Citation
Southby, K. (2006), "Continuity planning and pandemic flu - not my business", Strategic Direction, Vol. 22 No. 8. https://doi.org/10.1108/sd.2006.05622hab.002
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2006, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Continuity planning and pandemic flu - not my business
Continuity planning and pandemic flu – not my business
Katherine Southby litigation specialist at Yorkshire law firm Gordons
Current estimates are that more than one in four UK residents would be affected by a major pandemic flu outbreak, which could hit the country at any time. Whilst the medical sector are frantically contingency-planning to ensure our physical wellbeing, business continuity planning will be the difference between economic survival and failure. So how is UK business reconciling the challenge of the potential medical threat with the natural tendency towards reactive management and rampant skepticism?
If the present predictions are correct, around 30 percent of the workforce will be affected at any one time and a figure of 50,000 additional deaths is likely. Much of the impact will be from absences from work, either through illness itself or through the need to care for family members. Schools will be severely disrupted with up to 50 percent of children affected in previous pandemics. School closures have a knock-on effect on business continuity and maintenance of essential services, as parent workers will need to remain at home to provide child care.
If projections are correct mass gatherings of people will be precluded, so businesses in sectors such a retail and leisure may find that their trading opportunities are greatly restricted.
The government has a number of websites with useful resources for businesses but so far the response from business has been lukewarm, with many recalling with bitterness the hype that surrounded the much vaunted and virtually non-existent Millennium Bug. In some parts of the country however small businesses in the agriculture and tourism industries remember only too well the impact of the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001. The reduction in people traveling was devastating for ill-prepared businesses, and that was without any direct impact on the workforce themselves.
The knock on effect into other disrupted businesses and services includes items such as fuel, food production and distribution cannot be underestimated either with the fragility of distribution chains being graphically demonstrated in the past by the devastating effectiveness of fuel protestors.
What should business do?
Whilst there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution for business, a pre-emptive risk analysis approach can put business on track to deal with the far-reaching implications in terms of resource management, employment law and employer responsibilities for health and safety. What’s more, much of the suggested checklist items below (Figure 1) could form part of a generic business continuity strategy.
Don’t Panic!
One particular worry in this era of global terror and heightened public paranoia is the likelihood of scare stories and misinformation circulating. A fear of contamination through paper money handling is one such example, and businesses which rely on face-to-face contact are most susceptible to panic stories, and most resistant to alternative home-working and teleconferencing measures.
Whilst business may be suffering some sort of apathetic “terror fatigue”, in reality the process for continuity planning for any sort of crisis is the same approach that is already taken for health and safety risk assessment. Clear lines of responsibility, reporting and accountability, and an openness to look at a situation in new and creative ways are the keys to riding out whatever unexpected events may arise, and to giving a business a competitive advantage when the going gets tough.
Department of Health – pandemic flu web pages
www.dh.gov.uk/PolicyAndGuidance/EmergencyPlanning/PandemicFlu/fs/en
Current WHO phase of pandemic alert
Identifies which of the six distinct phases which have been defined by the World Health Organization to help global preparedness planning, is the current phase of alert.
www.who.int/csr/disease/avianinfluenza/phase/en/
London prepared
Preparing for a flu pandemic