Partners Continue to Debate COVID-19 Mandates as Virus, Variants Surge
From "no vax, no work," to cries for "freedom," the partner community mirrors the rest of the U.S. and the world.
August 26, 2021
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“We here at Approyo want and hope that everyone gets vaccinated and stays healthy. What we have told our employees is we recommend you get vaccinated to be safe for yourself, for your family, for your fellow employees and for your customers, but we are not mandating that they get vaccinated. We are also not mandating that they must come back to the office.
“We are allowing members of our teams to continue to work around the globe 24×7 in any manner that they can to support our organization and the customers they provide assistance to. We feel that this is the best way forward at this current time as the levels continue to move up and down. Safety is our utmost concern for everyone involved.”
“On our side of the border, COVID-19 has been under control for months, and vaccinations are going smoothly. We fear the new variant, though. But all of this has put us in a position where we had to think about location.
“We are based out of Sherbrooke, Québec. All of our staff was here one year ago. COVID-19 made us see that it would work to have people all over the country. We are now hiring in any location with a remote office. It is the perfect solution for us; we have extended our presence further than we thought possible, and also find new recruits faster. Our main office will eventually move to a co-workplace as soon as the lease is over.”
“I believe that all MSPs will begin to mandate their employees to be vaccinated because clients are asking for proof of vaccination when they go onsite. This seems to be a trend in the New York City marketplace.”
“We have been working with outside HR counsel to put this together and will continue to follow CDC and epidemiology guidelines regarding the delta variant, while also paying close attention to the lambda variant which appears to have some level of vaccine resistance.”
We are denying access to eGroup, partner and customer offices for any team member who has not provided prior proof of vaccination. Masking rules as previously communicated are in effect for vaccinated people within all indoor common office areas.
We are denying travel and in-person events for any team member who has not provided prior proof of vax and sought approval for in-person travel/events — this includes expense reimbursement of any kind.
Out of an abundance of caution, any sales or delivery team member who is going onsite for customer visits or customer work must provide proof of vaccine. We urge you to wear a mask while travelling and onsite with partners and customers.
If you have a legitimate medical reason to not get the vaccine, you must provide proof from two separate doctors (general and a specialist in the related condition that prevents you from receiving) and you must continue to work remote[ly] 100% until such time you are either able to receive the vaccine, or the CDC communicates significant herd immunity to eliminate your risk, or risk to others.
If you do not have a legitimate medical reason to get the vaccine, you must continue to work remotely with no in-person contact with eGroup, customer or partners until such time the CDC communicates significant herd immunity to eliminate your risk, or risk to others. No travel will be approved.”
“We have not required any employee to get vaccinated, and currently have no plans to introduce that requirement. That being said, overall, we are roughly 85% vaccinated within our team.
“We do, however, adhere to individual client requirements for onsite support, [for example], masking, or only sending a vaccinated tech for support if required.”
“Ninety percent of our staff has returned to the office, and we’re not mandating vaccination. However, we luckily have an extremely high vaccination rate currently. We’re following CalOSHA and local county health department guidelines for masking, distancing, etc.
“We’re working on a background plan to implement flex/hybrid work schedules going forward. [We’re] not currently mandating vaccination and no discussed plans to do so.”
“At Red Key Solutions, we have decided to continue with a full flex work-from-home policy in perpetuity. As long as team members get their job done well, we do not care where they are. Some prefer to be in the office every day and others prefer to come once in a while. I think this new normal has opened up a lot of opportunities for people to live a better life.
“Regarding mandating vaccinations, Red Key was on the front lines from day one of the pandemic serving health care providers in New York City, including a large COVID-19 testing operation. So we were able to get to a 100% company-wide vaccination early, which has kept us protected. If we hire new team members, it would be a requirement for them to be fully vaccinated to come to the office or go onsite to a client.”
“We are not in favor of heavy-handed government tactics to push private employers to mandate vaccines for employees. This is a matter of personal health choice, and we view this as government interference in personal freedom for citizens to make personal health decisions.
“We think that this approach would not only unfairly ostracize employees, but put them in the difficult position of taking what they perceive as a personal medical risk in order to keep their job. Nothing good can come of this approach. It creates anxiety and stress in the workplace, is destructive to morale, and will ultimately drive good employees to seek jobs elsewhere.”
“PEAKE supports larger medical practices from Pennsylvania through the Carolinas. We’ve been back in the office since June 2020, with just a few exceptions for employees in high-risk situations. We were able to offer employees a path to vaccination starting in January, which most did then. We relaxed mask requirements and social distancing in the office as our state (Maryland) and county (Anne Arundel) updated guidance.
