00:00 Shilpi Agarwal:

And up next is the biggest debate of the century: vaccine mandate and the Great Resignation. We are seeing this so much now. We will hear a great discussion moderated by Kevin, the panelists are Bruce and Sam. I’m looking forward to this discussion, we have had so many of these internal discussions as to which side of this line do you fall – should vaccines be mandated? The great resignation – is that something we should be vouching for; is it something that companies should do, ask for your health care records and violate your privacy rights or is this a one-off exception to that rule? Let’s hear from the panelists, I can’t wait to hear this awesome discussion that you guys have put together – so take it away!

2:17 Kevin Dias

Thanks so much Shilpi, I’m really excited to discuss the Great Resignation and the vaccine mandate. To kick things off, let’s start with the Great Resignation. I did pull up a definition that I got from what I believe is the most credible source, Wikipedia – just joking, if not credible it’s at least interesting! So it says here that ‘the Great Resignation, also known as the Big Quit, is the ongoing trend of employees voluntarily leaving their jobs from spring 2021 to the present, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.’ I’m curious to know what are your first thoughts or impressions of the great resignation – have you seen it happening in front of you, what are your experiences and what do you know about it so far?

4:26 Sam Wigglesworth:

Great question. I think from what you said, the trend, reading around the topic and what’s happening with people I know in the teaching profession, I think it’s being at home and realizing that we can get a better work-life balance, in particular with women in the workplace. When we went through the initial lockdown, childcare and homeschooling was a big issue and something we had to juggle, and I think that drove parents, women and men, to consider what they wanted; it was time to think about that and reflect on that. There was a lot of pressure initially, and I’m speaking from experience as a teacher; I was teaching online and parents were trying to juggle not only childcare but also teaching, so it was a lot. I think that’s for me one of the factors to consider that really pushed people to think about what they wanted from their jobs.

5:54 Bruce Hoffman:

Yeah, I think there’s a lot of it going on, especially in the service industries. I’m living in a small town in the mountains and half the businesses are having trouble staying open because they can’t hire people. You see it everywhere; businesses offering $500, $1000 or whatever to try to bring people on to be cooks or waiters or whatever the role might be. People have really reevaluated, especially early on with all the pandemic assistance that was being given they’re like: ‘hey, well now I’ve got this store of money that I never got before, and it’s more than I’m actually making in the job’. Frontline workers are most exposed and most concerned about whether or not their health is going to be at risk, and at the same time you see businesses shutting down left and right. You look on the other side of it, in the high tech space where this group and the people listening to us tend to be, there’s a great hiring going on – a lot of people still have quit and decided ‘hey it was a time to actually move to another job’, but I think it’s been advantaged here in this space, but very disadvantaged on the other side of the coin.

7:19 Kevin:

I like what you said there Bruce on the greater hiring, I think that ties back to one of our first talks this morning, by Mike I believe – I’m not sure if you were directly referencing that, I think you were – the great rehiring, right?

7:35 Bruce:

Yeah, I was looking at his stuff and I’m thinking ‘wow, there’s companies overly competing for the same same job’ – still a challenge to go find something if you’re looking, but there is a lot of work out there.

7:53 Kevin:

For sure, for sure. Let’s talk a little bit about occupational burnout; what are some of your thoughts on how companies can help with that?

8:13 Sam:

I think it’s incredibly important. What I’ve been seeing as well as reading is that if you as a company were really quick to bring people back into the office when lockdown was eased, you were seen as the company that didn’t really care and didn’t have the culture of focusing on the employee. I think that the companies that gave time off to staff and had a mixture of meetings in the office and working from home actually could retain their employees to a greater capacity than others. Things like that – having days where you would meet, having a week off; I think some companies actually gave individuals weeks off to recharge. I heard that Bumble, Nike and LinkedIn did that. I think if you were focusing on those things we learned when we were in lockdown, getting that right balance, then I think staff really responded well to that and wanted more of that, and would choose to go back to those companies rather than jump to something else. So I think that was important definitely, having a bit of a hybrid schedule helped.

9:44 Bruce:

Yeah, I think that seems to be coming up as one of the number one things that people are looking for, truly flexible work hours. We’ve become much more internationally creative – I mean look at us here, in just this group we’re in three significantly different time zones. I could have my midday off or have my morning off, because I know I can work in the evening. Also  people, especially here in technology, are introverted – I’m not gonna say that’s entirely the rule, but in this space it’s pretty darn common – so people that started working at home were like ‘I’m not really sure that I want to come back’. I see Munici asking about mental health due to the pandemic; again we’ve seen a lot of studies on really what’s happening, burnout has increased significantly. I am trying to understand a piece of that – because a lot of people in this space, we’re driving right, so they’ve gained back anywhere from an hour to three hours a day or sometimes even more than that, but now what’s happening is people feel like ‘I’m on Slack (or whatever it is); I’m available 24 hours a day’. Nobody has figured out exactly how to work in the new space and just say things like: ‘oh, just turn things off’. If you get to any of the things people have been talking about, like ‘oh, I won’t look down at my phone right now just because some message just popped up on it that wants my attention’. And then right away of course I’m always looking to say ‘okay, wait, has somebody responded to the last 12 things that I put out in different spots?’ And I’m always searching around. But yeah, burnout has increased and I think a lot of it is because we’re so much more connected than we ever were before and people don’t know how to turn themselves off and set the boundaries. The management teams that we’re working with; the only way they can set boundaries is to not respond right away if you drop a message in at four o’clock in the morning or whenever it is that your mind says ‘oh I need to get this communication out of my head’. If they actually respond then that almost says ‘I guess it’s okay to work’ when you really probably shouldn’t be.

