The World Health Organization has raised its pandemic alert level. The outbreak of swine flu in Mexico is believed to be responsible for 152 deaths and over 1,600 illnesses. At least 90 cases of swine flu have been confirmed in other countries, including 50 in the U.S., 6 in Canada, 3 in New Zealand, 2 each in Spain and the U.K. and 1 in Israel.

Fears of avian influenza a few years back provided the impetus many organizations needed to start preparing for pandemic. As a safety director, you need to play an active role in helping your company formulate pandemic preparedness and response plans. Here are a baker’s dozen steps you can take:

1. Verify that your company’s existing contingency plans apply to pandemic and that you can sustain core business activities over several weeks in case of high employee absenteeism.
2. Plan for interruptions of essential governmental services like sanitation, water and power, and for disruptions to the food supply.
3. Identify your organization’s essential functions and the individuals who perform them.
4. Build in the training redundancy necessary to ensure that work can be done in case of an absentee rate of 25 to 30%.
5. Ensure adequate air circulation and post tips on how to stop the spread of germs at work.
6. Call on employees to engage in handwashing, and coughing and sneezing etiquette.
7. Ensure a supply of readily available alcohol-based hand sanitizer products at the workplace.
8. Determine which outside activities, such as transportation systems, are critical to operations and develop alternatives in case they can’t function normally.
9. Create policies and tools that enable employees to work from home with appropriate security and network access to applications.
10. Expand online and self-service options for customers and business partners.
11. Tell employees about pandemic influenza and the steps the organization is taking to prepare for it.
12. Encourage employees to stay home if they’re sick.
13. Update sick leave, and family and medical leave policies. Concern about lost wages is the largest reason people come to work when they’re sick.

Source: Pamphlet from British Columbia, Ministry of Health, http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/pandemic/pdf/biz_leaflet.pdf

Here are some other resources you might find helpful in preparing for pandemic:

• OSHA, Guidance on Workplaces for an Influenza Pandemic, http://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3327pandemic.pdf
• Public Safety, Canada, A Guide to Business Continuity Planning, http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/prg/em/gds/bcp-en.asp
• Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Stopping the Spread of Germs at Work, http://www.cdc.gov/germstopper/work.htm
• CDC, Webpage of free pandemic planning resources, http://www.cdc.gov/flu/Pandemic/
• Mercer, the HR consulting giant, has a web page full of free planning tools, http://www.mercer.com/avianflu
• Pennsylvania Checklist, Pandemic Planning for Business Owners and Employers Business Continuity Checklist,        http://www.pandemicflu.state.pa.us/pandemicflu/lib/pandemicflu/factsheets/Pandemic_Planning_Business_Continuity_Checklist.pdf
• World Health Organization, Pandemic influenza preparedness website, http://www.who.int/csr/disease/influenza/pandemic/en/
• SafetyXChange four-part series about an employer’s legal obligation to safeguard workers against the risks of influenza and other pandemic diseases, http://www.safetyxchange.org/wp-content/plugins/st_newsletter/stnl_iframe.php?newsletter=2928&code= (Part 1—you can get Parts 2-4 on the SafetyXChange website)

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