Business Is Using Less Carrot and More Stick on Vaccinations
Forget incentives like paid time off or free concert tickets. Governments and employers increasingly worry that mandates are the only answer for the fast-spreading delta variant.
The belief that vaccination should be a matter of personal choice managed to survive almost a year and a half of the Covid-19 pandemic. For months, employers eager to find a way to get workers and customers back to their businesses saw vaccines as vital, but stopped short of measures that felt coercive. Walmart Inc.’s approach—paying the store workers who make up the bulk of its 1.5 million U.S. employees $75 for a jab—was typical. Beverage-maker Bolthouse Farms offered bonuses of up to $500. Even institutions on the front lines of the pandemic hesitated to compel shots. When the New York-Presbyterian Hospital system announced a vaccine requirement for its employees several weeks ago, it triggered demonstrations outside its main campus in upper Manhattan. The signs waved by the protesting workers summed up the delicate dance government officials and employers were attempting: “Vaccination Yes. Mandate No.”
The shift from carrot to stick since then has been abrupt. As the more infectious delta variant has driven a dramatic rise in cases—the vast majority among the tens of millions of American adults who, despite ample opportunity, remain unvaccinated—a growing number of large employers have announced that they are giving up on moral suasion and inducement. In recent weeks, Google and Facebook have announced that employees returning to their offices must be vaccinated. Walmart mandated vaccination for the mostly white-collar workforce at its corporate headquarters. Tyson Foods Inc., the meat processing giant, is requiring it of all its employees. In late July, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs made vaccination mandatory for its health-care personnel. This week Citigroup Inc. was the latest financial firm to require employees returning to its offices to be vaccinated, a day after the Pentagon announced a mid-September deadline for vaccinating all of the armed forces. Today, vaccine holdouts still have a choice, but increasingly that choice is between keeping their jobs and losing them.