12:36 Sam:

I think what you mentioned earlier about burnout, and Bruce raised this as well, it’s really important to highlight. I think both men and women across the data that we’ve found were experiencing it. And I know that for women in particular, 42% of the working population that was asked felt burnout, and I think a lot of that was to do with being accessible, being online, being there to support your team whilst working from home. We’re stepping up to do that and it’s about getting that right balance and learning how to do that, to have those breaks. I think there’s definitely an element of that involved.

13:27 Bruce:

Especially for people with young children, who now work at home and can spend more time with the kids but now maybe have less opportunity to get help, is there more burnout that’s now occurring, especially for women? And it also applies to men, if you’re home with the children now more than you were before, when work might have been your escape.

14:00 Sam:

Yeah, I think you’re right, I think there were fewer childcare options, and if you have little ones at the same time as working, how do you manage that? It did put a lot of pressure on during the pandemic.

14:21 Shilpi:

This is a great discussion, I think a lot of audience questions are coming in on mental health, which i would love for you guys to answer. What are your thoughts on how Covid has affected our mental health?

15:18 Bruce:

A lot of studies as I was looking at this topic have focused on increasing anxiety and depression, and it’s interesting, this topic just runs back to (moving towards the vaccine mandate) that people are afraid to go back in the office because people are afraid that they’re going to get sick. Kevin’s commute is via public transportation – does that mean that everybody who’s going to get on the bus or on the train should be vaccinated, because there’s now all this fear of being around people? It’s just added to that and made everybody more anxious.

16:16 Shilpi:

I want to hear your opinion – we can’t be like ‘oh this is good, this is good, this has to be done’. I want to hear your opinion on the vaccine mandate – should it be done, should it not be done?

16:51 Sam:

I work as a teacher, I’ve worked in education a number of years, and I think for me it’s important. I was the first to get my vaccine and my double dose; it’s important to me and I think it’s important to protect my family, my community and my children. It’s definitely a hot topic in terms of how we follow through with vaccinations in the program, but speaking from experience I think it’s really key to do it.

17:30 Shilpi:

Here’s what I feel: healthcare; yes, it’s a private thing and we don’t want the HR professionals in companies to ask for our health care records; and yes, vaccination is a part of a healthcare record that they are asking for. But this is not something that is going to only affect me, it is also going to affect everyone around me; if I have Covid-19 then it’s going to put others at risk. I can do whatever I choose to do with my own life, but if I am going to put others at risk then there can be consequences. All that companies are saying – and this is where we stand – is ‘we feel that if you want to come back to work, you’ve got to be vaccinated’ – that’s all they are saying. They’re not firing you (yet), but that’s what they are saying to protect others, not just you. What does Kevin feel about it?

18:35 Kevin:

I’m gonna answer your question with another question – by asking that question aren’t you separating or segregating people in terms of vaccinated versus non-vaccinated? What is everyone’s thoughts on that happening?

18:54 Bruce:

We had a fun discussion on that – if you were going to have people that didn’t have to be vaccinated, should there be two separate buildings so they don’t actually have to enter in the same spot? If you’re big enough, you could actually allow people to be segregated by being vaccinated. 

19:10 Shilpi:

I feel that once we get herd immunity, where if only 20% of the people are not yet vaccinated but 80% of the population is vaccinated, that will take care of everyone else and we don’t need segregation. Obviously we don’t want to create more divides than there already are; for all kinds of reasons there is already so much division in society, and we don’t want vaccination to be another reason for creating more division. But at the same time, you can’t take a chance with health – it’s like saying ‘okay, I’m going to leave it to God and see what happens’, right? That’s not where science comes in; we are data ethics people who believe in science, people who believe in data, so we can’t leave it to chance. For that, if vaccinated and unvaccinated people have to be kept separate, then so be it – because I’m not going to put myself, my family, my friends, my neighbors, my older parents at risk because I am not ready to show my vaccination card to my HR people.

20:22 Sam:

Yeah, I agree – I think there’s certainly a role to play across companies and, for example, the department of education – I know that in particular states in the US now you have to have had regular tests or the vaccine  before you can go back to work, I think that’s important. And there’s possibly a way to sensitively manage that within companies, but obviously we haven’t had that experience before, and I think we need to manage that sensitively, speak to people as individuals and as human beings and really try to encourage people to do it. That’s what we have to do, I think, just encourage them to see the positives; the obvious positives for doing it.

