A vast number of surveys are being conducted these days, seeking to understand and anticipate how people are continuing to react to COVID-19 and its ongoing implications in their daily lives. Many of those surveys focus on their work lives, as well as their personal preferences. For example, a report based on surveys of 2,400 U.S. workers conducted in September revealed that nearly half of them expressed salient concerns about going back to work, due to their fear of catching the virus and exposing family members to it—approximately double the number who said the same thing in June 2021. They also noted the importance of their employers’ policies, such that about one-third planned to look for a new job, and of those, 80 percent cited flexible work arrangements as a driving factor. Companies evidently recognize these trends; another survey, involving 1,000 companies that account for about 10 million employees, reveals that more than half of them plan to institute vaccine mandates, and 21 percent already have them in place. But even if they do not demand vaccines, most companies will be keeping track of which of their employees have gotten them, possibly even offering health insurance incentives to get non-vaccinated people to take the shot (similar to the incentives offered to smokers to get them to quit).

Source: Andrew Ross Sorkin, Jason Karaian, Sarah Kessler, Stephen Gandel, Lauren Hirsch, Ephrat Livni, and Anna Schaverien, “When Will Offices Be Full Again?” The New York Times, September 1, 2021