The recent outbreaks of the swine flu are highlighting the need for organizations to have pandemic plans that address workforce absenteeism rates of 40% or higher. There are 20 laboratory-confirmed human cases in California, Texas, Ohio, Kansas and New York. In fact, we’re in Chicago for the Gartner Business Continuity Management Summit and we’ve already been notified that at least one company planning to attend cannot because they have already initiated their crisis management plan to monitor the swine flu outbreak in their area. With luck, this will be a very minor event as according to the WHO “laboratory testing has found the swine influenza A (H1N1) virus susceptible to the prescription antiviral drugs oseltamivir and zanamivir.”
Immediate steps for organizations to take include:
• Go to www.pandemicflu.gov to find out the actions the US government recommends to ensure workforce safety and continuous business operations.
• Download and examine the FFIEC’s “Pandemic Flu Exercise of 2007 After Action Report” immediately, and disseminate their findings across your organization. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only large-scale testing of business pandemic plans ever conducted.
• Download Rick DeLotto’s research note “New U.S. Guidance on IT in Pandemics” dated March 3, 2008.
• Emphasize the urgency of performing personal hygiene disciplines that will inhibit the spread of the virus.
• Identify existing and projected critical skills shortages; and initiate staff cross-training, testing and certification. Make sure that cross-trained personnel are also given the appropriate access rights in your applications. This is the longest lead-time and most disruptive of the improvements.
• Determine which business operations are sustainable, at what level, and likely durations of downtime for normal business operations with staff absentee rates of 40%. Test for various combinations of leaders and skilled staff.
• Testing should start immediately to isolate and remediate problem areas. Testing should be rigorous, inventive, ongoing and documented.
Gartner has many research notes related to pandemic planning and we will continue to update you as to the severity of events and actions you should take as the situation evolves. Please visit our business continuity blog for more information.
Rick DeLotto and Roberta Witty
2 responses so far ↓
1 Mobile / wireless and pandemic plans // Apr 27, 2009 at 3:00 am
[...] current outbreak of swine flu doesn’t become a pandemic. But as my colleagues have already pointed out in other posts it’s important to have pandemic contingency plans that define what you’d do if [...]
2 Robert Witty Covers First Steps in Pandemic Planning // Apr 27, 2009 at 8:55 am
[...] “Immediate steps for organizations to take” Update your Pandemic Plan Now [...]
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