A quick review of the state of play around vaccine mandates within employers – per a survey of employers by Mercer, nearly a quarter of employers are already requiring vaccinations without a testing option despite the Supreme Court scrapping the Biden mandate, and when including the 13% requiring vaccines or regular testing, the total becomes 44%.
Another 8% require vaccines due to federal or state rules that remain in place, while 6% have plans to implement a mandate. Counterbalance, 42% of employers have no plans for a mandate.
If you’re worried about the great resignation – maybe it’s the Great reorganization. Per Gartner’s new report, 1 in 3 candidates who sought a new job in the past year searched internally within their organization first. Of course, that’s not always supported well internally. Just 17% of candidates applying internally say their managers are helpful in the process. Just 20% say they feel supported by their peers.
It’s interesting to consider vaccine mandates as a competitive differentiator – in a market where retention is critical; it could well be. Your own mileage may vary, of course, but I’ll continue to point to data showing the majority support mandates and add that private companies can do what they want.
The other key observation here is this – if retaining people is essential, why is such a disconnect on managers supporting it. Savvy leaders will be working on that – 17% is the realm of differentiators.