With over 260 deaths reported worldwide including 5 from Australia from Swine Flu and development of a vaccine under way - do businesses in New Zealand need to do anything?
Estimates of up to 50% of New Zealand’s population expected to suffer from Swine Flu in the next two years. Ensuring that your business continuity plans are in place is essential. If you have key staff you should ensure that others know their role.
Read here for a useful guide to use at home.
What do you need to know for your own workplace?
Business planning needs, to be pragmatic and provide enough options for a business to respond to a range of scenarios. As a starting point, there are some simple but important pieces of information to keep in mind:
A pandemic will affect your business, your staff and your customers – just how much will depend on the severity of the pandemic and how well prepared you are. Keeping businesses open will be a challenge as the numbers of people who get sick with influenza increases. This will be a serious issue in service businesses which the public are dependent on, such as pharmacies, rest homes and food businesses, but all businesses will be affected to some degree. Some staff will be absent because they are sick, or are needed to care for family members who are sick. Business continuity planning is essential to ensure businesses can stay open and supply services and goods to the community.
You need to plan for it now – covering steps your business can take pre-, during and after a pandemic.
It’s important to look to the recovery phase as a basis for your planning – actions you take during the pandemic will impact on your ability to return to business as usual.
Employment relations and health and safety law provide a minimum requirement, but on their own they don’t give all the answers to a pandemic situation - organisations will need to take a practical and human approach.
Good communication between employers, employees, unions and other workplace participants is a critical step in planning.
Work with your employees on a plan that will enable you to keep your business open as long as possible, or if you are an essential service, to remain open right through the pandemic.
Recognise the human dimension to a pandemic. People will have important and legitimate personal, family and community responsibilities (for example, childcare if schools are closed) - so your planning will need to treat them as a reality to work with, not as an inconvenience to avoid or work against.
Expect people to be concerned about contracting Swine Flu. Good health and safety practices will provide the best framework for helping you respond to the risk of infection, and will assure people that all practicable steps have been taken.
Do I have to pay staff?
You will have heard of people going into voluntary quarantine and also of private businesses and schools closing to limit the spread of infection. If you find yourself in this situation the inevitable question will arise – do I have to pay the staff?
You can require employees to stay at home if they are sick and they represent a safety risk to the workplace. In this situation an employee should take sick leave. If they have no sick leave available then you may decide to allow them to take annual leave, otherwise it will be LWOP.
You will need to make a decision on how to treat employees who are staying home to look after someone who is well, but unable to either attend school, or who is in quarantine. Normally workplaces only provide domestic leave to care for a sick or ill dependent.
If you are required to close the workplace the waters are very muddied. The Holidays Act provides that you can require an employee to take accrued annual leave if you give your employee 14 days notice. If your employee refuses to take annual leave on less than 14 days notice you cannot force them to. In any other case, wages are normally payable if the employee is ready and willing to perform work, even if the workplace is closed. What is vital is that you start talking to your employees now and communicating with them about what will happen.
There is a possibility that the Government may amend legislation to allow you to give less than 14 days notice in these circumstances, however at the moment this is not the case.
Will insurance cover me for my loss of income and for my staff expenses?
That is only a question that your insurer can answer. It will depend on the type of business continuity insurance you may, or may not, have. It would be best that you find out the answers now so that you can plan your responses accordingly.
What if staff refuse to come to work?
If you have an employee who refuses to come to work because they are concerned about Swine Flu you need to clarify with them whether they are refusing under the Health and Safety legislation because they believe the workplace is unsafe. If so you need to investigate that concern to determine whether that concern is reasonable. If it is unreasonable then your employee is absent without authority and you may need to consider disciplinary action.
Community response
With the World Health Organisation having declared a pandemic you will see in the community increasing signs of awareness and containment procedures. Hospitals have hand sanitizing facilities for use on entering and exiting. This will become increasingly commonplace in public facilities such as libraries, and other gathering places. Public gatherings may be cancelled and travel between cities may become restricted.
Signs, symptoms and precautions
Every year about 350 to 400 people die from complications related to seasonal influenza. We could expect that this may increase if we have more cases of influenza (seasonal and non-seasonal i.e. swine flu). Although the severity of Swine Flu is no worse than normal strains of flu the difference is the lack of immunity within the general population and the higher level of contagiousness.
Signs and symptoms of influenza include fever, cough, sore throat, stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Some people also experience diarrhoea and vomiting.
Hand hygiene is still the single most effective measure in protecting yourself. Wash your hands with soap and water and dry them thoroughly.
Alcohol-based cleaners are also effective. Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth as germs spread this way.
Practise good cough and sneeze etiquette. This means covering your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze, and disposing of the tissue in a lined rubbish bin with a lid or plastic bag.
Sick people should stay home until they are well, rather than going to school or work. Try to avoid contact with sick people and reduce time spent in crowded settings. If you become sick, stay home for seven days after your symptoms begin or until you have been symptom-free for 24 hours, whichever is longer. This is to keep you from infecting others. You should seek medical advice if necessary (by phone in the first instance) if your condition worsens. This is particularly important for people with underlying medical conditions who are at greater risk of developing complications from influenza.