Nearly two-thirds of business leaders support President Joe Biden’s proposed COVID-19 vaccine mandate, but are concerned that such a plan will be “difficult” to implement and has had a negative impact on company culture, according to a recent poll.
In a Committee for Economic Development (CED) poll released Tuesday, 63% of respondents said they “somewhat” or “strongly agree” with the president’s decision earlier in September to mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require vaccination or weekly testing, compared to 43.2% who said they “somewhat” or “strongly disagree” with the decision.
But a majority of business leaders showed concerns about the implementation of a vaccine mandate. Among those polled, 55.8% of respondents said it would be “difficult” or “very difficult” to implement such a requirement at their company, compared to just 19.8% who said it would be “easy” or “very easy.”
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the Covid-19 response and the vaccination program at the White House on August 23, 2021 in Washington, DC (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
Nearly one-third of business leaders said the president’s decision to mandate the vaccine has had a poor impact on their company’s culture. Among those polled, 29.7% of respondents said the announcement “negatively affected” company culture, compared to 11.7% who said it “positively affected” company culture and 58.6% who said it had no impact. (RELATED: Nearly Half The Country Threatens To Sue Biden Over Vaccine Mandate)
The business-backed nonprofit group surveyed more than 100 CEOs and board directors, almost all of whom work for companies with more than $1 billion in annual revenue.
“While our survey results reveal that the President has significant backing from the business community,” said CED president Lori Esposito Murray in a statement, “the Administration should proceed with caution given the intensity of the opposition felt by a quarter of the business leaders and the expected difficulties in implementation felt much more broadly.”
“Unless the OSHA vaccine guidelines put in place are clear and actually achieve the objective, the end result may be more division in the workplace instead of more vaccinations,” she continued.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is expected to reveal specific details about the vaccine mandate in the coming weeks. A number of business groups and unions have said they plan to push back against the mandate.