This Week’s Highlights:

Volume Fourteen: Air Date 1.12.22. “HR Advice for Mandates”

While we are waiting for Supreme Court decisions regarding mandates, it may be helpful to hear some tips from organizations in other industries that have implemented vaccine mandates. Here is their HR advice:

1. Develop written policies and communicate your plan.

Policies should include:

ü Testing and whether that is an option – this will vary by setting.

• Tracking: Determine a method of tracking individuals’ vaccination status. Determine what valid evidence of vaccination you will accept.
• Exemptions: Spell out the standards for exemptions, the process for applying for them, and the process by which exemptions will be reviewed and determined. You may want to attach your company’s code of ethics to the exemption documentation to encourage honesty.

ü Termination effects: Be clear about how you will handle those who don’t adhere to the mandate by the deadline. Be transparent about what employees can expect on the due date if they don’t adhere. Will it result in termination? What details surrounding termination can you provide?

ü Unique timelines specific to your organization If your company already has its own vaccine mandate in place, ensure that you are maintaining or accelerating these company policies as needed to meet external deadlines.

2. Offer support and approach employees with empathy

Be prepared with FAQs and to field common questions, such as whether mandates apply to remote workers, and where vaccines can be obtained.

3. Use what’s been working for your folks

Quickly adapting to change induced by the pandemic is nothing new. Nearly two years into the pandemic, you have had to think through thoughtful dynamic workforce policies and how to best approach this next phase. By now, you have learned the ins and outs of what resonates best with your employees’ unique needs, including which communication methods are most effective, what the company culture and sentiment is toward the COVID-19 vaccine, and which software and tools are best at managing vaccine records and testing. For the vaccine mandate, there is little need to reinvent the wheel- use what works for you.

Volume Fifteen: Air Date 1.19.22. “Exploring Exemptions”

Now that the CMS vaccine mandate for healthcare workers is moving forward across the country, this is a good time to explore what we know about exemptions.

Earlier this week AMDA, the American Medical Directors Association, provided guidance and templates to address requests for medical exemptions. They recommend using a different form from those used to request religious exemptions. Exemption forms should include a time frame for the exemption (even if indefinite or permanent) and a confirmation that the practitioner signing the statement has an ongoing professional relationship with the individual seeking an exemption. Guidance and templates for documenting the exemptions can be found on AMDA’s website, on the COVID-19 Resource Page.

We tried to discover what percentage of the general workforce when mandated has requested medical or religious exemptions. There is very limited information, and even less on how many of those requests have been granted, but here are some anecdotes:

For the Federal workforce- approximately 5% requested medical or religious exemptions; ranging from 10.2 % at Department of Veterans Affairs to 1.3% at AID and Department of State. There was no information on the % of requests granted.

In Connecticut where mandates for healthcare workers and for state agencies went into effect this fall, 7% to 11% of state-employed health care workers claimed exemptions, while by contrast, about 2% to 6% of health care workers at the state’s top hospitals claimed exemptions. Of the cases that have been adjudicated, approximately 95% of 200 health care workers in state agencies who claimed a religious exemption were granted one. By contrast, Hartford HealthCare and Yale New Haven Health reported approving about half of religious exemption requests filed.

Across states and industries there are a range of responses to requests for exemptions. Some employers are granting exemptions, especially religious exemptions, quite liberally, while others are requiring individuals to sign forms that delineate prior behavior with respect to these deeply held beliefs. In Kansas the Attorney General indicates that it is illegal for employees to question religious exemption requests. They must be granted.

All in all, we don’t yet have more than sketchy anecdotes to tell the story of vaccine exemptions. We’d be interested to hear your experiences.