MHA in working with clients, speaking with colleagues and researching trends, see a number of common themes and issues impacting how companies are addressing the pandemic:
- Knowing when to activate their pandemic plan (e.g., WHO levels) has caused major confusion after the last scare.
- Companies lack background data on how staff and communities may react to the pandemic based on lack of past history.
- Are we ready for our social structure to break down like it did in New Orleans?
- Companies may or may not know what is critical to their business as it has never been identified or updated.
- Levels of proactive communication to employees varies greatly across organizations.
- Belief that the data network can truly support the number of remote users for extended periods; many networks cannot support large groups of remote users for any period of time.
- Length of time remote users can really work from home and maintain critical operations
- Lack of ability to truly remote operate data centers and other critical facility based components
- A lack of a true assessment of critical suppliers and their pandemic capabilities
- Downsizing due to the economy will have a critical impact to the ability to recover in a number of organizations due to the lack of staff.
- Ability to transfer voice communications to home when employees must work remotely.
- Identifying criteria that can be used to issue social distancing controls, close offices, etc.
- Exercising of people, plans and processes varies greatly across organizations.
- Lack of documented HR policies to address extended absences; many do not want a documented policy in fear of lawsuits.
- Preparing staff for the pandemic varies greatly.