Refer to this article:
an excerpt:Establishing a Legally Compliant “Mandatory” Vaccination Program
Absent further guidance from the EEOC, employers considering a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination program once the vaccine is considered safe and widely available as a condition to permitting employees to return to the physical office, for terminating employees from employment for refusing to be vaccinated, or for job applicants to begin employment, should consider some fundamental precepts prior to adopting such a program:
- Vaccine costs, if not fully health insurance-funded, should be borne entirely by the employer to avoid financial barriers to employment;
- The program should allow employees to opt out entirely if they have medical or religious objections to vaccination;
- In the event of a medical or religious objection, an interactive dialog should be established with the objector to determine whether the individual’s objections can be accommodated in light of the positon for which the individual is applying or currently holds;
- Fully trained human resources professionals should be responsible for this process, versus line managers who may lack such training;
- Job descriptions should be updated to provide for essential functions, which may include travel, customer-facing positions, close interaction with other employees, or other factors that might compel mandatory vaccination;
- Employers should pay particular attention to recordkeeping given the ADA mandate that medical records be kept separate from general personnel files and the importance of data integrity and limited internal access to medical information.
- Employers should keep in mind that a vaccine is not a fail-safe for an employer’s general obligation to provide a safe working environment, and COVID-19 has taught some hard workplace lessons regarding the prevention against and mitigation of easily transmittable but hard to discern dangers such as viruses and bacteria in the workplace.
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