SIU PRSSA Southern Illinois University Public Relations Student Society of America
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The US introduced its first wave of vaccines for Covid-19 on December 11, 2020,. Ever since then, the government and organizations small or large have been pushing for US citizens and employees to get vaccinated. Huge corporations and campuses across the US have been paving the way for this new movement. The health and safety of organizational and community members are the biggest factors for making this vaccine a mandatory action.
From a PR standpoint, organizations that make this vaccine required, are taking a smart and safe approach in the eyes of the public. They are covering their organization from any potential backlash revolving around this pandemic in many people’s eyes. But the other side of that is those who believe being forced to get a vaccine so they may work or go to school is uncalled for. This group of people might view this as an infringement on rights. With that being said, the public’s health and safety is something that should be on the forefront of any organization’s PR department. Companies like Walmart and Target already have taken this step toward a fully vaccinated workplace.
There is such a high risk for legal issues for companies if a consumer happened to get exposed to Covid due to the product or service an organization was providing. A company local to Southern Illinois is SIH (Southern Illinois Healthcare). They recently announced a vaccination mandate for their employees. A main concern for any organization that is thinking about requiring a vaccine is losing employees over it. In the case of SIH, they lost a mere 3% of their employee base. When you have many thousands of employees, that is even less of a blow to the company’s finances and production quality.
In PR, it is always better to be safe than sorry to avoid backlash, and our local SIH is just one of many examples of companies and other various organizations across the US taking necessary steps to do their part.
