Vaccinations: Managing a Partially Vaccinated Workforce

As in-person business was ramping up, COVID-19’s Delta variant spike resulted in businesses pivoting to remote work and vaccine mandates. Management has taken varying stances on employee vaccination, including mandating vaccination, strongly encouraging vaccination, or abandoning all forms of regulation all together. Even for the most strident vaccine mandates, however, exceptions may need to be made based on certain protected classifications (most commonly, disability, religion, and pregnancy). Ultimately, workplaces are left with the safety challenge of managing a partially vaccinated workforce, along side of the mounting challenges posed by the Delta variant.  

In a partially vaccinated workplace, how can HR professionals manage legal compliance and risk management? We will discuss the following common approaches, including  “pros” and “cons” and legal best practices:

• Requiring COVID-19 testing.
• Tracking vaccination status.
• Incentivizing vaccination.
• Treating all employees as if they are unvaccinated.
• Mandating vaccination as a condition of employment for new applicants.

In addition, we will discuss the status of vaccine mandates, considering the new vaccine booster shots and FDA approval for Pizer’s vaccine.