With debate raging over Covid-19 vaccinations and the introduction of vaccination passports, governments and businesses the world over are having to make key decisions in the best interests of citizens and workers - all while trying to keep the wheels of the economy turning.

What Science, medical data, and anecdotal accounts have proven, is that vaccinated individuals stand a far greater chance of surviving this dreaded disease.  For this reason, companies both locally and abroad have started insisting that employees either get vaccinated or submit to regular Covid-19 tests at their own expense.  During August, several airlines, retailers, banks, tech, and healthcare companies decided to make vaccinations mandatory for their employees, regardless of whether they worked on-site or remotely.

Getting the economy back on track while safeguarding the health of workers, is proving challenging for many industries, not least of which the construction industry, a large employer of unskilled workers in South Africa, and a key contributor to job creation. 

The relaxation of lockdown restrictions has certainly aided recovery within the industry but the reactivation of large-scale construction projects is imperative for job creation for the many South Africans whose lives have been severely impacted by the Covid 19 pandemic. 

The urgent need to get projects back on track while managing the need for human interaction at their building sites is what prompted leading retirement property developer, Evergreen Lifestyle, to take action by not only vaccinating all of its own residents, staff, and workers, but also the work forces of its suppliers, service providers, and subcontractors.   

“The reality of South Africa’s socio-economic landscape is that most construction workers do not have the financial means or the time to get to vaccination sites during the working week, nor are they able to forfeit earnings for a workday missed,” said Cobus Bedeker, MD of Evergreen Property Developments that has 975 000m2 of housing across 6 500 units and facilities across 13 retirement villages either under construction or in the planning phase.

“As a business, we fully endorse the Government’s vaccination programme and consider it our civic duty to make sure everyone is protected.  We’ve joined forces with our suppliers to educate crews on the importance of getting vaccinated, and we’ve supported the Covid-19 vaccine adoption by building conviction and making vaccination both free, and as convenient as possible,” he said. 

Evergreen Retirement Holdings - co-owned by the Amdec Group and financial services group PSG Alpha - employs close to 7 000 people.  It is the first company to enable construction workers to get their Covid-19 jabs on-site during work hours.

Evergreen has also assisted the Department of Health by driving private vaccination outreach programmes at several of its villages, to aid old-age homes and other retirement villages.  It has been instrumental in conducting vaccinations for residents and workers at CPOA Trianon (Diep River), Good Hope Park (Sea Point), Kronendal Retirement Village (Hout Bay), Peers Village (Fish Hoek), St James Retirement Hotel (St James) and Vue de Cap (Parklands).

Says Guin Lourens, Nursing Manager of Evergreen Health: “We saw it as our civic duty to assist old age homes that didn’t have the capacity or nursing contingent to vaccinate their residents.  We have also extended this to all third-party service suppliers at our retirement villages, including caterers, contractors, security personnel, and landscaping companies.”

Maxwell Biton, a painter for Energy Master Builders at Evergreen Val de Vie says: "I was really worried about my job security as there have been talks of companies saying you won’t be able to work if you’re not vaccinated.  So being able to get the jab on the site where I work really helped reduce the stress of not having to lose a day’s wages that put food on the table for my family."

“We have gone to extreme measures to ensure the highest standard of Covid-19 safety for our workers as we would like our workforces to not only protect themselves but their loved ones, friends, and coworkers too,” concluded Bedeker,