Will swine flu affect businesses?
April 29, 2009
The biggest news story at the moment is the outbreak of swine flu, which has killed almost 160 people in Mexico and has spread to other parts of the world including the USA and Europe. Two people are confirmed to have swine flu in the UK so far – a couple in Scotland who have just returned from their holiday in the popular Mexican resort of Cancun. Whilst the risk is said to be low for the rest of Britain at the moment, there is always the possibility of a spread of the virus to many people – and the last thing I heard on the radio on the way to work this morning was that the Government is going to send a leaflet about swine flu to every house in Britain, and is looking to order in a massive stockpile of protective face masks.
So, if the worst happened, what could this mean for businesses? With a contagious virus the way to avoid spreading it around is to stop people from having close contact with each other, but how do you achieve that in the workplace? Firstly, just getting to work could leave staff open to infection, as small enclosed spaces on public transport are perfect places for viruses to spread. Secondly, infections and viruses spread really easily within workplaces – as my organisation experienced over the winter when nearly everyone had some strain of the same cough/cold/flu illness.
So what can be done to prepare. It’s likely that in the event of a pandemic, the Government would advise employers to take as few risks with their staff as possible; which could include allowing them to stay at home. Here lies a problem for many companies; remember only a couple of months back when the heavy snowfall affected UK businesses because it caused chaos for the country’s travel networks and left many people unable to attend work or school? At the time a lot of organisations found that their business suffered because they did not have contingencies in place for staff not being able to get to work. Swine flu could potentially cause the same problem, and companies need to be mindful of this by having plans, such as home working and home network access, ready for if such an event were to occur.
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