Vaccination is supposed to get the Netherlands to escape the coronavirus pandemic. This can therefore be a reason for your organization to encourage employees to have themselves vaccinated, but be careful not to cross the line here.
Preventing
You can inform your employees of why your organization finds it important they get a vaccination. But never pressure your employees into doing so. This simply isn’t an option. And neither is making vaccinations mandatory.
The fact that getting vaccinated is voluntary could lead to an increase in requests for leave: but does getting vaccinated mean an employee should request short-term leave? Imagine an employee who must go to a centralized ‘GGD’ (Municipal Health Service) twice in order to get vaccinated, who lives at quite a distance from the respective ‘GGD’ and is unable to plan his appointments out of working hours. The answer is thus: yes. You can make a statement by granting a request for leave to get vaccinated in any case – to the extent this is in line with the conditions of employment – and by reimbursing the incurred travel expenses. At this moment, it is difficult to assess exactly what will be possible and what will be necessary. A lot of uncertainty still exists about the vaccinations and most employees won’t be eligible to get vaccinated in the coming months. Different rules apply to the healthcare industry.
The one thing preventing your organization from establishing a vaccination policy is privacy law. The latter prohibits you from registering whether or not an employee has been vaccinated.
