According to a survey conducted across 760 human resources professionals, three-fifth of the Australian organisations put a mandate on at least some of their workers. The findings also found that the same proportion of companies reported that vaccination status could affect their hiring decisions immensely.  

Commenting on the report, McCann-Bartlett, CEO of Australian HR Insititute said, “A quarter of Australian businesses feel that the vaccine conversation has caused a bit of a culture split or friction between employees, but in Victoria that number is a bit low, it’s 17%. “And I think that reflects what Victorians have been through and what they don’t want to go through again in the future.”  

Though the Victorian government had plans to implement the mandate on vaccine in 2022, there are possibilities of the same to be scrapped within weeks. However, more than half of the local businesses are still not decided how to address the unvaccinated employees. 

To deal with the situation, according to the latest data, one in five workplaces have created remote-only roles to keep their unvaccinated workers on boar, while 8% of the employers chose to put them on leave.  

On this, McCann further stated that such should be medical and political decision for each state to make. She said, “We need to go back to the reasons for mandating. This is not a decision that is ever taken lightly.”