council (WDC) health and safety manager Desarae Williams said about a quarter of its 350 staff had reported being fully vaccinated against Covid-19, with a further 35 per cent having received one dose.

Staff were not required to report whether they had been vaccinated, however.

She said WDC had provided vaccination information to its staff for “some time”.

The council was encouraging all its staff to get vaccinated, in line with Ministry of Health recommendations.

Northland District Health Board public health medicine specialist Dr Bart Willems had been brought in to talk to staff about Covid-19 vaccinations.

Williams said this was done when vaccinations first became available, to dispel some of the myths and conspiracy theories around at the time.

Northland Regional Council (NRC) chief executive Malcolm Nicolson said his council regularly shared Gov

ernment vaccine rollout information among staff through internal communication channels.

“In line with current legal guidelines we don’t require staff to be vaccinated or tell us if they are — but what we’re hearing anecdotally indicates that the majority of staff are making the choice to get vaccinated and we support them in that decision,” Nicolson said.

“We’re keen to ensure our staff have up-to-date information on the vaccine rollout and we regularly share government information through our internal channels,” he said.

About 265 people currently work at NRC.

Kaipara District Council (KDC) is also encouraging vaccination for the roughly 165 people working at the council.

KDC general manager of people and capability Hannah Gillespie said her council was making it easy for staff to get a vaccination, including during work hours.

She said the council did not enforce vaccination nor request that information from its staff.

Coyle said FNDC was not asking staff to say whether or not they were vaccinated.

She said FNDC’s frontline and customer-facing staff were provided with disposable masks and physical distancing measures were in place where required.

All staff also had the option of working from home, with more than 70 per cent already doing so at least some of the time outside of alert level restrictions.

Meanwhile, WDC’s essential workers carrying out their normal roles during lockdown have been specifically encouraged to get vaccinated.

Williams said many of WDC’s essential workers had now reported having had one or both vaccinations.