By James Green
There is a good chance you have probably seen or heard something about the Zika virus: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported travel-associated cases of the Zika virus in more than 20 U.S. states. Even so, is it really something with which you as a credit union need to be concerned?
In today’s global environment, having a high traffic, public-facing business like a credit union branch can bring global problems to your door quickly. So whether it is Zika or the next virus, having a pandemic response plan in place that benefits your credit union and its members is crucial.
More Than Just Pandemics
Resistance to creating a pandemic response plan often comes from the feeling that there is a small chance the plan will ever need to be enacted. In reality, a strong response plan can be utilized every year. The National Institutes of Health reports reports that nearly 111 million workdays are lost each year due to the flu alone, costing businesses roughly $7 billion in lost productivity.
The first step in most pandemic plans is creating communications to employees about how a particular virus is spread. If you already have this strategy in place as part of your pandemic plan, why not use it to help your employees cut down on contracting and spreading the common cold each winter? The CDC even has flyers that businesses can print for free and put in bathrooms or other high traffic areas to encourage employee awareness. Recouping part of this lost productivity provides a high return to your credit union with very little investment.
Containing the Situation
The World Health Organization (WHO) and CDC use a series of stages to define the lifecycle of a pandemic outbreak. Most organizations with pandemic response plans currently mirror these stages, outlining escalating steps as the outbreak worsens:
- Awareness posters and emails
- Hand sanitizer stations placed throughout the facility
- Increased frequency of cleaning bathrooms, break rooms and common areas
- Requiring employees who exhibit signs of the virus to be sent home and not allowed to return to work until receiving proof from a medical professional that they are healthy
- Restricting access by visitors and guests to your property
The Other Challenge
While these steps are important, they all focus on preventing the spread of the virus inside your organization. The challenge for most businesses – credit unions included – is that employees may start to get sick as they are out and about in the community. Based on the steps outlined above, these employees would not be allowed back in the office. This is the key area that most pandemic plans lack: dealing with increasing absenteeism.
As a virus makes its way through the community, absenteeism rates are likely to rise. At some point, you will hit a number that puts your ability to sustain normal business operations in jeopardy, resulting in a business continuity crisis.
To prevent this, you should first and foremost make sure your pandemic response plan and business continuity plan work hand-in-hand. As the WHO or CDC determines an outbreak is increasing in severity, your pandemic response plan should have a set, pre-defined trigger that invokes your business continuity plan. What steps does your business continuity plan outline in case of a disaster? Instruct employees to work from home, move back office processes to other out-of-area offices, and have vendors and partners pick up non-member facing work temporarily. Implement all of the things you would do if you were to declare a disaster early on in response to a pandemic incident.
Being proactive will help ensure that you are able to contain the situation as just a pandemic, and not a business continuity crisis.
James Green leads the business continuity program at PSCU. For info: www.pscu.com.