The nervousness around H1N1 has pretty much permeated every aspect of our lives. Remember a year or two ago, the hysteria around hand sanitizers and alcohol poisoning? Gone; in its place, we have dispensers in buildings everywhere. That’s the power of the fear of H1N1.
Another place is in schooling. Not too long ago, if your kid got sick, school policy was “keep them home if they have a fever or are vomiting.” Sanely, this migrated to “keep them home for 24 hours after a fever.” Now, however, it is “48 hours fever-free with no medications.” Some schools/daycares have added “and no symptoms either,” which is moderately impractical for the kids who get a three-week long lingering cough.
This affects us in the workplace. If an employee has a small child and they don’t have a stay-at-home caregiver, expect that they’re going to miss more time than in prior years; and that the employee actually will be stressed about this (heck, anyone trapped at home with a no-longer-sick child on a school-day is going to end up pretty stressed). Also, you may want to suggest that employees with sick children stay at home even if they aren’t the primary caregiver, just to minimize workplace infections.
Key to this is a sane telework plan. Like most things, this comes down to People, Process, and Technology.
People: Do the employee and manager have a good rapport, such that working remotely does not lead to communications failures? Can the employee work without direct management? Can the employee balance the needs of daytime home-life with work?
Process: Do you have understood ways for the employee’s status to be communicated? Do other employees know how to reach them? How many hours do you expect when an employee is “working from home”?
Technology: What telework capabilities do you have? (VOIP phones in the home? VTC setups?) What about remote collaboration? (A wiki, IM, ticketing system or just email?) Do your employees have enough bandwidth at home to telework? Do you have enough in your office to support them?
It’s going to happen to you — you just need a little prep. And most of that prep? You can typeset it to hand to your auditors; it’s a big piece of your DRP.