“We’re going to stay “in person,” with continued options for occasional work from home. This is the model our team of 35 employees prefers. We prefer a collaborative office culture, with remote work flexibility for life balance. In fact, we’re nearing the completion of a new office in Maryland that will double our space to support our planned growth, in addition to a new office in Raleigh, North Carolina, that we opened in June.”
“We are not mandating vaccines for our 20 employees. We are going back to work 100% in-office on Tuesdays and Thursdays as we feel the interaction with others is critical to an MSP.
“As for the other three days, we are going to do a formal WFH agreement where they have to have a separate office space and meet certain performance goals. No more working from the living room couch like early in the pandemic. Also, not all positions are eligible to work from home for various reasons.”
“For DP Solutions, we have a SharePoint site that we are allowing folks to provide us with the confidential status of their vaccine. We are tracking and reporting weekly on our percentage of total vaccinated. When we send the notification, we are sending current information to help support the vaccine, how-tos, state updates, etc.
“Employees who are not vaccinated are required to ‘mask up.’ Regarding client engagements, we are asking the protocol of the client so that we are respecting onsite visits.
“At this point, we have not required, but any new hires we are asking about the status of the vaccine. To date, all new hires have been vaccinated.”
“Thrive is allowing our employees the freedom to make their own decisions on their health care. We are currently allowing everyone to work remotely, and everyone who wants to come into the office can do so if they so choose. This is currently about 10% of our workforce.
“We have communicated that we will not mandate returning to the office full-time, but at some point, there will be a part-time return to the office with hoteling when it is universally deemed safe.”
“PCH Technologies headquarters have been open for a while now. We are encouraging team members to get vaccinated but not requiring it. We do have staff back in the office and are leaving it up to the individual on whether they want to wear a mask while inside. It is important to me to provide flexible work options for my team.
“Some people work fully remote, some hybrid and some full-time in the office, but I still believe that having some degree of an in-person work environment is key to collaboration and innovation within our company. With that being said, the safety and well-being of my team is always my top priority, and our policy reflects safety and flexibility in order to attract top talent to come work with PCH Technologies.“
“For our company, we are working in the office again and have been for a while. We have told all staff if they feel sick at all they should work from home until they feel better and/or know it’s not COVID-19. [Bazar Solutions] won’t have any mandates around the vaccine. We have not, and will not require vaccinations.
“[Our company has] encouraged any staff to get vaccinated if they want it and allow them to take time off if required (either to get the shot or if they feel bad after the shot). Our COVID-19 policy is to follow our clients policies — if they require masks onsite, then wear a mask; if they don’t, then we typically don’t. As for our clients — we are supporting them anyway we can, including work from home.”
“My people’s health is their responsibility. We will have no vaccine mandate or recommendation. We’ve had people in the office all along, working from home, or a combination therein (pretty much as normal).
“We’ve handled the couple of people who had the virus well, and it didn’t spread. Being thoughtful and considerate of others when you’re not feeling well is the key to all this.”
“Velo believes the personal health decisions of its team members are exactly as stated, personal and none of our business. This great nation was founded on freedom, and our team has the freedom to choose what is best for them and their health.
“Further, Velo is all-in on in-office. Top performers are wanting to be face-to-face with their team members, collaborating, and building world class experiences for our clients.”
“We are not requiring a vaccine; however, employees are encouraged to show proof of vaccination. Once proof is shown, the employee is permitted to remove their mask while in the office.
“When on customer sites, we default to wearing a mask (regardless of vaccination status) unless the customer’s requirements are different (we always defer to the requirements of the customer).
“Our office is open every day as a hoteling space, with most staff using a hybrid work-from-home model. This means that employees whose role allows them to work remotely full time are doing so, and others are in the office on a set schedule a few days per week. We only have one person in the office full-time, since they are new and still going through training and orientation. Our go-forward plans are to have support staff in the office full time at some point, with consultative and administrative staff working from home about half of the time.
“Customers are also wanting to meet with us in-person again, so our conference room remains open and available for meetings as needed.”
“We have reopened our offices already, and approximately 50% of our staff have returned to the offices so far. We will continue to ramp up the return to offices with an aim to be back at 100% in the next two months.
“We have a flexible work policy whereby team members can choose from where they work. They can do full-time from the office, full-time from home or any combination of the two. Anyone who opts to work from the office three or more days per week is assigned a desk and everyone else got desks.
