Preparing your business
If society is to continue its normal functioning, essential services such as water supply and sanitation, electricity, fuel, telecommunications, banking, food supply and health care will need to continue to operate.
For those businesses not providing essential services, you should consider if you might need to operate at a reduced level, or even close down temporarily, and also how you might resume your normal business activities.
The most important thing businesses can do to prepare for a pandemic is have a business continuity plan in place. This will be different from the kind of business continuity plan needed for other emergencies. It will need to place more emphasis on continuity in the event of high absenteeism and interruptions to the supply of goods and services, which could result from the restriction of movement of people into and within Australia. Absenteeism could be as high as 30 to 50 per cent at the peak of a pandemic. For some businesses, this level of absenteeism would be devastating - particularly in the essential service sector.
Key issues businesses should consider when developing a continuity plan include:
- identifying essential business activities (and the core people and skills to keep them running), and ensuring that these are backed up with alternative arrangements, where possible
- identifying the infrastructure and resources required for the organisation to continue operating at the minimum acceptable level
- developing mitigation strategies for business disruptions, including possible shortages of supplies, and developing contingency plans for continued operation
- ensuring that relevant employees, customers and suppliers are aware of the contingency arrangements, and that the arrangements will work
- minimising illness in workers and including having infection control guidance as part of the plan.
If you run a business, you might want to take proactive measures to help stop the spread of infection by providing tissues and 'no-touch' bins, facilities for washing hands with soap and water or cleaning hands with alcohol-based products for your employees and clients, and posting up signs to remind people about good hygiene practices.
Posters and information brochures can be downloaded from this website.
Business Continuity Guide and Small Business Kit
The Australian Government Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research has developed a comprehensive
Business Continuity Guide and Small Business Kit (external link) to help Australian businesses consider what impact a human influenza pandemic might have on their businesses, and to help businesses take appropriate actions to prepare themselves as best they can.
Pandemic Planning in the Workplace (PDF) (external link) - developed by the Commonwealth, state, and territory governments and the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) will also assist in preparing your business for a pandemic.
This information is current for 03 September, 2010
This information was issued on 05 December, 2008
