The Supplemental Kick

Martin Warren, head of employment law at Eversheds, an international law firm, has advised businesses in the UK to be prepared with contingency plans to address the swine flu outbreak. The call comes in the wake of research results on the situation of swine flu contingency plan in the UK, published by the law firm recently.

Eversheds conducted a survey of over 400 businesses across the country and found that nearly one fifth of the businesses felt they would have to shut down completely or partially due to employee absenteeism, while nearly half of the businesses expected a decline in revenues. It is interesting to note that despite such widespread concern and with nearly 75% of businesses being affected by the pandemic, almost 41% do not have any contingency plan to fight back the pandemic.

Warren said it is important for all businesses, especially the smaller ones, to have a contingency plan formulated. He suggested the plan could include the reorganization of staff, redistribution of information held by important personnel, isolation of contaminated areas and the arrangement of additional workforce to help deal with employee absenteeism. He said all organizations must be ready with an action plan before the virus struck them.

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Almost 86% of the affected businesses have now deployed strict sanitation measures in their offices, while 75% have disseminated information regarding the disease. Also, 85% of the businesses have modified their HR rules to include the spread of key information, flexible working schedules from home and at the office, while also ensuring that their sick employees rest at home.