MEMO TO: Management
FROM: Larry Smith, Institute for Crisis Management
DATE: July 1, 2009
RE: Prepare For An Influenza Pandemic

The World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared a worldwide flu pandemic for the first time in 41 years.

If you have your pandemic plan, you are as prepared as you probably will ever be. If you do NOT have a pandemic crisis plan, your best bet is to hope and pray that this pandemic will be no worse than the last one in 1968. It only killed about a million people around the world and 34,000 in the United States. Most businesses were not impacted at all or only slightly because of employees that were out sick for a week or so.

In the United States there have been more than 27,700 confirmed human cases and at least 127 deaths from swine flu as of Wednesday 7/1/09.

WHO says at least 113 countries have reported 70,893 cases of swine flu in humans, including 311 deaths, as of today.

There is still time to consider the issues that will impact your organization and begin making "what if" decisions.

The Institute for Crisis Management, in an informal poll of clients and others, still find the majority of businesses and other organizations have not taken the threat of a worldwide pandemic seriously. When asked about their pandemic planning, it is not unusual to have a 40 or 50-something executive ask, "What's a pandemic?"

Those that have given thought to pandemic planning often consider it only as a health issue to be dealt with by doctors, hospitals and local and federal health departments. Even hospital administrators and police and emergency services chiefs think about it as a health-issue and continue to ignore the administrative, financial, human resources and legal issues.

A national analysis of pandemic preparedness found that school closings have major ramifications for students, parents and employers (well, surprise!). It also found sick leave and policies for limiting mass gatherings were also "problematic."

ICM has some clients that have been working on their pandemic plan for three years, or more, and have been fine-tuning those plans in recent weeks. But many executives are caught up in the current economic challenges and failed to take the steps to prepare their organizations for the the pandemic that is now here.

Volunteer organizations are even more likely to suffer. Volunteers may stay home rather than take the chance of putting themselves in position to be exposed to the flu. Paid employees have the motivation of a paycheck and "keeping their jobs" but even with that on their minds, the fear of being "exposed" to the flu may keep some workers out of the office or plant.

Swine flu is a form of a potential pandemic flu and the first two Americans to die in the 1918 pandemic were Kansas farm brothers, drafted for WW I, and victims of swine flu. That outbreak of influenza claimed an estimated 50 million lives around the world and 500,000 in the US alone.

Remember how many millions of dollars and countless hours of worry and preparation were spent in anticipation of the Y2K Bug?

Remember, nothing much went wrong? Did you ever go back and review what you did, what it cost and what it might have cost if you had not prepared?

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Centers for Disease Control have been warning of a far greater threat facing the world, than Y2K. And like Y2K, there is not a lot executives, managers and leaders of corporations, small business and other organizations can do to prevent the pandemic. But there is a lot they can still do to prepare their organizations to avoid total business disaster.

In recent years, medical researchers determined that the pandemic flu usually comes in three waves. A relatively mild version in the spring. It will kill some, but mostly just make many people mildly ill. Then in the past, it disappeared after about two months, only to come back in the fall in full-deadly force, killing thousands and infecting millions of people.

The second wave lasts two to three months and then ends almost over-night. It then comes back the following spring in a very mild form, causing illness but almost no deaths. We could be in the first "mild" wave of the next pandemic, and if so, your organization has less than four months to create your business pandemic plan.

While a few good companies and organizations have been preparing for a pandemic, the public and most business owners, executives and managers have turned a deaf ear to the threat.

But there is a great deal you can still do to prepare, just in case, and without spending the kind of money that was spent on Y2K.

There are four key areas that you must consider:

1. Cash flow (It will be NEGATIVE cash flow)

2. Personnel (HR) Policies and issues

3. Legal Issues, i.e. contracts

4. How you are going to communicate with key audiences, including employees, before, during and after the pandemic.

The worst outbreak of influenza was in 1918 and it claimed an estimated 50 million lives around the world and 500,000 in the US alone.

The normal functions of society have been disrupted in the past outbreaks of 1957 and 1968, but nothing like the world-wide impact of 1918 with workers too ill to work, others staying home out of fear, hospitals strained to meet the demand for care and basic essentials such as transportation, water, sanitation and power were threatened.

If history repeats itself, you have a little time to prepare your business, Univeristy, non-profit or almost any other type organization before the worst part of a pandemic strikes later this year.

Hospitals and police departments and other emergency services have been planning for a couple of years, but they have been concentrating on how they are going to "do their jobs" taking care of the sick, keeping cities safe, fighting fires. But, we've found most have failed to plan for keeping their own operations running. If 20-to-40 percent of their doctors, nurses, officers and command staff are out sick, how are they going to carry out the rest of their plan.

Planning should proceed on these fronts:
How are you going to maintain a minimal level of productivity?
How are you going to communicate quickly and effectively with employees and vendors and customers?

Human Resources, Finance, Legal, IT, Purchasing, Transportation, Marketing and Sales all need a plan to keep the business functioning. Plan for how you are going to keep operating with up to half of your employees out sick or afraid to come to work, and knowing that some will never be back. Or, plan for when you will shut down and how you will make that decision and communicate that decision to your employees, vendors and customers.

What's the minimum workforce with which you can continue to operate safely? When you have as much as half your workforce out sick, or afraid to come to work, what can you do to meet production demands? When a number of those sick employees never return to work, where will you find qualified replacements? How long will it take to train them?

When your vendors are facing the same sickness and absenteeism, and your delivery services are slowed by sickness, how will you maintain production?

The communication challenge is just as significant.

You need a plan in place to communicate with employees, to reassure them, if you can:

~ their jobs will be safe
~ this will end and life will return to normal (whatever that is)
~ the company will stand by them and their families if the worst happens

You will need to daily update employees, partners and customers about the progress you are making in overcoming the challenges of the pandemic.

Be prepared to continuously reassure employees and customers if you will be able to meet their needs and expectations. But, be honest. You may be slowed by the illness or work may be temporarily halted.

Part of the planning process will include determining the most effective and efficient method of communicating with those key audiences and anticipating which forms of communication will be more likely to work with so many people sick and dying.

For those companies that have already moved work off-shore, to Southeast Asia, China and Mexico, planning is even more important because conditions in many of those countries and healthcare shortcomings will exacerbate the impact of a pandemic.

The disease has already been confirmed in more than 74 countries.

To compound the threat, companies doing business in those countries have people traveling back and forth regularly.

Healthcare insurers and providers should already be developing their plan, and charitable organizations need to prepare, also. If you depend on volunteers, and they are sick or afraid of getting sick, you will be impacted. If you depend on individual and corporate funding, and work is slowed or temporarily stopped by a pandemic, you will suffer immediate and significant financial loss.

Like preparation for Y2K, planning for something like a bird flu pandemic may seem far fetched and unnecessary. Y2K came and went with hardly a ripple. A flu pandemic will cause ripples even with preparation, but it will cause tidal waves if you do not plan, just in case.

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