HR's connection to the 2021 Word of the Year - Vaccine

What’s the Word of 2021?

As 2021 comes to a close, there will be many end of the year wrap-ups and retrospectives about what’s happened in this very chaotic calendar year. Merriam-Webster has announced their Word of the Year, a word whose definition was intensely searched and one whose definition they even updated during the year - Vaccine. 

According to Merriam-Webster lookups for the word “vaccine” increased 601% over 2020, and 1,048% over 2019, understandably due to the development, testing, distribution, and ongoing political debates about COVID-19 vaccines and various mandates throughout the year. It’s hard to remember that back on January 1, 2021 there were very few people who had received even one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. 

How the Word of the Year has affected HR

Obviously, vaccines had a major impact on HR teams across the country this year. Whether it was encouraging employees to get them, deciding how to track them, or considering vaccine mandates as a condition of employment, employers have been tasked with making sense of it all while still handling their more typical HR duties. 

Equifax Workforce Solutions has been heavily involved in discussions and strategies with our clients around all aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, but vaccine mandates have been one of the most confusing and controversial topics. We have put together resources for employers like you who are looking for insights and guidance on if and how to implement a mandate. Here you can find recent episodes of The Workforce Wise™ Podcasts and download our Perspective guides on how mandates can affect a wide range of areas from your unemployment costs, Affordable Care Act affordability, and even your onboarding processes. 

How Equifax can help

If you’re looking for a way to simply collect your current employee and new hire vaccination type and status, we have an offering that can help. The State Onboarding Compliance service helps you to collect and track vaccination status through a standard attestation to help you:

• Standardize your tracking

• Keep vaccine attestations up-to-date

• Track records in one consolidated platform. 

Learn more and contact us to see how we can help you get better control of your vaccine attestation tracking.

Vaccine Mandate Resources

The information provided is intended as general guidance and is not intended to convey any tax, benefits, or legal advice. For information pertaining to your company and its specific facts and needs, please consult your own tax advisor or legal counsel. Links to sources may be to third party sites. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third party sites or services.