Countering the economic effects of bird flu through teleworking

As officials warn the public about potential health consequences of pandemics, attention is shifting towards their impact on organisations. This paper suggests ways in which continuity planners can systematically deal with the potential economic consequences of such an outbreak. Thus far, much attention has focused on the potential health consequences of a pandemic outbreak, but limited attention has been paid to operational impacts. As a first-level response, continuity planners are modifying existing plans by benchmarking their approaches to a set of known events that have occurred in the past. One of the limitations of this strategy is that the nature of a pandemic is very different from the core characteristics of disruptive phenomena such as terrorism or events of severe weather. For this reason, planners will be called upon to adopt a revised planning framework. This will also be likely to move telework to the forefront of continuity planning. Indeed, integrating telework into the body of business continuity planning might be one of the most significant planning precedents established during the coming months, not just in the way it manages telework, but also as it institutionalises telework as standard operating procedure within the workplace.