“In terms of vaccines, we are leaving this to team members to decide for themselves as to what is right for them.”
“NetGain Technologies’ primary goal is to provide great service to our clients while also providing a safe and healthy work environment for our employees.
“Back in March 2020, it was imperative we adjust our historic work from the office mentality to working from home. Now, a year-and-a-half later, we realize that our company culture requires flexibility, so we plan to reopen our offices with the expectation of a hybrid model.”
“I lead a $10 million MSP (64 staff) with three locations (Pittsburgh, Boston and Toronto). The U.S. locations are different then the Canadian location due to the fact that they are still in Phase 3 and behind the U.S. in ‘return to normal’ for most businesses.
“Our policy is clear and supports and encourages staff to be vaccinated in all territories. We have seen a 95% fully vaccinated for U.S. locations and a 80% fully vaccinated in Canada.
“We continue to monitor local and state regulations. We do not plan to require employees to wear masks at this time. We are respectful of people’s decision to vaccinate based on their beliefs. For employees that aren’t vaccinated, we have them work remotely. Fortunately this has worked out with all the skills required and both parties being accommodating to create success – win/win.
“I don’t see a large change in our policy coming unless we have to adhere to state and local regulations. We are a diverse company with many different personal and cultural beliefs.”
USA
We have one day a week for all staff to be in the office at the same time. Department work schedules in the office vary based on their roles and needs. For example, our support center team is in the office three days a week and work remotely on the other days.
We are only allowing people in the U.S. who have been vaccinated to return to the office or visit client businesses.
For staff not vaccinated in the U.S., we are making other arrangements to have them work remotely.
Canada / Ontario (still in phase 3)
We are all remote and plan to stay that way through the end of the year.
Any employees must wear a mask to visit our office.
All staff must wear a mask to visit client businesses.
“First, during COVID-19, we have continued to work as normal, with a rotation of engineers being in the office (safely distanced) to operate infrastructure. We have systems that need to be secure in terms of the only access to them is from our management platform in our office. (For example, it can’t be connected remotely from home). We have a backup center where if our primary site is inaccessible, the secondary will allow access – but again this is physical access, not remote due to security.
“As I indicated, the team had a rotation so that no more than two personnel were in the office at any time. Everyone else worked remotely. We were deemed critical infrastructure due to medical health care and financial clients so had authority to travel.
“As things opened up we increased our office-based staff to three, and created a “flexible working” policy which allowed staff to work a predetermined two days from home, three days in the office. This was not part of their contract and dependent on operational requirements.
“For example, if a team member meant to be at work was isolating or had been “pinged” by our famous “track and trace” app, then we could call on one of them to come in.
“Here is a major difference between those who have said, ‘We’re never going back to the office’ and those who took our stance. The companies that said we don’t need to come back, who are starting to see the issues with permanent remote working, are trying to unwind this directive.”
“Dataprise continues to prioritize the health and well-being of our employees, while closely monitoring the COVID-19 situation alongside CDC and local state guidelines. We are continuing to lead with flexibility as much as possible, and this summer we began taking a thoughtful and phased approach to reopening our offices across the U.S.
“We officially reopened our headquarters in the Washington, D.C. area in July 2021, allowing employees who wished to begin working from our office to do so. We have many employees that continue to work remotely, while others have selected a hybrid or fully in-person schedule.
“While we have not made vaccination a condition of working from the offices, we are strongly encouraging employees to be vaccinated. At all our office locations, we have implemented layers of safety precautions to protect our employees. These range from capacity limitations and requiring unvaccinated employees to wear masks to increased cleaning and availability of sanitizer and PPE.
“As conditions continue to evolve at different rates around the world, we will monitor the situation closely and further adapt, as necessary.”
“We are not 100% happy with the productivity of people working from home. We do feel a hybrid solution can be achieved, but while work from home in Latin America was good at the beginning, afterward employees had connectivity issues, uncomfortable work spaces at home, and little discipline (especially young employees).
“In general, we need to have structure within our workforce of more than 500 people, so we have ordered all employees that are vaccinated or have had COVID-19 to come back to the office. We have a very small percentage of people that don’t want to get the vaccine — less than 2%.
“Legally we are not sure at the moment if we can force employees to get the vaccine, so right now it’s optional for them while we review legal options per country we operate (16 countries).”
“We have 20+ years of expertise in work-from-home solutions like VMware and Citrix. We are doubling down on remote access to solve problems and adding capabilities to do more remotely. We continue to introduce automation to identify and solve problems for our customers, reducing human involvement.
