Employers pivotal to vaccine acceptance and getting back to business
What our nation needs now is for all employers to help build back confidence in public health and the importance of COVID-19 vaccines.
COVID has presented unprecedented challenges and hardships for employees and employers alike. Many of have become sick or even known or lost a loved one to the pandemic. Meanwhile, we have also suffered tremendous economic pain. Unfortunately, 2021 may only be the tip of the iceberg for employers when it comes to the longer-term health care costs exacerbated by this disease and from canceled or deferred care which are estimated at $125-200 billion. And yet, there is light at the end of this long, dark tunnel with the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines.
Related: Employer considerations for the COVID-19 vaccine
For employers, vaccines present an incredible opportunity to help end of the pandemic – but also represents a challenge. The latest public opinion polls show that less than 70% of the public will consider taking a vaccine once it is available to them and more than one in three remain firmly skeptical. Some have argued employers have no place in promoting vaccination. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
As they have done with everything from promoting flu-shots, to obesity prevention, to tobacco cessation, employers can and should play a strong role in promoting employee health and wellbeing. Not only does vaccination improve employee health, but it also minimizes an employer’s longer-term health care costs when employees do not contract COVID-19. But successfully preventing the spread of COVID-19 requires community immunity; a large portion of our society needs to get vaccinated, which is much larger than an organization’s workforce.
Widespread vaccination means more people can return to work and resume “business as usual” faster, after an economically devastating time in our nation’s history. Finally, engaging in efforts to encourage widespread public vaccination is likely in line with a company’s values, which might include giving back to the communities they serve, and caring for customers.
Because of the current political environment, many American’s have a historically high level of mistrust in government and public health when it comes to the topic of vaccination, but there is good news – employers are a trusted source. New research shows 72% of Americans trust their employer as the most believable source of information on a range of issues, including the pandemic. According to the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer, Americans are looking to employers and brands to help them make sense of the pandemic and what comes next.
Fortunately, a new coalition of business and public health leaders called the Health Action Alliance is making it easy for employers of all sizes to share up-to-date, fact-based information from trusted experts about the safety and importance of COVID-19 vaccines. With support from the Ad Council, the Business Roundtable, the CDC Foundation, the de Beaumont Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Health Action Alliance has put together a suite of free and open-source materials employers can use to plan their vaccination policy, and their communications to employees and their customers. These organizations have done extensive focus group work testing messages about the importance of vaccination.
My organization, the National Alliance for Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions is pleased to be an early partner in this endeavor, contributing our insights and resources, including a new video geared towards addressing vaccine questions among employees of color. This is an especially important part of this effort, as the pandemic has exacerbated existing health inequalities, hitting low-income Americans and communities of color the hardest.
What our nation needs now is for all employers, large and small, public and private, to get on board and share this information and resources with employees and customers, to help build back confidence in public health and the important role COVID-19 vaccines can play in helping end the pandemic.
Many employers have already gone above and beyond in their efforts to not only educate their employees, but to support vaccination in the communities that they serve. For example, Chobani is offering six paid hours of time off to employees to get COVID-19 vaccines, and is also working with local public health officials to host on-site vaccination clinics as soon as food processing workers are eligible. BET has partnered with Tyler Perry to produce news, entertainment and online content that helps fight misinformation and vaccine hesitancy in Black communities. Starbucks is partnering with state officials, public health agencies and other corporations in Washington State to help develop and scale models for vaccination centers that can be standardized and reproduced across the state. Every employer can educate their own employees, but they also have their own unique strengths and resources that can help them assist with wide vaccine education and distribution efforts.
Ending this pandemic represents a once-in-a-generation challenge and opportunity for us to work together, partnering with public health, sharing trusted information, and exchanging ideas about what we can be doing to reach deeper into the communities that we serve. I’m confident our nation’s employers are up to the task.
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