As vaccinations continue in the United States, some companies are offering financial incentives to encourage their workers to get vaccines.
Instacart Inc., the food delivery service, announced on Thursday that it would provide a $ 25 stipend for workers who obtained the COVID-19 vaccine. She joins others, including Trader Joe’s and Dollar General, who plan to pay workers more if they get vaccinated.
“Our goal with the introduction of our new vaccine support stipend is to ensure that, when the time comes, Instacart buyers don’t have to choose between making money as an essential service provider or getting vaccinated,” said Instacart’s CEO , Apoorva Mehta, in a statement.
San Francisco-based Instacart has nearly doubled its workforce, mostly gig to about 500,000, to meet an increase in demand for online shopping since the pandemic erupted in the U.S. last spring.
Trader Joe’s supermarket chain, which has more than 50,000 employees, said on Thursday it will give its employees two hours of pay per dose to receive the vaccine. The Monrovia, Calif.-Based company said it would also change schedules to ensure employees have time to get vaccinated.
Dollar General said Wednesday This will give employees the equivalent of four hours of pay if they get the vaccine. The Goodlettsville, Tennessee-based retailer said it employs 157,000 people.
AN Vaccine Advisory Panel at the US Centers for Disease Control voted late last month on recommendations for vaccine distribution. The panel said the grocery store workers – who would include Instacart and Dollar General employees – should be in the second group to receive injections, after health workers and nursing home residents.
It is up to each state to decide how and when to adopt the CDC’s recommendations. Some states have already opened eligibility the second group, which also includes firefighters, police, teachers, prison staff, postal workers and people aged 75 and over. There are about 50 million people in that group.
Companies may require workers to receive COVID-19 vaccines as a requirement for employment, although they must make adaptations for medical or religious reasons, according to guidance from the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
However, most companies are reluctant to impose such mandates, said Sharon Perley Masling, a partner at the Morgan Lewis law firm that has been advising clients on work issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The emergency nature of FDA approval of the vaccine makes it impractical for many companies to require it, since vaccines are not available to the majority of the population, she said.
Still, Masling said the companies he works with are taking several steps to strongly encourage their employees to get vaccinated, including internal public relations campaigns showing senior executives who can get the vaccines. Other incentives include free childcare, paid time off and gifts, such as pizza delivery and other gifts, she said.
“It is good for employees, it is good for their communities and it is good for ensuring the continuity of business operations,” said Masling.
The push to vaccinate comes amid signs that some people – even healthcare professionals – are reluctant to get vaccines, contributing to a slower-than-expected implementation of the mass vaccination effort in the U.S. Masling said many companies are still trying to find out how their team feels when taking the photos, with some sending in internal surveys.
Concerns about side effects
In a survey conducted last month by the Society for Human Resource Management, nearly two-thirds of American workers said they are likely to receive the vaccine when it becomes available. Even so, 36% said they probably would not be vaccinated, citing concerns about side effects as their main reason. SHRM interviewed workers from 529 families in the United States using the AmeriSpeak Omnibus survey, a probability-based panel developed by NORC at the University of Chicago.
Scientists say the vaccines have been rigorously tested on tens of thousands and examined by independent experts, and there have been no signs of widespread serious side effects with the vaccines.
Not every company offers incentives. The DoorDash delivery app, another great platform for concert workers, said it asked the CDC and governors to prioritize delivery workers in delivering vaccines. But it does not plan to offer advantages to workers who are vaccinated.
Target Corp. nor does it plan to offer incentives, but said it will make the vaccine free and accessible to its 350,000 employees. Target said 1,700 of its stores have a CVS pharmacy on site that will offer the vaccine to employees when it becomes available.
Albertsons, a supermarket chain with 2,250 stores in the United States and 300,000 employees, is also not offering financial incentives. Like DoorDash, it is asking state and local authorities to ensure that its employees have priority over the vaccine.
A separate SHRM survey last month found that while about two-thirds of U.S. employers planned to encourage employees to get vaccinated, only 3% decided to require it for at least some workers. That may change, since 55% of employers said they were unsure whether they would require it, according to a survey of 955 members of SHRM, an organization of some 300,000 human resources professionals.
Bad press
Many large companies faced criticism about how they treated their employees during the pandemic, from low-quality sick leave policies to poor working conditions. The companies, which go from slaughterhouses to Amazon, have faced shortages of workers and outbreaks that forced the temporary closure of their factories and warehouses. There is also an impending debate in Congress over whether employers should be exempt from legal responsibilities related to exposure to coronavirus, as more people begin to call their employees back to offices and other workplaces.
Public perception provides a strong incentive for companies to vaccinate their workers, said Laura Boudreau, professor of economics at Columbia Business School, specializing in labor rights.
“Many of them have had to defend their reputation in terms of how they are treating their employees during the pandemic,” said Boudreau.
Instacart is among several companies that have been lobbying for their employees to have priority in vaccines. The company also faced criticism, and some concern from workers, about allegations that it did not do enough to protect its customers – gig workers who make several trips a day to supermarkets to buy and deliver groceries to people who place orders on their app – who do not receive company health insurance or guaranteed paid health leave.
The company says it distributed 620,000 free safety kits to its workers, including face masks and hand sanitizers. It introduced a new policy in March to provide 14 days paid leave to show workers who are diagnosed with COVID-19 or who have been quarantined due to potential exposure.