COVID-19: Vaccine Passports in Your Workplace

OHS Policies At Work

Like many employers, you might have been undecided about whether to mandate that your employees get the COVID-19 vaccine. However, now that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has fully approved a coronavirus vaccine, namely, the Pfizer BioNTech, you are on much stronger legal ground in requiring that employees get vaccinated. In fact, if you’re a federally regulated entity or contractor that does business with the federal government, you might be required to impose a vaccine mandate on your employees.

One way or another, you’re going to want to be able to verify the vaccination status of your employees. If you’re among the majority of companies that’s not vaccinating their own employees, you need proof that staff members have been vaccinated by somebody else. One strategy is to take a page out of what many state and local governments are requiring for participating in certain kinds of non-essential public activity like going to sporting events or large indoor gatherings, and implement a vaccine passport policy requiring personnel to present proof of their vaccination status to gain entry to the workplace.