male patient about to get COVID vaccine from healthcare worker

Birmingham, AL-based Atlas Senior Living is hoping to help motivate employees to help stop the spread of coronavirus through a $1.1 million COVID-19 employee vaccination incentive program.

The program will be offered to all full-time and part-time employees at the operator’s 27 independent living, assisted living and memory care communities throughout the Southeast, as well as in its corporate office. Employees who receive the two doses of the vaccine will receive three paid time off days. In addition, if 85% of employees at a facility get vaccinated, employees who get the vaccine will then get an additional PTO day.

The Atlas leadership team said that the bonus program is an opportunity to educate and motivate employees to vaccinate.

“We are putting our money where our mouth is,” Atlas President and Co-CEO Scott Goldberg said. “The decision to initiate this program goes beyond the senior living and healthcare industries. This is a humanitarian decision.”

Goldberg added that Atlas trusts the technology, trials and science behind the vaccine and sees its incentive program as a “civic duty” to its employees.

“When we say residents and associates’ safety are our utmost priority, we put action behind those words,” he said.

The firm said it plans to roll the program out to employees in the coming weeks.