Pandemic Planning – The Time to Plan is When You Have Time to Plan

Health experts, including the World Health Organization, suggest that we are overdue for a pandemic resembling the 1918 Spanish Flu that killed in excess of 20 million people world wide. The current H5N1 virus appears to be a possible candidate but no one knows for sure if this virus will be the one to spark a highly lethal and contagious disease.
 
 

The good news about this potentially devastating event is that there is still time to prepare your organization to cope with a disaster that will impact people rather than computers or buildings.
 

Click here for an excellent presentation on H5N1 pandemic by Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer prize winning author of “The Coming Plague”. It was a talk given prior to the H1N1 outbreak, however H5N1 is still of concern.

• The Human Resource policies and practices, especially regarding absenteeism, identification of and backfilling critical positions, removal and return of staff to work, flex time and telecommuting, and labour issues, especially in unionized environments;
• Communication practices pre, during and post pandemic, with staff, customers, suppliers, and investors;
• Supply chain concerns with respect to working with critical suppliers and vendors to ensure that they can continue to operate during a pandemic period;
• Business processes including the identification of access to information, records, manuals; appropriate levels of signing authority in cases of illness or death; and maintaining adequate financial control over receivables.