Amid the pandemic of the new coronavirus, the importance of keeping the vaccination portfolio up to date has returned to the attention of the population. After all, the main objective of vaccines is the prevention of infectious diseases and vaccination in companies can benefit collective health.
Mass vaccination even makes it possible to eradicate diseases and, in most cases, drastically reduces the number of people infected.
In addition to the personal benefit, it is an action that generates savings for the health sector in general, reducing the number of hospitalizations, for example. Taking care of the health of employees, increasingly, is part of the concerns of the human resources sector of companies.
This is because healthy and happy employees have more productivity in their daily lives and greater satisfaction with the work environment.
In addition to offering the benefit of a health insurance, an attitude already common in most companies, other actions aimed at welfare physical and mental health of the employee can be incorporated into the calendar of the human resources team.
In our blog, we have already talked about the importance of primary health care for workers. Check out the topic in this publication.
In this scenario, an activity that has been gaining strength in recent years is the vaccination campaign in companies, especially immunizations that are not available by SUS (Unified Health System).
We can mention, for example, the flu vaccine, available free of charge only to the population at risk. To understand the importance of carrying out vaccinations in companies and the benefits for employees, in this article, we will address the following issues:
- What is a vaccine ?;
- What is a vaccination campaign ?;
- What are the benefits of vaccination in companies ?;
- How to incorporate into the company's calendar?
So, come on!
What is vaccine?
Before we talk about the importance of vaccination in companies, it is necessary to understand what a vaccine is and how it works. It acts as an immunizing agent for several infectious and often serious diseases.
To carry out immunization, vaccines are produced from the cause of the disease (viruses or bacteria) or its derivatives. In this way, when it comes in contact with the human organism, it will create an immune response in the body.
What is a vaccination campaign?
The Ministry of Health has a national immunization calendar, which is updated frequently to ensure the protection of the UK residents population. This calendar covers everyone from birth to adulthood.
In order to raise awareness about the importance of vaccines, campaigns are promoted annually, which have the main objective of encouraging people to get vaccinated or keep their children's vaccination records up to date.
Mass vaccination is important to ensure the reduction of cases of a certain infectious disease or eradication, as is the case of smallpox and polio (infantile paralysis) in Brazil.
Vaccination campaigns are taking place to remind the population that if most people do not have vaccination, cases of disease may reappear on a large scale.
Measles is one of them. In 2021, the disease had a significant increase in Brazil, as children were not being vaccinated by parents who were against vaccination.
What are the benefits of vaccination in companies?
As previously mentioned, the vaccine is important to prevent contamination by serious diseases, which can cause everything from mild symptoms to the death of those infected. Thus, the first and main benefit is to ensure the your employee's health.
However, the advantages of vaccination in companies go far beyond ensuring that the professional maintains good health. Next, we will talk about some of them.
Decrease in absenteeism
Having a team protected from the main contagious diseases can mean a drop in the rate of absenteeism. Depending on the period of absence of the employee with a health problem, the company may need to hire a replacement, generating costs.
Thus, with vaccination in companies, in addition to the benefit of having healthy professionals, it is still possible to save on unnecessary expenses, generated by the absence of the employee.
Certainly, you must be thinking that the likelihood of an employee being infected with yellow fever or hepatitis B is low. However, more common illnesses, such as the flu (caused by a variety of viruses), can also be prevented with a vaccine.
According to a research by IBGE (UK residents Institute of Geography and Statistics), carried out a few years ago, the flu was one of the main causes of absence from work in Brazil. In other words, prevention is better than cure.
Increased motivation and productivity
THE productivity it is directly related to the health condition of the professional, be it physical or mental. Therefore, a sick employee, even with mild symptoms, tends to be less productive.
Another important point of the benefits of vaccination in companies is that when showing concern for the employee's health, there may be a greater feeling of belonging to the company, resulting in increased motivation.
In addition, by indirectly protecting your employee, the entire family of that professional is also benefited by immunization, since the chances of contamination by infectious diseases will decrease.
Improvement in the work environment
Especially in a corporate environment, in which physical contact between a large number of people is daily, providing ways to avoid contamination is essential.
The COVID-19 pandemic came to emphasize this importance even more, in addition to reminding us of basic hygiene care, such as hand washing.
Therefore, by promoting vaccination in companies, indirectly, the company is offering a safer work environment, giving employees the message that he is working in a place that cares about his health.
Enhancing the brand image
More than ever, professionals have been concerned and opted for companies that demonstrate greater humanization and concern for the employee's well-being and quality of life.
This movement starts when it comes to choosing which vacancy to apply for, but does not end after being already working at the company.
Therefore, having a vaccination campaign in companies can further enhance your brand with candidates and help retain talent.
Certainly, when verifying that the company is concerned with the health of the worker and goes beyond the traditional actions, there is an appreciation in the reputation of the brand.
How to incorporate into the company's calendar?
There are two ways to incorporate vaccination into companies: offer the vaccine to employees or take advantage of the Ministry of Health calendar to promote awareness.
Ideally, both arms should be performed, so the results should be better.
Awareness of health care, in general, must be continuous, as there will be no point in making an investment in the purchase of vaccines and hiring professionals to apply it, if adherence is low.
So, start this process by creating conversation channels with the employee, with explanatory folders, videos, e-mail marketing and other forms of communication with the team. An important point is to make the leadership also part of the campaigns.
Not all people will need to get the same vaccines, either because of the worker's profile or because of the immunization history on the vaccination card. However, some types are common to all and must be renewed annually.
One of them is Tetravalente, which fights influenza – the most complete version of what is available in the public health system – and is not available to the entire population in the public system.
In Brazil, SUS offers the trivalent vaccine (which protects against three variants of the flu virus) annually only for the risk group. Therefore, the ideal is to take advantage of the national campaign to start vaccination in companies.
Partner and vaccinate your employees!
In this scenario, it is advisable that in a vaccination campaign in companies, vaccines are made available free of charge to all employees who wish to do so.
However, if it is above the budget of the company, does not mean that the campaign needs to be suspended. It is possible to partner with private clinics to offer vaccination at companies with discounts for employees.
It is important to note that some specific sectors may require some vaccines related to the work environment. Like employees who travel a lot to places, they need to be vaccinated against potential diseases of the destination.
It is worth remembering that although vaccination in companies is an important part of improving the health of employees, the human resources professional must prepare a series of preventive and awareness actions.
Did you realize that the benefits of vaccination campaigns in companies go far beyond the prevention of employee health?
Since, a protected employee tends to show greater productivity and satisfaction and, in the case of the company, its reputation increases in the market and there is a reduction in the rate of absenteeism.
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