“Aon has created a stand alone insurance policy to reimburse companies for wages, fixed costs and extra expenses if they are unable to access their buildings due to government action.”

Hats off to Aon for identifying the gap in the market here as many generic insurance policies/ business interruption policies do not cover specific pandemic viruses, indeed they only usually cover costs caused by physical damage or ‘notifiable diseases’ which H1N1 does not always qualify for.

The new product from Aon is believed to be the first of its kind available to all kinds of industry, though the general target is for Retail, Transport and Manufacturing where employees would be hard pushed to fulfill their roles from home. I’m sure many of the 100 shops in Princes Street, Edinburgh which suffered a power cut during peak business hours this week, would now be very keen to take up such a policy…

Continous working much better than re-couping costs

It’s great that these industries can now be protected for office/ building closure in this way, however for those industries such as service and finance there is always the option for employees to work from home or another remote office or location and I believe that these types of organisations should be focusing their attention far more on continuing to operate effectively as a business, rather than relying on insurance policies to cover any unexpected costs as a result of a building closure. After all, who wants to pay out twice or three times following a disruption? First for an insurance policy, then for the costs which are not covered by the policy, and finally for a more effective strategy which enables employees to continue working through a disruption whereby your costs are limited from the start.

If organisations had a seamless way of working, regardless of whether their premises could be accessed or not, there would be no need for reliance on such insurance policies to cover unexpected costs.

This is is of particular concern as I have just read in the Daily Telegraph that more than 80% of young children hospitalised with the virus were also previously healthy…
If the media are reducing their reporting of the number or nature of swine flu cases that are happening in the UK it could be all too easy to presume that the pandemic is not as bad as it was previously thought it could be, and I personally think that this a dangerous point of view to take.

There is a fine line I believe between not panicking and being prepared. Our everyday actions should still include good personal hygiene measures such as using antibacterial gel where provided, watching our children carefully for any increase in temperatures and being watchful of friends, family and colleagues who may be showing symptoms. This virus is still a potential killer and certainly has the power to disable a large proportion of the UK workforce.

Clinical Attack Rate: Up to 30% of the UK population (source: Uk Planning Assumptions 3/9/09 Cabinet Office)

Predicted absence rate of employees within a single organisation due to sickness and caring responsibilities: 30% (research undertaken by GlaxoSmithkline)

During the peak, the infection rate may be sustained for 2 weeks (source: Uk Planning Assumptions 3/9/09 Cabinet Office)

Number of deaths to date in the UK: 59 (Fergus on Flu BBC Online 21/8/09)

Estimated loss of revenue per company: between 2% and 8% (Research undertaken by GlaxoSmithkline and validated by Milliman consultancy)

From my own experience last winter when seasonal flu caused havoc at my husband’s company, I would say that the 30% absence rate is pretty accurate. When one employee came back to work for a meeting, while suffering from the flu, he managed to infect and disrupt around 30% of the company’s workforce over a period of around a month, as some took one week off and others took two weeks at varying times.

The company has learnt its lesson and put firmly in place plans for the swine flu pandemic. As soon as there is a whiff of a rumour that an employee may have swine flu, they are sent home to work remotely and their calls are redirected home to offer customers a seamless service. But employers shouldn’t have to get their fingers burnt in order to properly plan for mass flu infection, it should be their top buisness continuity planning priority, especially as we are now in the ‘calm before the storm’.

Clearly if this were to be implemented, there is room for abuse by employees who may have just a cold, or who really aren’t suffering that badly. Employers would be placing a lot of trust on their employees not to abuse the policy, and may find it difficult to put in place any measures to counter any abuse. When the swine flu was first announced in the media, there was an increase in the number of UK employees calling in sick. As the country with the 3rd highest number of swine flu cases, something needs to be done to protect our businesses and fragile economy from mass absenteeism.

Some organisations are now preparing appropriately for ensuring business continuity with a vastly reduced workforce. A former colleague at BT told me that internally they are preparing for a third of the workforce to be absent at any one time. One of their key strategies is to employ flexible working where possible.

Where several companies are now allowing employees to access their emails securely from home, few companies understand how they can provide seamless working through incoming call re-routing, and rely on employees to use mobile phones to communicate with suppliers, customers etc. There are several disadvantages with this strategy including; batteries running out, extended use of mobile phones without headsets possibly causing headaches, lack of mobile signal in several parts of the UK and in many cases higher call charges for callers. By seamlessly re-routing individual DDI numbers, the caller has no idea that you are not situated at your office desk and the customer experience remains consistent, fuelling positive brand perception.

Deploying a robust and flexible telecoms resilience strategy during this heigthened swine flu pandemic, I believe gives employers the power to say to employees, ‘ok, take time to recover at home, but here are the tools you need should you feel well enought o carry on working.’ Or for the employee who is forced to stay at home to look after sick relatives, flexible working should allow them the opportunity to work around their caring responsibilities.

I believe that the employer has the capability of managing those employees from a distance through flexible working while not pre-judging those who may or may not have swine flu, so that everybody wins.

Author: Karen Jones

These cases I think will become more and more common, particularly in the winter months. So how can organisations minimise their decrease in productivity? In a white paper I published recently on our GemaTech website titled ‘The adoption of flexible working is the key to your business surviving the current swine flu pandemic’, I stated that even the Health and Safety Executive as well as the Department of Health have issued advice to employers which include considering home-working and tele-conferencing to reduce face-to-face contact.

When mass absenteesim starts affecting customer service and the key systems and processes which an organisation relies upon, enabling people to work from home will go a long way to protecting brand and organisational reputation.

Author: Karen Jones