In addition to a salary and paid leave, every company offers incentives intended to attract and retain their employees to safeguard talent for the future. In the US where medical costs are high, companies have decided to make genetic testing available to their employees to assess the chances of them developing cancer or high cholesterol levels.
Levi Strauss & Company, General Electric Appliances, Visa, Nvidia, Salesforce and Snap are all working with the same start-up, Color Genomics, which “shares the data of employees who have the test not only with the employer but also with many external companies“.
Although these incentives raise numerous ethical questions in terms of data protection and confidentiality, it is clear that take-up has been huge, attracting large numbers of employees and leading Levi’s management to consider making these tests available to all employees.
This type of offer is illegal in France as such research must be prescribed by a doctor.
L’ADN, Mélanie Roosen (19/04/2018)