While the light at the end of the tunnel appears to be in sight when it comes to the COVID pandemic, many employers are still struggling more than two years after they were forced to completely reimagine their workplaces, according to a report from Littler Mendelson.
Littler Mendelson’s survey of 1,275 in-house lawyers, executives and human resources professionals identified their top concerns as managing vaccine mandates and new sick and paid family leave mandates, and building a strong company culture when a significant swath of the workforce works remotely.
“One of the things that emerges from this survey is the idea that there are employers who are confronting a lot of issues related to COVID still,” said Devjani Mishra, a shareholder at Littler who was one of the leaders of the survey. “They’ve expanded their sick leave over the last two years, and they’re seeing increased benefits costs. They have concerns about staffing, about being able to maintain business continuity.
“That’s sort of the practical operational aspect of what people refer to as ‘living with COVID.’ Living with COVID means HR is living with COVID,” Mishra added. “Because you have to really, in a granular way, figure out who’s going to be able to come to work tomorrow, who’s comfortable working in the office. These are issues that employers have to continue dealing with.”
In August, when Littler last published its annual employer survey, only 21% of respondents said their organization had policies requiring COVID-19 vaccinations. That number climbed to 41% in Littler’s latest report.
While respondents said there were benefits to vaccine mandates, including reducing the transmission of the virus and helping employees feel safer working on-site, many also said they have seen, or expect to see, employee relations challenges as a result of the policies.
Seventy-eight percent of respondents pointed to complaints by employees who oppose vaccinations, while 70% cited loss of staff due to terminations or resignations. Fifty-nine percent pointed to the challenges of making sure exemption requests were legitimate.
Employers also are wrestling with how best to approach remote work. Fifty-four percent of respondents said they’ve already asked remote employees to return to work either on-site or on a hybrid basis, with another 26% saying they eventually would roll out similar policies.
Eighty-six percent of respondents with hybrid policies said they were worried about maintaining company culture and employee engagement, while 53% said they were concerned about making sure they applied hybrid work flexibility fairly. Fifty-two percent were concerned about the efficiency of meetings with a mix of on-site and remote employees.
Another challenge to navigate is the patchwork of paid sick and family leave requirements that jurisdictions across the country have passed to help residents navigate COVID. Asked what types of employment law changes would impact their businesses most, 73% of respondents cited paid sick and family leave requirements.
“There is a notion out there that employers don’t like regulation, and I would say it’s a little more complicated than that. I think employers like consistency and predictability,” Mishra said.
“They’re really struggling at this point in time with the fact that there isn’t very much consistency; there’s no predictability. You see that with sick leave. You see it with vaccines, different rules in different states. You just see it with COVID in general.”
Mishra, who was an in-house attorney for Alexion Pharmaceuticals before joining Littler in 2018, said it is challenging for employers to have so much in flux.
“The big thing that people need to be ready for is being adaptable and being flexible,” Mishra said.
“Having been in-house, I can tell you people live in fear of the idea of having to announce something and then announce a change to that thing. But I think if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the last few years is that people kind of have to get comfortable with the idea that they may have to make a change.”
