Springbrook Tells Staff:

Get Vaccinated, Get $500 Bonus

By JIM KEVLIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com

With 35 percent of its employees not yet vaccinated, Springbrook is offering a $500 enticement to encourage them to get the COVID-19 vaccine shot.

“This is important, this is safe,” said Springbrook CEO Patricia Kennedy. “It’s going to get us back to where we want to be, being with the people we want to be with and doing things we want to do.

That’s my message for all our employees and the community.”

There’s a distinction between new employees we put in place in January.”

As for the residents on the Milford Center campus, 95 percent have been vaccinated.

Springbrook’s workforce has risen to 1,300 people, with 700 in Otsego County. Of the total, 44 percent of employees are fully vaccinated; 20 percent have had one of the two shots.

The 35 percent unvaccinated would translate into 455 employees system-wide, 245 people in Otsego County.

“I think it’s a phenomenal plan,” said Al Rubin, Otsego County Chamber of Commerce interim president. He said Springbrook is the chamber’s Business of the Month for March, in part because of the $500 enticement, as well as requiring new employees to be vaccinated.

Rubin has also been participating in the Otsego County Community Foundation’s effort to assist people in getting vaccines, and said he’s not aware of any similar approach to get employees vaccinated.

“There’s been a lot of encouraging people to get vaccinated,” he said, “to help open the economy further.”