After administering more than 30 million vaccines across the U.S., a healthcare company announced a company-wide vaccination policy requiring employees in clinical and corporate positions to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of October 2021. The move was driven by health and safety concerns for employees, patients and customers, but the client knew it wouldn’t come to fruition without impact to their workforce.
Flexing our Process for the New Policy
Because the new policy stipulated that all new hires in impacted roles be vaccinated, the PeopleScout client engaged with us prior to the announcement to discuss their plans and get ahead of any impact to recruitment efforts. As their long-term RPO partner, we were uniquely positioned to help the healthcare company create a multi-faceted plan to communicate the vaccine mandate to candidates and adjust recruitment activities to ensure new hires are in compliance with the mandate.
Leveraging copy and communications from the company’s HR and legal teams, we updated all relevant job descriptions with a section on the vaccine mandate and deadlines. To provide an additional screening step, we added vaccine status questions to application forms for the relevant positions. If candidates indicated that they were not vaccinated or not willing to be vaccinated, they were automatically disqualified in most states.
Taking a Hands-on Approach to Reduce Candidate Drop Off
To mitigate the impact on the dropout rate at the top of the funnel, we followed up with every candidate who said “no” to ensure they had understood the questions and hadn’t answered in error. As a result of this extra effort, several candidates were requalified and put back into the running for employment with the healthcare company. Disposition codes were also used to indicate when candidates left the funnel due reasons related to the vaccine requirements. This helped the company gather data on how the policy was impacting recruitment outcomes.
Supporting the Accommodation Process
COVID-19 vaccine mandate information was added to the candidate communication sequence in the organization’s CRM, directing them to a website complete with FAQs. Throughout the screening and interview process, the PeopleScout team also fielded questions from candidates. Common queries were about how to apply for a reasonable accommodation for those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical or religious reasons. While the internal legal team handled the review of all accommodation applications, the PeopleScout team did field questions about the accommodation process, freeing up the organization’s internal teams to focus on more strategic initiatives while boosting the candidate experience.
For successful candidates, we ensured all offer letters contained language about the vaccination requirement and followed up with candidates to address any final questions.
