Omicron continues to spread rapidly throughout the country (and the world), and now T-Mobile has decided to set a firm date on when many of their employees will be required to be vaccinated.
An email sent to all employees from the corporate HR department, a copy of which is embedded below, shares the news that all employees, with a few exceptions, will be required to show proof of vaccination by February 21st. Those that aren’t will be put on unpaid leave.
Employees who are put on unpaid leave will have until April 2nd to get vaccinated, otherwise they will face termination.
There’s a major exception to this rule though: Mobile Experts. The retail employees that are customer-facing in stores across the country will be exempt from this vaccination requirement. T-Mobile will continue to require employees to wear masks, a requirement they re-implemented in December, and highly recommend they get vaccinated.
T-Mobile is apparently allowing exemption requests for medical or religious reasons as well. Employees who submit a request for exemption will not be held to these deadlines while their exemption status is pending or if it has been approved.
A list of job titles that are exempt from the vaccination requirement is shared below.
Employees impacted by this rule will need to submit proof of vaccination to T-Mobile’s “Cleared4” system by February 21st. They will then receive a digital “Magenta Pass” that signifies they have been vaccinated against COVID-19.
The email goes on to say that employees working in “Customer Experience Centers”, which are call centers and support reps, will not be put on unpaid leave during the transition period. This is done to avoid losing critical support staff that handle customer care and tech support for the company. Those employees, however, will still be required to be vaccinated by the April 2nd deadline.
The COVID-19 virus has been with us for a while now, and things are still escalating. A new subvariant of Omicron, known as BA.2, is already beginning to spread across the country at a rate 1.5x that of Omicron. The data shows that vaccination is the best way to avoid serious illness and death at the hands of the virus, and T-Mobile is just the latest in a growing number of companies requiring vaccines for employees.
There’s no word on if T-Mobile will eventually require their frontline staff to be vaccinated. Other employees have until April 2nd to get vaccinated or face termination.
