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Avian Flu: Preparing Your Business for a Potential Pandemic

Author: Gary Lynch

It’s rare today that organizations face business continuity scenarios with virtually no model or blueprint to work from. EvenHurricane Katrina, while particularly devastating, was a specific type of calamity that businesses in the southeastern United States understand and prepare for, as best they can, on an ongoing basis.

But how to prepare for a pandemic that can affect businesses worldwide, escalate suddenly, and severely cripple even companies where no one contracts the flu?

The overwhelming nature of this question may be why many senior corporate leaders don’t seem to be meeting the avian flu challenge head-on just yet. Contemplating various threats is never comfortable, especially one that could take a terrible, tremendous human toll around the world. The best method is to break the threat down into manageable pieces, analyze where company vulnerabilities lie, and then take steps to shore up defenses.

Take Steps Now to Protect Employees and Their Families

The highest priority of any company must be enabling employees to protect themselves and their families in a potential avian flu pandemic. This includes providing education about the avian flu, allowing employees the freedom to work from home, supplying employees with additional sick time as needed, assisting employees and their families find appropriate health care, and even helping to find temporary housing for employees and their relatives, if need be, particularly for those forced to evacuate from a pandemic zone, whether overseas or closer to home.

Companies failing to account for these things could affect their employees’ ability to stay healthy, recover, or avoid spreading avian flu to other people – not to mention leave its own reputation in tatters. A pandemic would be very frightening as its scope broadened, and employees worried about their families would be less productive, stay out of work more frequently, and possibly resent their employer if it appears to be unconcerned about them in a crisis.

In its early stages, a successful employee outreach plan would include educational efforts about a potential pandemic, continuous communications on how the company will assist employees and their families, and the policies and procedures that would go into effect in the event of a pandemic. For many employers, these activities should already be in place.

Focus on the Most Tangible Operational Vulnerabilities

Every manager should be asking this question right now: How is a potential pandemic really going to affect us operationally?

As a first step, companies should perform some basic statistical modeling to gain a realistic picture of how their workforces, no matter where they are located, will likely be depleted in the event of a pandemic. A company entering the avian flu season prepared to lose, say, 20 percent of its workforce – including 5 percent of its highly critical employees – will be greatly relieved when the flu never hits, and able to survive if it does.

For those companies outsourcing significant pieces of their supply chain to Asia – which is considered by many to be “Ground Zero” of a potential pandemic – such an assessment is more complicated. As such, companies should seek to develop an operations “map” of their most strategic and profitable products, and then connect the dots to how Asia fits in from an employee, technological, and manufacturing point of view. Time is running out for companies to make a decision about which product lines to salvage, and where to make critical investments and alternate arrangements.

For example, take an organization that outsources call centers and software development to India. As call centers constitute “client-facing” work, that organization may want to invest in establishing some call center capability outside of the region, and take its chances with leaving software development there for the time being.

Similarly, a pharmaceutical giant would probably concentrate on keeping drug production in Asia going, while making new drug research a second priority – if research ground to a halt, the company could still sell the drugs produced and continue to survive.

And it’s not just suppliers that pose a business continuity risk. Perhaps the pandemic prevents a company’s customers in Asia from buying its products or services – that’s another way an organization can grind to a halt. Companies that have never even thought of doing business in Asia also need to consider the operational ramifications of a pandemic, of course. For example, a small Silicon Valley software company staffed with healthy individuals aged between 25 and 40 might have a relatively low risk profile.

It’s up to corporate managers to establish the priorities in this time of preparation. If priorities are not established, companies run the risk of misdirecting their efforts and wasting valuable time and money.

Inoculate the Supply Chain

Global players today have twists and turns in their supply chain unheard of even five years ago. Companies outsource everything from customer service to manufacturing to marketing. So while avian flu may not directly affect a company headquartered in Atlanta or its suppliers in Chicago, maybe it affects its suppliers’ suppliers. Or maybe it affects technicians working at the backup data facility in another state or country.

There are several steps companies should take to make sure their supply chain has the flexibility to withstand an avian flu pandemic:

Approach Avian Flu As a Regional Problem

A pandemic is, by definition, not a local issue. It can affect businesses nationally and internationally. Yet, as a business continuity risk, the best way for companies to approach the problem is on a regional basis.

