Lack of Preparation for H1N1 and Other Disasters
My wife and I have three kids, one of which attends an elementary school and the other two attend a middle school. Both schools recently notified the Minnesota Department of Health and the parents that at least five percent of students were out sick the same day with “flu-like symptoms.” In other words, at least one in twenty kids probably has the H1N1 virus as the seasonal flu has yet to make its appearance here. And note that I wrote “at least,” because it is likely that many parents are reporting their kids absent due to illness and not providing the information about fever, cough, etc. required to include the kids in the “flu-like symptoms” bucket. How many more than one in twenty is anyone’s guess, but based on what my kids are telling me it seems that it is more like 10 percent.
If 10 percent of your employees were to call in sick at the same time and for a week, what impact would that have on your productivity? What if 10 percent of your key employees were out sick for a week and then another 10 percent the next week and then another 10 percent the next week?
For employers, the big college hiring season is happening right now. Recruiters are swarming over college campuses all over the country. What if 10 percent of those people called in sick this week and another 10 percent next week and so on?
What preparations has your organization made to minimize the threat of mass illnesses amongst your employees and to deal with the productivity problems if those illnesses occur? And what can we learn from this process about how to deal with other disasters, be they natural like influenza, man-made like terrorism, or a lot of both like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina?
