ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Irina Krystofik, president of Pinellas-based home-automation company BBD Lifestyle, has a decision to make.

Should she impose a mandatory COVID vaccination-or-testing policy upon her employees?

“A lot of our clients are 50 and older,” she says. “It would be quite embarrassing to call clients and say ‘we brought COVID,’ or that we have employees that are not interested in getting vaccinated.”

In fact, Krystofik says BBD, which has been in business since 2006 installing remote-controlled window treatments, sound systems, TV setups and the like, does have an employee that was exposed to the coronavirus. The employee quarantined at home for two weeks but, according to Krystofik and another BBD worker, is disinclined to get vaccinated upon returning to work.

“We want him to get vaccinated,” says Krystofik. “So I guess [a mandatory policy] would be a way to sort of push him even if he doesn’t want to.”

Since Florida is a “right to work” state, BBD and other companies could conceivably let workers go over a refusal to get vaccinated or tested. Krystofik and BBD take COVID precautions extremely seriously; their commitment and protocols are posted prominently on the business’s website. But she doesn’t want to fire anyone over vaccination disagreements, partly because of her loyalty to her employees and partly because, given the specialized nature of the work and the current shortage of workers in general, staff would be difficult to replace.

“It seems like all industries are suffering,” she says. “There’s not that many people in the particular niche that we’re doing, finding employees is hard… with the worker shortage, we can’t really say ‘do it or we’ll fire you.’ Our hands are kind of tied. We need a more creative way to go about it.”

Like several business owners and managers Spectrum Bay News 9 spoke to, Krystofik believes that mandating regular testing as an alternative to getting vaccinated could not only serve as another layer of precaution, but also influence employees to get vaccinated simply to avoid the “hassle” of getting tested regularly.

She says BBD will very likely impose just such an either-or policy, and soon. The safety of her customers and her employees — one of whom told Spectrum Bay News 9 that she has health issues, and fears for the health of an elderly family member — is more important than the opinions of a small minority of workers.

“The people who don’t have vaccination are going to need to provide us testing, at least two or three times a month, so we can say that they’re negative, and we’ll make them wear a mask,” she says. “I think we’re gonna do this.”