Your Business, Employees & Community: Voices of Small Employers on Vaccinations

The pandemic has hit Main Streets hard. Vaccines are a critical step to getting back to business in the wake of COVID-19 shutdowns.

Efforts currently underway to understand and overcome vaccination hesitancy focus primarily on individuals and large employers. This approach misses the important role of small employers: More than 100 million people in the U.S. generate their livelihoods from small businesses, as an owner or an employee. And small business owners tend to be trusted voices in their communities.

Reimagine Main Street and its partners the U.S Black Chambers, Inc., the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and National ACE fielded a national survey from February 3 - March 23, 2021 to fill the gap in insights into attitudes and preferences of small employers, especially AAPI-, Black-, Hispanic- and Native-owned small businesses.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Vaccines are on the Minds of Most Small Employers & Their Employees: The majority of small employers (64%) say it is very important that their employees get vaccinated and more than half of small employers say their workers are turning to them with questions. More than 80% of small employers report having informal conversations with their workers about vaccines and more than half (56%) of small employers in the survey have had formal conversations including staff meetings, and one-on-ones with employees.

• Small Employers Want Employees to Get Vaccinated so They Can Get Back to Business; Willing to Help Make it Happen: The majority (63%) of respondents are willing to encourage and incentivize employees to get vaccinated, with AAPI and Black small employers most likely to act. Almost one in five (19%) of all small employer respondents intend to mandate the vaccine for their employees. More than one in four (45%) small employers plan to give workers paid time off to get vaccinated, rising to more than half (53%) of AAPI small employers.

• Small Employers Want Science-Based Guidance for Employees and Community; Eager to Work with Trusted Partners: More than half (55%) of respondents say they would use free or low-cost resources to provide guidance and information about COVID-19 vaccines with the CDC and FDA the top two preferred sources for information. More than one quarter (27%) of all respondents are not currently working with local health department or chamber of commerce on pandemic response, but would like to be.

METHODOLOGY

The survey was conducted online from February 3 - March 23, 2021 with 3,323 small employers responding, including 428 AAPI-, 1,172 Black-, 520 Hispanic- 89- Native-owned, and 1,266 White-owned small businesses.