Employco Blog

Recently, 24 state attorneys general submitted a letter strongly opposing President Joe Biden’s proposed COVID-19 vaccine mandate among private employers. These states have threatened legal action should the mandate’s efforts move forward. Earlier in September, Biden announced an upcoming mandate for employers with 100 or more employees. These businesses would need to require vaccinations among employees or have unvaccinated individuals submit to weekly COVID-19 testing.

The 24 states who signed the letter made the following key allegations against the mandate, among others:

• It will affect the job market and the ability to fill positions.
• It will increase vaccine skepticism.
• It is too broad, not accounting for nuanced employee situations.

Continue reading →

Employers now have even more extra time to submit equal employment opportunity (EEO-1) workforce data from 2019 and 2020, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced on Aug. 18, 2021.

The 2019 and 2020 EEO-1 reports were previously due by Aug. 23, 2021, which was an extension from the original deadline of July 19, 2021. Employers now have until Oct. 25, 2021, to complete their submissions. According to the EEOC, this new deadline is final, and no additional extensions will be made.

The EEOC’s collection of the 2019 and 2020 data, the portal for which opened on April 26, 2021, had been delayed numerous other times due to the coronavirus pandemic. Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the EEO-1 Report is usually due by March 31 every year.

Continue reading →

Nearly 2 in 3 employees say strong company culture is the main reason for staying at their job, according to a Glassdoor survey. Employers can leverage their company culture to attract and retain top talent in a competitive job market. However, a strong company culture could be at risk in a hybrid workplace as different on-site and remote workplace cultures emerge.

Organizational leaders should intentionally create, foster and nurture culture when people are working from everywhere. This article provides an overview of company culture and considerations for employers managing their culture with a distributed workforce.

What Is Company Culture? Company culture is the personality and environment of an organization. Defined by more than just a mission statement or organizational values, company culture encompasses the unwritten norms of how employees interact with one another. Company culture can be broken into three broad categories:

Continue reading →

On Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021, Delta Air Lines announced it will require employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccine or pay a $200 monthly fee. Starting Nov. 1, unvaccinated employees on Delta Air Lines’ health plan would be responsible for paying a $200 monthly surcharge for health benefits, in addition to being tested weekly for COVID-19. Unvaccinated workers will undergo weekly testing beginning mid-September, according to the company.

Delta Air Lines’ CEO, Ed Bastian, said the company acknowledges that vaccinations are the “most effective” way to combat the spread of COVID-19—75% of the organization is fully vaccinated. Moreover, Bastian said it costs Delta Air Lines $50,000 per employee hospital stay due to COVID-19. The $200 surcharge is intended to both offset those costs and incentivize employees to get vaccinated.

“We’ve always known that vaccinations are the most effective tool to keep our people safe and healthy in the face of this global health crisis.” – Ed Bastion, Delta Air Lines CEO

Continue reading →

In early September, we closed a confidential COVID-19 survey of businesses from around the country.  Thanks to everyone who took the time to submit their responses. The survey included the following 6 questions:

1. Are you requiring your employees to wear a mask when they are working at a company facility?
2. Are you requiring your employees to be vaccinated?
3. Are you tracking if your employees have been vaccinated?
4. What percentage of your office staff is work-from-home (WFH)?
5. Which group do you find more productive: work-from-home (WFH) or in-office employees?
6. Compared to pre-pandemic, do you anticipate long-term changes to your work-from-home (WFH) headcount?

Click the following link or scroll through the images below to view a summary of the survey results:

Continue reading →

COVID-19 vaccinations are a highly contentious topic in America. Many U.S. adults still haven’t gotten the shot despite the Food and Drug Administration’s recent (FDA) full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

This reluctance is seen as a problem by health experts, who contest that vaccination is the most effective way to control the widespread coronavirus Delta variant. It’s also a problem for employers wishing to maintain uninterrupted operations and to keep employees healthy.

So, if an employer wants a vaccinated workforce but is dealing with vaccine skepticism, what are their options? We have created an HR Insights article that explores this complicated situation and discusses the multitude of choices facing employers. The article includes information on :

Continue reading →