Swine Flu: Preparing for Potential Pandemics

With 24 hour news coverage, it’s easy to get caught up in the hype and hysteria of the current swine flu outbreak. It is helpful to understand that while business continuity challenges associated with a communicable disease outbreak include many of the same elements as a traditional business continuity program, there are also many differences. In addition to identifying the most time-sensitive business processes and how they will be continued, an event such as a pandemic requires additional action items from business leaders including:

• A pandemic is first of all a people crisis. Organizations need to identify the tools available to help their people cope with not only the actual threat, but also the hysteria that can make a difficult situation seem much worse than it actually is. It is not enough to simply repeat facts from reliable sources – employees must be engaged to better understand how something as widespread as a pandemic will affect them, and how the organization is prepared to help.
• Plan how to deal with misinformation and confusion within the government. There are simply too many governmental entities with different perspectives to expect consistently applied principles throughout the world, even if they are agreed upon in advance.  For example, according to the US Federal Response Plan, as soon as the World Health Organization (WHO) enters Phase 4, the US should have increased their response to its Stage 2. That did not happen in this current outbreak. When the WHO raised its alert level to Stage 5, the US still remained at Stage 0. Presumably, leaders have made appropriate escalation decisions based on facts on the ground, but business and industry should not assume that simply because something is written in their country’s pandemic response plan that it will actually occur in that fashion.
• Anticipate the Human Resource (HR) challenges you will face. Organizations should plan for absenteeism, but a whole host of HR policy questions will arise during this outbreak as well. If a local school system shuts down (as has already happened in several states), what will the “time off” policy be for employees with children in these school systems? There are no good answers. Permitting the employees the time off without consequence can have a morale impact on employees who are not affected. Forcing these employees to use vacation time can alienate them during an already challenging period. These questions become even more challenging if an employee or family member actually contracts the virus. Every organization should carefully consider how it will handle these types of issues.
• Most business continuity plans include a provision where a contingent of employees will work from home. Many of these plans are not written with the assumption that business partners will also be working from home. Document alternate contact information and operating models in advance that could be deployed in the event that you and a large contingent of your business partners are all working remotely or from homes concurrently.
• There are legal issues related to pandemics that do not materialize in “common” business interruptions.  Will any disease victims qualify as an occupational illness covered by workers compensation law? To what extent will employers be able to impose new work rules on employees? What are the impacts of ongoing collective bargaining agreements or M&A activity? Will there be SEC compliance considerations such as the point at which pandemic response becomes a material event disclosure requirement? These and many other issues should be discussed with legal counsel.

A pandemic can result in many types of business impacts. Our people, internal operations, supply chains, and whole communities can be affected at the same time. Organizations with effective Business Continuity Management practice will be able to quickly evaluate all the issues, identify those competing for the same resource(s) and forecast which decisions will help mitigate the current human, operational, economic and reputation impacts while providing the best course for future success.

At Navigant, our Business Continuity Management (BCM) consulting practice is focused on providing timely and customized advisory services to our clients in a way that is both practical and effective. Our team is available to talk with organizations about their risk if the outbreak continues or gets worse. Some specific advisory services we can provide organizations include:

• A free consultation about current actions and level of preparedness.
• A review of current pandemic/infectious disease preparedness plans.
• Hands on assistance assessing and managing the operational impacts caused by travel, logistics and other interruptions.
• Development and delivery of new pandemic preparedness plans.
• Exercises of pandemic plans or scenario planning to forecast the downstream impact(s) of a continued outbreak.

For additional insights and perspectives about BCM click here to enter our knowledge center or contact Mike Keating at 404-575-3843 or michael.keating@navigantconsulting.com.