Employee Return to Offices in Doubt: The Week in Talent

The return to offices and workstations continued to hog took the spotlight amid questions about what companies can and cannot require of their employees regarding vaccinations.  Walmart’s senior workers are going back to work, but only in some circumstances. Furthermore, survey data from the Mexican Confederation of Organizations in Favor of People with Intellectual Disabilities revealed the impact of the pandemic on people with intellectual disabilities in the workplace. 

Read this and more on The Week in Talent!

• Although companies cannot require their employees to be vaccinated or pay for COVID-19 testing, there are exceptions to the rule. As economic activities pick up speed and companies continue to ask their employees to return to the office, the debate over whether companies can require their workforce to be vaccinated and even pay for COVID-19 testing has heated up. What are the dos and don'ts that companies in Mexico can ask of their workforce? Read the full article to find out.

• While the effects of the pandemic were felt across all industries and businesses regardless of size, vulnerable groups within them were also hit by the crisis. In Mexico alone, 31 percent of people with intellectual disabilities lost their jobs due to layoffs or business closures, revealed a study by the Mexican Confederation of Organizations in Favor of People with Intellectual Disabilities (CONFE). “People with disabilities around the world are more at risk of living in poverty, because of lack of education, because they do not have a job or because they and their family members lost their jobs,” the study says. Get the full perspective here.

• After more than a year of being unable to work as baggers at Walmart due to the pandemic, an agreement with the National Institute for the Elderly (INAPAM) will allow the retail giant's senior employees to return to work, but only if they have received both shots of the COVID-19 vaccine, the company said in a statement. However, they will only be able to work in supermarket stores located in states with a green epidemiological traffic light and must stop working as soon as the color changes. 

• Changing financial education and combining it with sustainable practices could bring great benefits, argues BBVA Research. Today, Mexican families have become accustomed to unnecessary excess payments that could be considered a waste of money and contribute to pollution. A change in financial behavior that leads to savings and reducing expenses, would lead to efficient use of money and help to fight climate change. “Today, there is more and more certainty that there is an increase in the average temperature on the planet’s surface caused by the activity of human beings,” the study notes. Get the full picture here.

• Mexico’s 2020 National Survey of Household Income and Expenditure (ENIGH) indicated that women made an average of MX$14,000 (US$705) per trimester, 34.3 percent less than men in the workforce. Because of the pandemic, men had to take a pay cut and so made 4.4 percent less than they had made in 2018. In contrast, women actually increased their earnings from 2018 by 1.4 percent. Read the complete article here.