Why? To best protect employees, most of the measures taken to combat the pandemic will be based in the adjoining local communities. That means working with local authorities and health officials to approve various aspects of a company’s BC plan, from facility sterilization, to employee evacuation, to how the company plans to monitor the condition of employees who contract the flu.

The most complete response plans go well beyond partnering with government agencies. As was all too obvious in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, different levels of government can have uneven responses to a disaster. Companies can supplement their planning by partnering with local peers and competitors to share information and join forces during a potential pandemic, whether it be sharing flu vaccine, encouraging employees to carpool, arranging health care and home aid for sick employees, or updating employees on public health announcements.

Regional clients will likely react differently than large national clients, as well. A company might think its clients will hold them to typical deadlines and such, even during a pandemic. Oftentimes, however, clients are having similar problems of their own and might understand if service has to be delayed a week or two. Again, this goes under the category of “Don’t be a hero if you don’t have to be.” Expend your efforts to address the organization’s real vulnerabilities, rather than to please clients who ultimately might not place a high value on your efforts to maintain your level of service during the crisis.

First Responders in All Areas Of the Organization

The specifics of business continuity 101 – assigning roles in advance, knowing the offsite employee gathering site, rigorously maintaining backup data centers and work facilities – don’t really change for a potential avian flu pandemic.

But a pandemic easily could play havoc with this standard business continuity textbook and force companies to improvise. The pandemic could spread extremely quickly, for example, perhaps infecting senior leaders of the organization.

Employees at all levels of the organization might have to make difficult decisions having to do with personnel, whether to keep certain offices open, how to handle clients, etc.

In fact, there’s a term for public safety officers that is sometimes appropriate for the business world: first responder. Employees of each major department of an organization should think of themselves as first responders, meaning they are independent and competent enough to take the first appropriate step in case of emergency. As a rule of thumb, managers should understand the responsibilities of their own manager “one layer removed.” That means knowing and understanding, on a basic level, what the boss’ boss is doing, who that person routinely meets with, and what sort of job responsibilities for the organization the person has.

Simulating the Company’s Response

One of the best ways to produce a company full of first responders who can think on their feet is holding corporate rehearsals and drills.

One of the most effective methods of training when simulating a company’s response is a role-playing exercise, in which managers play the role of someone else in the organization. Employees see the organization from another perspective, and subsequently gain insight into their own roles.

In addition, in a fluid situation like a potential avian flu epidemic, numerous crucial employees could be sidelined at the same time, and it would undoubtedly help the company if employees knew a thing or two about other jobs. For example, an operations person could take the role of the liaison who deals with outside utilities and health agencies.

Conclusion: A Tailored Solution

The appropriate response to an avian flu pandemic is different for every company, and for every industry. Some organizations may need to shut down; others might have clients that themselves need help coping with the pandemic. It’s up to each organization to decide what a pandemic would mean for its employees and its particular business, and then gauge how much it can help other organizations and the communities in which its employees live and work.

The biggest mistake a company can make is to throw its hands up at the enormous scope of the problem and hope it goes away. Like any business continuity issue, there are steps companies can take to prepare, both to take care of employees and ensure that the business itself will survive the pandemic.

Gary Lynch is the Practice Leader for Business Continuity Management at Marsh Inc.’s Risk Consulting Practice. He is responsible for business development, practice development and methodology for the Risk Consulting Practice’s business continuity specialists in and around the U.S., as well as internationally. He works with the public and private sectors in the development and implementation of business continuity, disaster recovery, and high availability programs. He has spent 26 years in the IT & Operational Risk management profession. This includes serving as the Business Continuity and Information Security Officer at The Prudential and Chase Manhattan Bank (now JPMorganChase), as well as a Partner for the Operational Resiliency Practice at Booz Allen Hamilton. He was also a Research Director at the Gartner Group, and is .a guest lecturer at NYU Stern School of Management. He can be reached at (212) 345-6053 or via e-mail at Gary.Lynch@marsh.com.

There is wealth of information available on the Internet, including up- to-date reports on avian flu outbreaks and human cases of avian flu. Some key sites to visit include: