Employers clearly can play an important role in driving vaccination rates, but can they go so far as to require employees or potential employees to get a COVID shot?

President Biden is just about to pass his goal of 100 million COVID vaccines distributed within his first 100 days in office, and states across the country have started opening up eligibility to a wider range of individuals.

With more of their working population becoming eligible for the vaccine, employers and their HR and compliance teams have been busy planning their role in promoting and facilitating vaccinations. Some companies have offered incentives to employees who get vaccinated, while others offer time off for appointments and recovery. And others, such as electronic medical record company Epic, are going so far as to host vaccine clinics for their employee populations.

Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.

Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.

Emily Payne

Emily Payne is director, content analytics for ALM's Business & Finance Markets and former managing editor for BenefitsPRO. A Wisconsin native, she has spent the past decade writing and editing for various athletic and fitness publications. She holds an English degree and Business certificate from the University of Wisconsin.