Nikki Mandow is Newsroom's business editor and the 2021 Voyager Media Awards Business Journalist of the Year @NikkiMandow.
Covid-19
Many employees – and their bosses – would like to see a vaccine mandate at their workplace. No jab, no job. But it’s not that simple.
Just before Christmas, Fletcher Building’s chief executive Ross Taylor made an announcement. From February 15 all employees – whether they work on a construction site, in a warehouse, a store, if they drive a truck, or even work from home – must be fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
No jab, no job, no exceptions.
It was a popular move in the company, Taylor said. Extensive employee consultation had found the vast majority of staff supported requiring vaccinations at work.
“The feedback agreed that the best way for us to ensure our workplace is as safe as possible and to protect each other, is for everyone to be fully vaccinated.”
But it was also a brave move, with Fletcher Building one of the first New Zealand companies – certainly the biggest one – to implement a blanket ban on unvaccinated employees, no matter where in the organisation they worked.
The move will affect around 9000 people, and it's hard to imagine there won't be job losses – and possibly backlash.
Other companies have come up with a variety of different solutions to the vaccine mandate problem.
Several professional services firms – lawyers Bell Gully and Russell McVeagh and accountants PwC, for example – have stopped unvaccinated employees...
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