Jay Myers, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters

bh IN BRIEF

The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (www.cme-mec.ca) published Influenza Pandemic: Continuity Planning Guide for Canadian Business to provide comprehensive, business-focused help for its members. Jay Myers spoke with bh about why more businesses have not yet acted, and the limited options available if they leave it too late. The CME believes pandemic is an important and often unique part of an overall business continuity/emergency plan. While smaller organizations are often more vulnerable, they can easily adapt ‘standard’ checklists and plans to meet their own needs. All businesses will need to manage fear and uncertainty by creating confidence through timely communication, clear policies, and fair and consistent practices.

The scope of potential pandemic impacts is huge, with very important human, financial, social and trade consequences.

Q: The CME states pandemic flu poses huge risks to employees, business continuity, and to top and bottom lines. The facts are stark. Why haven’t most businesses acted?

We’re concerned that more businesses haven’t got continuity plans in place. Pandemic is not like other crises and many organizations may not think the risk is important. A fair degree of scepticism exists: ‘It hasn’t happened yet, so it won’t soon’. Boiled down, the CME Guide is full of common sense, and is helpful for many kinds of risk beyond a pandemic. If the first step is awareness, we’re encouraged that the Guide has been downloaded 150,000 times from the CME website. Many requests come from the US, Europe and Australia. For the first 6 months, over 50% of downloads were in our French language version. Many business associations have also accessed the Guide, so hopefully this will help ensure the message of preparedness gets into local markets.

Q: Timing is the main issue here. Perhaps we won’t "get it" until pandemic flu hits Canada directly and some of us personally. What prevention or control options will remain at that point?

By the time a pandemic appears in Canada, there will be a huge rush to do what is necessary. But it will be too little too late. Those who invest in advance planning will look brilliant because procedures will just have to be activated. Organizations need to identify essential employees and suppliers, and key customers, as well as the financial, legal, workers’ comp and benefits obligations that must be met. It may be prudent to search now for alternative suppliers and see if your suppliers have their own continuity plans in place. It is important to work with health authorities to know where to get critical and credible information, and what emergency facilities will be available. Much of this information should be made available to employees – "no surprises" is still good policy.

Q: Most small and medium sized businesses don’t do much formal planning for anything that isn’t an immediate threat or opportunity. Is the investment in Business Continuity Planning really important and worthwhile for these enterprises?

Absolutely. I think small businesses are often much more vulnerable to workplace disruptions, so good planning is even more crucial for them. In smaller businesses, committees don’t need to be established but the same questions have to be asked. Adapt the best practices documented elsewhere. Specifically for small business, we have developed a checklist with the Business Development Bank for their clients across Canada.

Q: Businesses don’t often step into the personal lives and habits of their employees, but personal hygiene is a critical part of a prevention strategy. Can organizations reach their employees and, by extension, their family members, with education about this?

Organizations must effectively communicate personal hygiene across all job levels, generations and cultures. This has to become an issue owned by employees, rather than something imposed by management. Find ways that employees can take the message home to their families. Use diagrams to illustrate written procedures. Executives should lead by example. Make signage highly visible in washrooms but also throughout the premises. Include pandemic on the agenda for occupational health and safety committee meetings. Keep refreshing the message; the same old text, graphics and signage can begin to look routine and lose impact over time.

It is important to use current and accurate information too. Over- or under-dramatizing the risks will damagecredibility and desensitize your audience.

Q: When a pamdemic hits us, many businesses may be tempted to rapidly scale down and conserve cash and individuals will hunker down at home. So how will organizations be able to convince and incent essential employees to come to work, even virtually?

As a rule, it would be a mistake to force, order or coerce people to appear. So, plan now to create confidence later. Develop policies well in advance, and test procedures whenever possible. Get equipment and communication facilities in place now. Illnesses need to be handled quickly, decisively and effectively. Let employees and unions have a role in developing procedures for credibility. A failure in planning will have long-term effects on jobs, lives and communities.