21:15 Shilpi:

And understand what their concerns are, right? If they’re not getting it done then obviously they have some concerns, so understanding those concerns and talking to them like a human, trying to mitigate those concerns and willingly get them on board to get vaccination would be the ultimate goal to doing it right, instead of forcing people or putting a mandate on it. Bruce, do you want to share or add something?

21:45 Bruce:

Well, I was just thinking that when the New York mandate came out and they were saying the nurses and doctors were gonna basically get fired if they didn’t get vaccinated, I was listening to the nurse who was in charge of one of the areas saying: ‘hey, we have to get vaccines for all sorts of things in this job – so really how different is this?’ And I think, Sam you may have said the same thing, there’s certain vaccines we’ve already had to have. It’s the same thing when you’re bringing your children to school; you have to have your vaccine record for them, or you have to have this heavy exclusion of those not vaccinated, whether because of religious reasons or actually health reasons, to take it the other direction. So I do believe that regardless of how I feel about it, that’s really where we’re going to end up. This is going to be another one of those vaccines that fits into the requirements – what’s weird is that it’s not a requirement for general public jobs today, and I just don’t think that’s really ever going to completely win, no matter where we go with it. So even though big companies are saying that right now, there’ll probably be enough fallout if they go that direction outside of the places where it exists today. It may not win those spaces – does that make sense? You know, schools, healthcare; the things where we’re having people quit in the bigger resignation, all the food workers… I think these are the places where it will find its way to be successful, but I think in the general populace it’s going to fail if it gets forced.

23:42 Shilpi:

To your point, Bruce, we have a high schooler, and in her school to be able to go back to actually physically attend the school, after more than a year and a half, it’s a requirement to have a vaccination. She’s in high school, obviously for the elementary kids the vaccination is not even out, so they probably don’t have that requirement, but for high schoolers they have to show that they have been vaccinated. Susanna would say that they don’t have their own agency yet, so it’s okay to ask for students to show their health record, but yes the students who are not vaccinated are not allowed to come back to school physically, and there is no hybrid model I’m aware of now. In some ways they have mandated that if you want to be physically present in school or continue in an academic public school or private school, whatever that may be, in an actual school building (unless you want to be tutored at home), this is the mandate. Schools, hospitals and the healthcare industry started the mandate long before corporate America or the others started this mandate, but we never complained about that, we never had a great resignation, we never said ‘oh I’m going to pull my child out of school because you are mandating this, I don’t believe in it and I’m going to homeschool my kid.’

25:23 Bruce:

I’d like to bring a point back – when you think about where we want to model ethics from, where does it come from, it usually comes from healthcare or education. So those two main areas; of course, things have become legislated there but the actual idea of ethics exists in both places and it’s always been there, whereas in general business ethics are not required, you leave them at the door, right? If you’re going to be in the places where it’s going here, ethics are required up front, and of course the people who are shown as unethical don’t succeed in that space, so I think the topics fit together when we talk about it.

26:20 Shilpi:

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that ethics in society is modeled after healthcare and education, and so if they are doing it then the vaccine mandate is okay in terms of data ethics?

26:36 Bruce:

I was just connecting the concept that the areas beyond healthcare and education are where you’re going to get the biggest complaints because people are just not used to having these things. They’re like ‘oh, I’m going to deal with the law when it gets here, I’m not going to get ahead of it, my corporate social responsibilities thing is going to be looking at the laws, it’s not going to be looking at what’s ethical.’ On the vaccines, people are gonna be like ‘I don’t know if I really wanna take it because I’ve never had to do this before’, but in healthcare and education it’s existed from the beginning. It’s a common theme that people are gonna avoid stuff that they haven’t had to do in the past, if they can get away with it.

27:49 Kevin:

I honestly have the opinion that in more non-frontline industries, the problem will solve itself over time, because in non-frontline industry you do have hybrid models and even completely virtual models can exist, so I think in those scenarios no one really needs to know whether you’re vaccinated or not, since you’re sitting behind a computer.

28:45 Shilpi:

I completely agree; virtual scenarios are completely independent and that’s why I said that if there is a hybrid model where you could still attend school online, whether you’re vaccinated or not should not be anybody’s business, that’s completely up to you. So if you still want to continue working from home and if that is an option your company is willing to give you, obviously there is no need for them to mandate that you have to be vaccinated. But I do want to end with the thought that Sam said, that it’s very delicate, very important and not very easy: that forcing something upon someone is one thing, but getting them to agree and believe, and influence them to make this decision on their own is the ultimate goal. And what can we do to do a better job at that? Maybe these companies could have training sessions or actually bring people to talk about the things, hearing stories from both sides of the table – people who have been vaccinated versus not; the consequences or the stories that will help them rethink their decision. I don’t know if that will help, but somehow we need to bring them on board if they want to work in person.

30:05 Sam:

Yeah, certainly I agree – I think having the data available to us so we can look at the case numbers and vaccination rates and how they compare would help and inform people; that would be really super helpful definitely.

30:21 Shilpi:

Thank you panelists and moderator, Kevin – brilliant job, thank you Bruce, thank you Sam.