Philippine employers are not keen on making Covid-19 vaccination mandatory for their workforce due to concerns about safety and labor rights, a survey by a professional services firm Mercer revealed.
Mercer said in a statement on Wednesday that only 2 percent of the respondents are considering requiring Covid-19 inoculation while 68 percent said they are not even thinking about it.
“When asked why they would not mandate, the top two reasons were employee concerns about vaccine safety (68 percent) and compliance with employment labor and human rights legislation (54 percent),” the firm said. Meanwhile, almost half of the company respondents flagged concerns about potential liability if a vaccinated employee has “bad reaction” from the doses
Other reasons for not mandating the vaccine, according to the survey, are potential increase in employee turnover, inconsistent approach with other vaccines and administrative challenges.
Only 2 percent of the respondents have decided to give out incentives to encourage employees to get vaccinated. These rewards are in the form of cash, gift card or spending account contribution.
Nearly half said they will not provide financial incentive at all while 41 percent are still mulling over if they will do so. Still, about one-fourth of the companies said they will provide additional time off for employees to get vaccinated and around 15 percent said they will grant additional sick leave in case employees need to recuperate from the side effects of the vaccine.
“Given that the major issues surrounding the vaccination rollout are vaccine safety and human rights legislation, it’s not surprising that most respondents opted not to offer any form of incentive to respect their employees’ personal decision,” Mercer Philippines CEO Maria Theresa E. Alday said. “The decision to receive the vaccine ultimately boils down to trust. And employers play a critical role in educating and sharing accurate information with employees, including facts about the benefits of the vaccines, company policies and insurance coverage. Communication will be vital in helping employees decide whether or not to get the shot.”
With this, over two-thirds of the respondents claimed they have or are crafting communication plans about the vaccine, Mercer noted.
While over majority of the companies said they will convince employees to be inoculated, only 17 percent said they will “strongly encourage” them to get the Covid-19 jab.
“It’s heartening to note that employers are actively communicating the benefits of the vaccine (93 percent), details about access (76 percent) as well as company policies (66 percent),” Alday said.
“However, less than half (47 percent) say they are sharing details about insurance coverage or the reimbursement approach.”
Mercer said this could be because of lack of information, stressing the need for employers to be in the know of such matters, including claims or benefits relating to the Covid-19 vaccination.
A quarter of the companies surveyed said they established a steering committee tasked with implementing vaccine-related policies while 20 percent are in the process of doing so.
A substantial portion of the respondents (41 percent) sounded the alarm bell on managing a segmented workforce, which comprises employees who were vaccinated and not vaccinated.
About 8 percent said they will enforce business travel policies differentiating employees according to their vaccination status. Some 30 percent will not do so while 26 percent said they will follow government guidelines.