Get
Your Office Ready Before the Vaccines Arrive
The
great reverse migration will likely begin in May or June. The great debate over
how to handle it should start today.
BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS@TULLMAN
According to Gallup, about 58% of Americans
have indicated that they plan to get vaccinated when one or more of the
vaccines becomes available. This percentage will likely increase over the next
few months, especially after we have a new President who isn't a liar and a
denier. But it's fair to assume that 30% or more of the population won't be in
any hurry to step up for the shot and that there's zero likelihood that the
vaccination procedure will ever be made mandatory at any level. If you think
any kind of consistent state or national mask-wearing mandate is going to be
difficult if not impossible to enforce, you can't begin to imagine how
challenging a mandatory vaccine would be.
Since first responders and many others
(elders, etc.) will be at the head of the line, a realistic estimate for
relatively easy access to the necessary shot or shots is probably around May or
June, which is roughly the current calendar target that many companies have
suggested for bringing groups of employees back to their offices. So, there's
going to be some time before the crunch and obviously a substantial number of
WFHers who plan to never be more than an occasional visitor to their former
offices.
But that doesn't really get them or you off the hook in terms of what they need
to do for both their own good and, more importantly, to help protect the
business.
Now's the time to start thinking about how
you're going to insulate your business and your employees, vendors/essential
service providers and customers from the active
anti-vaxers and other less overt refuseniks who may be in your midst. The one
thing you can be absolutely certain of is that you're not going to get much
help, guidance or even direction from the government. I suppose in another life
and time there might be a government that insisted that, if you wanted to
travel on a plane, you would have to produce actual proof that you had been
vaccinated in a timely fashion. But it's never gonna happen in the U.S.-- at
least not for domestic trips. If it's not going to happen for air travel, with
the complete TSA infrastructure already in place, you can be sure that there
won't be any easy solution forthcoming for your place of business.
At best, it's more likely that we may see some
prohibitions about what employers cannot do rather than anything instructive in
the way of rules and regulations to help deal with this utterly unforeseen and
complicated situation. This is a real chicken-and-egg problem because it's
going to be very difficult to assure your employees that you are providing them
with a safe, clean and secure work environment without taking active and
continuing steps to make sure that unvaccinated and possibly contagious
asymptomatic employees and visitors aren't walking around the place.
I'm not sure that there are any HR or legal
professionals in a position to provide any substantial advice on these
questions because the situation is going to be so fluid and the political
environment is already so highly charged that in every city and state there
will be pronouncements, orders, sporadic enforcement, and generally rampant
confusion from struggling politicians trying to placate competing and contrary
constituencies.
Sadly, nothing we have experienced to date
during the pandemic has led to any real consensus or understanding. At best
we've learned that delay and obfuscation won't help. We've also learned that
it's far more important to know all the questions and concerns than it is to
pretend to have all the answers. Ultimately, it will fall on the owners and
managers of each business to decide how best to approach the problems and to
cope with the consequences.
So, what are some of the critical questions we
need to be considering? I'd start with these:
(1) WFH (work from home) has extended the
workday well into the evening for so many employees because the whole team often
can't get together during the regular 9-to-5 hours due to other commitments.
What do I do about comp and overtime issues?
(2) Can I require my employees to return
to the office as of a certain date and time? What are my remedies for those who
refuse? What if they claim that they are sick with the virus?
(3) Can I require my returning employees
to be vaccinated before they return, assuming that I am willing to cover any
costs? What are my remedies for those who refuse to be vaccinated, but state
that they are willing to return to work?
(4) Will my current sick leave and
personal day policies need to be changed or amended especially if there are
third-party orders and directions with respect to these policies. An analogy
here might be the suspension of evictions and of utility cutoffs that many
cities have announced and adopted.
(5) What are my obligations and
requirements regarding notification? Do I need to publish and distribute our
vaccination policy? Do I need to advise all my returning employees of any other
in-house employees who test positive and when? Does a positive test mean I need
to return to some WFH formulation?
Bottom line. No easy questions. No simple
answers. And we haven't even addressed the issues with customers, clients,
vendors and essential outside providers of services and products to your
business.
We're all in this together searching for a
comprehensive solution and yet - at the moment - we're all on our own and it's
every entrepreneur for themselves.
NOV 24, 2020
