Backed up by research from the BCI (Business continuity Institute) confirming that over half of organisations they surveyed had weak or no pandemic contingency plans, the CIPD warns that senior managers will ignore the second wave threat of increased swine flu cases and will be hit by substantial staff absences, a great threat to businesses and the recovery of the recession.

Warning companies to not underestimate the potential threat posed by a second wave of swine flu does not seem to be making any difference. There are many factors that contribute to a sense of apathy, but the key obstacle is overcoming the feeling that it will never be as bad as the media would have us believe. As humans we tend to be naturally optimistic, playing down any negative possibility. Indeed I fell victim of this myself recently in a car park…as I went to the machine to put in my card to pay my money the man before me told me it wasn’t working and that it had swallowed his money. Being in a rush and ever the optimist, I thought that maybe it would work for me. You can guess what happened!

So the lesson to be learnt from the information given to us, is that organisations should be factoring ‘optimism bias’ into their contingency plans and planning for the worst case scenario. This is much less work and effort than some managers tend to think, as you can simply and seamlessly re-route incoming calls to employee homes and allow secure access to corporate networks. After all not all staff absences will be due to illness, so why not make better use of their time away and give them the tools to continue working?