“We are not mandating vaccines. However, we are abiding by the client’s policies related to masks, etc., or the employee’s wishes, whichever is more stringent.
“We are open; we cover critical industries primarily and have not been in a position to be able to close. We have isolated, we are all working remotely, and will continue to do so indefinitely.
“Our job is to keep our customers in business with functional IT systems so they, in turn, can take care of their employees and customers. IT is part of every business these days; some clients are pressing to take care of business. We have to be there to make sure their systems are supporting their efforts to remain viable businesses. It is difficult for our clients to be open and take care of customers with a short staff. They need technology (and those that can make it work) to help close those gaps and keep them going, or better yet, innovating. Some clients are packing it in, and some are more aggressive, doubling down on projects that build long-term advantages, trying to put distance between themselves and their competitors.
“Business must go on, in some form, and we are doing our best to take those bets with our customers.
“We are moving fast to address client needs but are careful to stay very attuned to our employees. We are a big family that supports one another. We encourage our employees, our internal customers, to take the time they need to care for themselves and those they care about and come back charged and ready to go. We take care of each other and cover for one another, so we all get through this successfully.”
“If you are not vaccinated, you cannot work with us. As simple as that.”
“I believe this will end up being a personal choice down to the leadership of each MSP. However, it’s very shaky legal ground right now. Yes, big tech is imposing vaccine requirements, and they could have determined that it’s less of a financial and legal liability for them, at this moment, than dealing with the potential reputation liability of a COVID-19 outbreak within their offices.
“Really, it all comes down to money. Bigger firms have greater risk than smaller MSPs. I think we’ll see the big ones lean toward vaccine mandates, and the smaller shy away … for now.”
“One of the biggest concerns for any service provider is, how do we protect our people? Technology has quickly become the foundation for businesses in the quicksand of the pandemic. Protecting not only our customers but our valued employees is now more important than ever.
“As a result, the ability to allow employees to work remotely is now an essential component of our businesses. Luckily for MSPs, we have options. For many others that have not adopted the tools, techniques and technologies that enable them to inherit the benefit, the discussion is not as favorable.
“I believe that we will see many tech companies adopt vaccination as a ‘right to return to the office,’ while I also see that many will choose the path of least resistance and allow employees to choose a remote option. Overall, I believe that this is a difficult time for everyone; there are certain factors and limitations that need to be taken into account when creating company policy such as this and for some it will take time to navigate the best options for their businesses.”
“If [employees] are not vaccinated, they have to do weekly COVID-19 tests. We have been back in the office all year.”
“We believe everyone has the right to make decisions they feel are best for them. We are supporting our team getting vaccinated, and allow them the time they may need during their working day to get vaccinated. However, we will not be enforcing vaccination as a condition to return to the Cymax office.”
“… [We] value employee culture. We know that all of our team members have different views, desires and risk factors. For that reason, we have not put into play any broad return-to-work mandates.
“[In the same manner], we know that those same things are true about vaccination and COVID-19 risks so we’ve stayed out of the position of encouraging or mandating vaccines. Our mask policy at work is tied to exposures in the area where we operate. When the case counts are increased, those policies get more stringent, when they decline they relax.”
“… [We] value employee culture. We know that all of our team members have different views, desires and risk factors. For that reason, we have not put into play any broad return-to-work mandates.
“[In the same manner], we know that those same things are true about vaccination and COVID-19 risks so we’ve stayed out of the position of encouraging or mandating vaccines. Our mask policy at work is tied to exposures in the area where we operate. When the case counts are increased, those policies get more stringent, when they decline they relax.”
We recently reported on what partners and vendors are doing in terms of COVID-19 mandates. We asked, are offices reopening to all? For those that do, should they require employees to get vaccinated? What about masks — yes or no?
It’s a weird landscape to navigate, to be sure. Amid a rising number of COVID-19 cases and the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant, there has been a shift in thinking among some corporate leaders. It’s a tough judgment call for partners. On one hand, you want to protect your employees. On the other, you’re trying to respect everyone’s perspective and choice surrounding the vaccine. Setting expectations for employees with a variety of backgrounds and factors can be murky, to say the least.
So, to mandate or not to mandate? That, partners, is the question. We beamed out the bat signal to our MSPs earlier this month for their perspectives on COVID-19 mandates.
See what they had to say in the slideshow above.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Allison Francis or connect with her on LinkedIn. |
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