We’ve recently gotten some of the best news I’ve seen all year: the official approval of not one but two different Covid-19 vaccines. It seems that the next few months may finally bring an end to this devastating pandemic. While it may feel like this year has lasted an eternity, such a rapid development of a preventative treatment is something of a medical miracle. In theory, we’re heading back to some sense of normalcy. In practice, the road ahead may be bumpy.
How to find and keep the sort of dedicated and skilled people that make an organization run has always been an important question for employers (we would know after all). Everything that made this task more difficult in 2020 will likely continue into 2021. We have to expect the coming days to feature everything from the difficult economic slowdowns necessary to save lives to the worsening mental and physical among workers.
But even once the most painful impacts of the pandemic have been elevated, employers will have to deal with its after effects and the questions it raised. Among the industries that are likely to see a crisis of retention: medicine. As many as 1 in 5 of healthcare professionals working in cities with serious COVID outbreaks may suffer PTSD. That rises to 1 in 3 among those who serve in Emergency rooms. While healthcare workers have faced the greatest danger this past year, anyone whose work brought them into frequent contact with the public may be at risk for mental health complications. Employers will need to be aware of the kind of stress their frontline workers have experienced and the constant vigilance that’s been expected of them.
Lastly, employers and employees will soon have to confront thorny questions about bodily autonomy. Once a vaccine becomes widely available, can organizations require it as a condition of employment? Should they? The second question is significantly more complicated so we’ll start with the first. You can read this article from the Society for Human Resource Management if you’re looking for a full rundown but the short answer is yes. It is legal to require vaccination as long as reasonable accommodations are made for those with sincerely held religious beliefs or certain health conditions.
As for whether an employer navigating the post-pandemic world should dictate the medical treatment of their staff, I’m afraid we don’t have an answer for you. One might reasonably feel that such a mandate undermines their own bodily autonomy. On the other hand, everyone is entitled to a safe workplace and right now, that might mean one free from Covid-19. Do the objections of someone who does not want to be vaccinated on principle justify risking the lives of immunocompromised coworkers? These questions are more than mere thought experiments, they’re very real issues all of us will have to contend with soon.
