Vaccine protocols: You’ve got one shot at building employee trust

As anyone who’s ever awoken to the smell of smoke and raced outside in their pajamas can attest, sometimes when there’s smoke, it doesn’t matter if there’s actually fire.

Employers may soon realize the same is true when it comes to Covid-19 vaccination mandates. Perception is reality: Employees who hear shocking gossip about their employers may not give HR the benefit of the doubt. They just lose trust.

This was certainly the case for one healthcare worker at Upstate Medical University, a SUNY hospital system in New York state, who shared a troubling allegation with HR Brew: Despite a statewide Covid-19 vaccination requirement for healthcare workers, the employee believes unvaccinated staff may still be working within the hospital’s ecosystem as third-party contractors.

“What’s making me angry is everyone else is being led to believe that the mandate has been in effect and everything is fine,” said the worker, who asked that her name be withheld because she was not authorized to speak publicly about her employer. “The only reason that I know who’s not vaccinated is because [of a conversation with a superior]. It’s not something that everyone is privy to.”

The employee says that this has made her lose trust in the hospital leadership.

“All of these safety measures that made me feel safe before, are no longer making me feel safe,” she said. When asked what the administration could do to restore their trust, she replied, “Nothing.”

“I have two kids that are not old enough to be vaccinated yet, and I don’t want to be working with people who are not vaccinated,” she added.

Asked about the employee’s allegation that the hospital could be using a loophole to keep unvaccinated workers in the workplace, Darryl Geddes, the director of PR for Upstate Medical, responded in a statement, “Upstate broadly applied the mandate to all of Upstate—including non-hospital buildings—to best meet the requirements as written in Department of Health mandate, and this includes application of the requirement to paid staff, contract staff, students, and volunteers who meet the definition of covered personnel.”

When asked if there were any unvaccinated workers at the hospital, Geddes further clarified: “Upstate employees who are working and covered under the mandate are vaccinated, except for those who have filed for religious and medical exemptions.”

Broken trust. And as companies continue to grapple with a labor shortage, with a record 4.3 million workers quitting their jobs in August, maintaining employee trust is essential for retention. A recent Harris Poll survey of employed Americans found that among workers who are unhappy in their jobs, 42% said the fear of Covid spreading in the workplace is the top reason for their discontent.

So what’s to be done when an employer has already lost employees’ faith that the workplace is safe? Fred Foulkes, director of the Human Resources Policy Institute, told HR Brew that “companies who lose trust will have a difficult time gaining it back.”

Foulkes said companies must immediately “own up to mistakes” and offer employees the opportunity to provide feedback and feel heard, including “offering engagement surveys to track concerns and internal procedures where people can complain.”

“In some workplaces we have seen a significant spike in hostility,” corporate lawyer Phillipe Weiss told CNBC. “Human Resources contacts report the stress of attempting to manage the introduction of oft-changing Covid safety policies with, in some cases, an inundation of gripes from both the vaxxed and unvaxxed.”

Keep talking. Devjani Mishra, employment law firm Littler Mendelson’s Covid-19 task force leader, told HR Brew why clear communication is critical to the balancing act.

“Employers should always assume that their statements will be reviewed carefully by their employees,” Mishra advised. “More than 20 months into this pandemic, healthcare employees, like everyone else, are constantly assessing the risks that various activities pose to themselves and their families. It is especially important for employers to explain their Covid safety precautions and vaccination policies accurately and not to communicate in a way that could mislead employees about relevant risks.”

She notes that failing to do so could lead to whistleblowing: “State and local health and safety agencies and regulators have certainly invited employees to report concerns where employers may have fallen short.”

As for companies who have already lost employees’ faith? Fred Foulkes, founder and director of the Human Resources Policy Institute, told HR Brew that “companies who lose trust will have a difficult time gaining it back.”

Foulkes advises that companies immediately “own up to mistakes” and give employees the opportunity to provide feedback and feel heard: “[Companies will] need to use a layered approach, like offering engagement surveys to track concerns and internal procedures where people can complain so they don’t have to go to the EEOC or the Department of Labor.”

Bottom Line: New York employment attorney Helene Hechtkopf says employees should be informed immediately of any and all updates to policy. She outlined what communications should include, “A successful communication will include the timeline by which the employees need to be vaccinated, as well as information for the employees about how to submit proof of vaccination, how that proof of vaccination will be securely and privately stored, and what the ramifications are for employees that choose not to be vaccinated.”

Do you work in HR or have information about your HR department we should know? Contact Susanna Vogel via the encrypted messaging apps Signal and Telegram (@SusannaVogel) or simply email [email protected].