43% of Companies Offer Paid Time Off to Get Employees Vaccinated

New research from i4cp shows that organizations are taking various approaches to incentivize employees to receive COVID-19 vaccinations once available, though despite some widely publicized stories, very few companies are offering cash or gift card enticements.

Nearly 43% of organizations are offering or plan to offer paid time off so that employees can get vaccinated as the option becomes available, based on input from i4cp’s monthly Getting Employees Vaccinated survey of HR leaders and other business professionals. Another 19% say such an offering is under consideration.

These numbers represent an increase from our February survey, which found that 31% were or are planning to offer paid time off. At the time, 34% said the policy was under consideration.

Organizations continue to wrestle with the right approaches to get employees vaccinated for a variety of reasons, including:

• Inconsistent policies across countries, regions, and states
• Uneven vaccine distribution with varying government guidance
• Significant percentages of the population indicating reluctance or resistance to “getting the shot”

All of these factors, among others, pose massive and ever-shifting challenges.

As a result, three quarters (74%) of those surveyed say their organizations are or are planning to actively encourage employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccine—that’s up from 62% a month ago—whereas only 8% currently or plan to require all employees get vaccinated. It should be noted that is double the 4% who said the same in February.

Other ways organizations plan to encourage employees to get vaccinated include offering shots onsite (41%), or, less directly, providing educational material on the merits/efficacy of vaccination (56%). Only 5% have or plan to implement monetary incentives, though another 15% report such moves are under consideration.

i4cp’s monthly Getting Employees Vaccinated survey is based on input from 422 business professionals, primarily in HR. Over 50% represent global or multinational organizations. View the full results of the survey here.