Swine Flu and Absenteeism
17 July 2009
The latest figures out today on the number of reported swine flu is now over 55,000 which has been since the outbreak started at the end of April this year. Most of the majority of cases reported so far in the UK have been mild, but each day the situation changes. Today there are 652 cases that have involved hospitalisation, and 29 people have died most of who had serious underlying health issues associated with swine flu.
As Swine Flu is now becoming virulent the NHS are saying that cases are now doubling every week and, on this trend, we could see over 100,000 cases per day by the end of August.
Already the swine flu has become a pandemic and currently it is estimated that staff absenteeism caused by flu-like symptoms is running at 66% higher than average for this time of year. With the expected increase in cases due as autumn approaches this is going to lead to higher than average increases in absenteeism.
As a business your employees are going to believe that they have swine flu as opposed to the normal common cold or other type of flu because of the media coverage.
We advise that as best practice after the summer holidays you issue a short, clear notice about this and to help you we have put together documents that you can download from our website that includes details of the relevant websites and the swine flu hotline.
· Swine Flu Information and Guidelines
· Template notice to issue to your employees
Good absence management in your return to work interviews should include asking what they did to see if any of the guidelines in the document has been followed and this will help ensure that those employees who saw this as an opportunity to feign having swine flu could be caught out.
Also, as good business practice, if the swine flu is genuine then you should be a bit more sensitive to your employees needs during times when they may have to care for family members or even, sadly bereavement.
However, like or hate it, this epidemic is going to affect your business in some way or other. You should be identifying what to do should you have a higher absence rate than normal and what you can do with reduced staff and potentially the loss of key staff. This will also affect your suppliers and customers and therefore you should identify any potential risks and have some sort of disaster planning in place to cope with this to minimise the impact so that your business can remain operational.
The Cabinet Office have issued a useful checklist for this that you can download, Pandemic Influenza Checklist For Businesses