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Should Restaurants Like In-N-Out Ban Masks for Employees?
In-N-Out plans to start barring employees in five states from wearing masks in order to “promote clear and effective communication” and showcase “our Associates’ smiles.” A doctor’s note will be required for employees who chose to wear a mask.
An internal email that leaked on Twitter read, “We are introducing new mask guidelines that emphasize the importance of customer service and the ability to show our Associates’ smiles and other facial features while considering the health and well-being of all individuals. We believe this policy will also help to promote clear and effective communication both with our Customers and among our Associates. Our goal is to continue to provide safe and customer-centric Store and Support environments that balance two things that In-N-Out is known for — exceptional customer service and unmatched standards for health, safety, and quality.”
Violators face disciplinary action “up to and including termination” once the policy takes effect on Aug. 14.
The rule applies to locations in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Texas, and Utah. Exempt states are California and Oregon, where local laws allow workers to don masks if they choose. Across all stores, associates who wear masks for medical reasons must wear a company-provided N95 mask.
Masks became a flash point during the pandemic as mask mandates arrived to slow the spread of the coronavirus, and some saw them as an infringement on their personal freedom.
Many retailers began relaxing mask mandates for associates in early 2022 as COVID-19 infection rates fell. This past May 11, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared an end to the public health emergency in the U.S., where more than 1.1 million Americans have died of the coronavirus.
Some retail employees and customers, including those with compromised immune systems, still wear masks because it makes them feel safer in public.
A Gallup poll taken in late February found 31% of surveyed Americans reported wearing a face mask in the previous seven days, down from about 90% during the second half of 2020. Additionally, 14% had avoided going to public places such as stores or restaurants in the previous seven days for social distancing reasons.
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Should retailers start encouraging associates to stop wearing masks or start banning their use by staff on selling floors? Are masks a bigger distraction to the shopping experience with COVID-infection risks minimal?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Gene Detroyer
Professor, International Business, Guizhou University of Finance & Economics and University of Sanya, China.
Peter Charness
Retail Strategy - UST Global
Personally, I have no issues with masks in public. If employees feel safer wearing one, what harm does it do? I think it demonstrates that they trust their employees to make personal choices about their health, and that they have som interest in protecting my health when I’m in the store.
One needs a doctor’s note? How ridiculous can we get?
On my first day teaching in China, a couple of students came into class wearing masks. I learned they were wearing masks so others would not get sick, not to protect themselves. It is too bad in the U.S. that people can’t think the same way.
The In-N-Out decision to threaten people with dismissal is draconian. People can make thier own decisions on their healthcare. It is none of the company’s business. Smiles or not.
We’ve all learned a lot about mask wearing in the last few years. Frankly I don’t even notice any more. It’s a personal choice.
Masks work wonders for hay fever….. Should be a personal choice. Flu season may also be covid season and some people may just prefer to mask up. Whatever makes someone feel safe is up to them.
Have you ever seen the size of an In-N-Out kitchen? Or the number of employees working frantically in that space? If an employee wants to wear a mask in a food prep area that is that densely populated, I say more power to them.
The bigger question is why? Are they not feeling well? Are they afraid someone else is not well? And what does a doctors note say that requires a mask but it’s still OK to work?
This whole thing begs more questions than it answers.
Gentle ‘nudges’ and sharing facts coming from e.g. customers and CDC to encourage employees to feel safe in the workplace and why sharing smiles is beneficial to the business would seem to be a better approach.
If In-N-Out had stores where I live, they would lose my business. This feels like an attempt at a political statement, not something serving the well-being or individual choice of employees and customers.
With air quality an issue, and flu season approaching, is this mandate even appropriate?
It certainly doesn’t look like In-and-Out is looking out for anyone’s best interests.
Dick,
Totally agree. Feels a lot like a skirmish in the great culture wars to me too. I live in Michigan where lots of folks were re-masking in the wake of the Canadian forest fires. And, your are also right, that the only way In-and-Out is likely to change is if enough customers opt to support employees and not the new policy by staging a consumer boycott. Nothing overcomes politics faster than money.
In-N-Out ownership is Dominionist Christian like the Hobby Lobby folks – actively campaigning against vaccines and fought against all the restrictions during the pandemic, and a major GOP donor. So yes, it absolutely is a political statement. And yes, it makes me wonder about food safety if staff can’t take care of themselves and their families’ health.
We need to normalize voluntary mask-wearing in American culture, similar to some Asian cultures. If I have the sniffles but I’m not sick enough to miss work, I’d rather mask up and protect my colleagues. There shouldn’t be an issue with that in retail or hospitality industries. I appreciate the courtesy of masking if you’re sick or the necessity of masking if you’re immunosuppressed.
Seems as though not everyone has learned the 2000 lesson of “Americans don’t like mandatory anything” — not sure i see the justification for NOT wearing a mask if an employee chooses to do so — I still see it daily at retail so, not that odd or negative of a message.
What a bunch of absolute nonsense. Employers don’t know if a worker has a sick or elderly relative at home that they are protecting. Or, perhaps they are particular sensitive to viruses of various types themselves. Our society has gone from resistence to vaccines and masks to now attempting to tell others they can’t even make a personal choice to protect themselves or their families. In-N-Out should be ashamed.
The choice to wear a mask, or gloves, or whatever that is not in violation of published proper cleanliness and dress code – should be up to the individual and not anything mandated or banned by a company.
I don’t understand this policy, mostly because it doesn’t make sense. If an employee of any business feels the need to wear a mask at work then they should be allowed to wear a mask at work. There’s no stigma, why create one?
In a word, “NO!” If associated feel more comfortable and secure continuing to wear masks, let them mask up. If they are worried about their health they won’t be smiling all that much anyway. We are all used to seeing ourselves and everyone else masked, so I don’t know – outside of people who wanted to politicize the issue – who’s going to be distracted by any retail worker in a mask.
Left unsaid is what is likely the biggest reason “because it creeps people out” (mask wearing may also unintentionally communicate to customers the idea that the employee is sick).
I don’t, nor can anyone else have a suggestion that will satisfy everyone; typically employers try to accommodate employee’s reasonable requests to feel – and actually be – “safe”. So the question becomes “is mask wearing (still) reasonable?? Perhaps for public facing employees, the answer is “no”.
Another absurd move by a corporate HQ bureaucracy. There is far more to feeling “well greeted” in a shop than seeing the full face. So, instead of encouraging flexibility for their employees which builds warm greetings, they demand exposed faces of the grumpy. The trade-off seems quite short sighted.
I disagree with this. If an employee wants to wear a mask, they can wear a mask. The employer needs to remain neutral on this topic generally speaking.
If the employee is sick, I would say maybe then the employer should force them to wear a mask, but the employee should not be working sick in the first place so that is another can of worms to discuss.
Feels like they are fishing for litigation. But why? Maybe they would like the Supreme Court to take up the matter.
It would be nice to get a court case thay decides this mask thing once and for all one way or the other (employee choice or employer choice).
Most employees who feel compelled to wear a mask likely have good reasons, either:
– they are sick, don’t want to spread germs to customers and fellow employees
– they live with/are around someone who is at risk for a terminal illness, can’t get sick, and they don’t want to bring the germs home
High standards for uniforms and customer service should always be upheld. And yet employers must tread carefully before mask bans without understanding realities around their team members. Carving out a few reasonable options, being practical should always drive decision making.