Mexican Flu Pandemic

The Mexican flu is all over the news. It has reached a pandemic stage. Read what you can do to manage the consequences for your organization.

The Dutch Ministry of Health has sent a letter on July 10, 2009 to organizations to prepare for a large outbreak in the Netherlands later this year. Organizations should start taking the pandemic serious. The estimations are that 30% of your workforce will get ill, not including employees that have to take care of relatives that have the flu. This will affect continuity of operations at your organization and at your suppliers and service providers.

You can prepare by: 

1. Perform a structured analysis of critical activities and functions and the potential effect of the pandemic on operations. Include suppliers, service providers and clients in this analysis.
2. Think about measures to prevent spreading the virus within your organization and to reduce the impact of flu cases in your organization. This includes adapted HR and travel policies but also enabling working from different locations without personal contact and the identification and cross training of back up personnel for critical functions.
3. Investigate contracts with suppliers and clients on flexibility to deal with pandemic circomstances, i.e. dramatic changes in demand for products and services as a consequence of the pandemic.
4. Contact your suppliers and service providers and govern the way they manage the pandemic risk. They should implement appropriate controls to manage continuity as well.
5. Review your HR policy and potentially adapt policies on absence during the flu pandemic. Internationally different regulations might apply for employees that stay home, e.g. affecting their pay. During a pandemic there might be friction between the organizations interests and the interests of the employees. Pro-actively adapting your HR policy manages this.
6. Facilitate working from home as much as possible during a pandemic. Measures like these should always be tested. Computers, (VPN) networks, applications and telephone connections might not function properly when operated from home.

Find out how Protiviti´s Pandemic Risk Management solution can assist you to manage the consequences for your organization.

Download Protiviti´s Frequently Asked Questions document on Business Continuity Management.

For questions or more information, please contact: