Workplace Vaccination Program

By providing information about COVID-19 vaccination and establishing supportive policies and equitable practices, employers can help increase vaccine uptake among workers. Employers should share clear, complete, and accurate messages, promote confidence in the decision to get vaccinated, and engage employees in plans to address potential barriers to vaccination.

The information presented below explains the benefits of employee vaccination and can help employers prepare for employee vaccination either at the workplace or in the community.

Potential benefits to employers:

• Keep the workforce healthy by preventing employees from getting COVID-19

• Help protect clients, customers, and visitors from COVID-19 illness

• Reduce absences due to COVID-19 illness

• Improve productivity

• Improve morale, build trust, and be responsive of your employees needs and cultural norms

Potential benefits to employees:

• Prevent COVID-19 illness and long-term complications

• Reduce absences and doctor visits due to COVID-19 illness

• Help protect family and household members from COVID-19 illness

• Improve morale

Consider COVID-19 Vaccination Options for Your Employees

Assess options for vaccinating your workforce. Options include:

• On site at the workplace

  • Existing occupational health clinics

  • Employer-run temporary vaccination clinics

  • Mobile vaccination clinics brought to the workplace

  • Hosting a local health department or pharmacy vaccination clinic

• Off site in the community

  • Mobile/temporary vaccination clinics set up at community locations (closed or open to the public)

  • Pharmacies enrolled in the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program

  • Hospitals and healthcare provider offices

  • Federally qualified health centers and other community clinics

Consider a workplace vaccination program if you have:

• A large number of workers on site with predictable schedules

• A large number of workers who are not vaccinated

• Workers with limited access to vaccination services, live in under-resourced communities, or experience disadvantage

• The ability to enroll with your jurisdiction’s immunization program as a vaccination provider, including appropriately trained staff, or to engage an enrolled vaccination provider

• A location with enough space to stand up a vaccination clinic while maintaining physical distancing through the entire process, from screening to post-vaccination observation. See CDC’s guidance for temporary vaccination clinics for more detail.

Consider off site vaccination if you:

• Are a small- or medium-sized organization that does not have the resources to host a vaccination clinic

• Have a large number of workers who have already been vaccinated

• Have mobile worker populations that frequently move from one job site to the next

• Have workers with highly variable schedules

• Have a majority of workers who would prefer vaccination in a community clinic rather than an employer-run clinic

Build Confidence in COVID-19 Vaccines

Vaccine confidence is the trust that employers, employees, their families, and healthcare providers have in:

• Recommended vaccines

• Providers who administer vaccines

• Processes and policies that lead to vaccine development, licensure or authorization, manufacturing, and recommendations for use

Build vaccine confidence by making confidence visible in your workplace. Follow these steps:

1. Discuss the vaccination policies with labor and management representatives. Use organizational leaders as role models and identify employees at any level in your workplace to be vaccine champions. These role models and champions should reflect the diversity of the workforce, especially those disproportionately impacted. Invite the leaders and champions to share their personal reasons for getting vaccinated and remind employees why it’s important to be vaccinated.

2. Communicate transparently to all employees about vaccination. See Key Things to Know, Frequently Asked Questions, and Myths and Facts for up-to-date information.

3. Create a communication plan. Share key messages with employees through breakroom posters, emails, and other channels. Emphasize the benefits of protecting themselves, their families, co-workers, and community. This fact sheet is available in numerous languages.

4. Provide regular updates on topics like the benefits, safety, side effects and effectiveness of vaccination; clearly communicate what is and is not known.

5. Host physician or trusted provider Q&A sessions, especially inviting doctors or public health experts who reflect the race/ethnicity or cultural identity of the workforce. Your local health department may be able to provide a community health worker or promotora to visit your workplace and talk to your employees.

6. Make visible the decision to get vaccinated and celebrate it! Provide stickers for employees to wear after vaccination and encourage them to post selfies on social media.

7. Identify and foster partnerships with local public health departments or any other community or health-based organization to promote vaccination.

CDC created the Workplaces and Businesses web page to help employers protect their employees with a variety of tools, including vaccination. The web page includes information on COVID-19 vaccines, post-vaccination considerations for workplaces, and information on other preventive measures.

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