Some Bay Area companies urging, but not requiring, COVID-19 boosters as omicron surges

"We haven't been forcing it," Musterer said of requiring vaccines and boosters .

Yet, he's already had to flirt with temporarily closing his doors during the omicron surge. There's also the concern that mandating the shots could make some current employees refuse and decide to work for one of the dozens of short-staffed restaurants and bars that don't require vaccination as part of employment.

Instead of a requirement, Musterer said he handed out bonuses to employees who got the shots the first time around and said he might again hand out $50 or $100 to encourage boosters .

"From an operations perspective, $100 would be well spent versus having to close our operations for a couple days," he said.

Like Musterer, more and more employers are asking a variation of the question: To require the boost, or not to require boost? While a third shot of a COVID-19 vaccine offers strong protection against severe illness and death, some business owners are stopping short of mandating boosters, partly out of that fear of losing more employees in an already tight labor market.

"We've been keeping staff 10 or 12 hours to work multiple shifts in order to stay open," Musterer said, underscoring the difficult dynamics of the moment.

But not requiring the shots adds another degree of difficulty for employers as it runs the risk that unvaccinated workers will become sick and be out for long periods of time, as well as potentially spreading the virus at work, said Carolyn Rashby of the law firm Covington & Burling LLP.

"The risk of requiring it is then you have to deal with medical accommodation and religious accommodations," along with California wage and hour law that requires paid time off to get and potentially recover from the side effects of the shots, Rashby said.

Concerns over staffing have not roiled the tech industry in the same way, partly because of remote work options, but businesses in that industry are still grappling with the uncertainty that the highly infectious variant has created when it comes to in-person work and where vaccines fit into that.

Foster City cybersecurity company Exabeam had been allowing vaccinated employees to voluntarily return to its offices as part of a pilot program. The company switched course and closed them again for at least the first two weeks of 2022 because of the omicron surge, said Gianna Driver, the company's chief Human resources officer.

"We want the dust to settle from the holidays" before letting people back into offices, she said of the decision.

Driver said it's still uncertain when offices will reopen, but those who want to show up in person again will have to show proof they received a booster in the past six months. She said the policy for the foreseeable future will be to require the shots for in-person work in accordance with government guidance on who is eligible.

The company previously considered alternatives like an on-site testing truck, but decided against it when employees said they weren't comfortable with the idea. "We realized that could alienate a large portion of our vaccinated population," Driver said.

Meta, which owns Facebook, has, for months, required anyone coming into its U.S. offices to be vaccinated. That requirement will extend to booster shots starting March 28 for anyone who is eligible, spokesperson Tracy Clayton said in an email. And on Saturday, it was reported that Apple will require all employees to provide proof of a COVID-19 booster.

Many other companies in tech and finance announced vaccine requirements months ago, but have yet to implement a booster requirement, according to a survey of more than 3,100 U.S. employees this month. The survey was run by Blind, an app that lets employees talk about their companies anonymously and verifies where people work through their company email accounts.

The survey found that only about a quarter of those who responded said their employer had implemented a booster requirement, counting Bloomberg, Broadcom, Credit Karma and Goldman Sachs among the companies that had instituted the mandates.

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Biden administration rule that would have required vaccines or testing for millions of employees at private companies, leaving it mostly up to companies whether to require vaccines and boosters.

For business owners who are requiring vaccines, that is not the end of the problem, with more headaches raised by breakthrough infections and shifting state and federal rules on quarantine time and testing.

Understanding the rules has forced business owners such as Eric Nielsen, who owns the San Jose cocktail bar 55 South and is a co-owner of SP2 bar and restaurant, to become armchair attorneys and epidemiologists.

"You know it's bad when you own restaurants and bars and you're reading medical white papers," he said.

Nielsen said he's been requiring employees to get vaccinated for months and most are boosted already. But when employees do get sick, changing CDC rules on quarantine times have meant he has scrambled to understand whether and when he can force people to stay home, especially because the dozens of at-home tests he bought months ago are used up and getting more of them is almost impossible.

Interpreting the frequently changing rules from various authorities has made it feel like there is no end in sight, Nielsen said.

"There's not a significant plan, and if there is they don't speak to it," he said of communication from health authorities. "Every week, every month, we're wading through this instead of swimming towards shore."

Chase DiFeliciantonio is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @ChaseDiFelice