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Article : Changing Times, Changing Minds

Through my travels, I see the way Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) has permanently changed how we interact with people, how we view public places such as the airport and how vulnerable our lives really are. No longer will you shake the hand of a stranger or go to a public place without thinking about who might be harboring this virus.

This is how SARS has impacted us personally, but what does it mean from a business perspective? Did we ever think that our business continuity planning would have to take into account quarantining our staff, vendors and/or sub-contractors? The industry has changed significantly and placed a tremendous amount of emphasis on crisis management. SARS represents just another component that impacts crisis management planning. We are in a world of "people continuity" more so than "business continuity".

Whether you live and work in a SARS affected area or not, it is prudent in today's world to include planning for similar health emergencies in your crisis management efforts. Some questions that you may want to address include learning:

  • How prepared are you if a health issue, including quarantine or contagion, affects your organization?

  • How do you deal with the initial days of such a health concern?

  • What are the long-term effects of a new, unknown illness?

As with any "new" illness, each discovery by the medical industry, such as details of transmission methods, incubation periods and possible treatments, will necessitate changes to your crisis management plan. For instance, it was initially thought the incubation period of SARS was 10 days. When it was extended to 14 days, quarantine periods also needed to be extended.

Each of these new discoveries will have an impact on how deep you go into your plan.

Steps in planning for preparedness:

  1. The first place to start is your client and organization contact information. How current is it? When was it last reviewed and updated?

  2. Have you performed a Critical Resource Analysis to identify who is critical short-term in the organization? Have you produced a succession plan for those individuals? Keep in mind that this is good practice regardless of SARS or a similar illness. There will always be some human factor that will impact your key employees: like this disease, fear or the inability to travel.

  3. Have you performed a technology review so you can evaluate supporting remote users? This will come in handy if some of your key players are quarantined.

  4. What avoidance techniques has your organization implemented? What steps can a company take to avoid high-risk situations? Are the latest medical updates being distributed to all employees?

Initial days of identifying an employee infected with an illness:

  1. Establish a procedure to contact all individuals that have been in contact with this person.

  2. What disinfectant program can be implemented?

  3. How do you report this to the government?

  4. Establish a procedure to quickly notify senior management.

Dealing with the long-term effects of a contagious illness:

  1. Your business continuity, crisis management and disaster recovery plans need to be updated to reflect this type of scenario; and more importantly, address how you deal with affected employees in the long-term.

  2. An ongoing monitoring procedure needs to be put in place for the remaining employees.

  3. How has your organization been exposed from a shareholder's perspective? Do you need to address your investors and market analysts? How do you communicate your status on a regular basis without sounding overly concerned?

SARS has become another factor that highlights how critical it is to keep plans current, to remember the people element of your plan and to ensure you test all possible modules of your plan. The preparedness of your plan is key to what helps you deal with the crisis. If you constantly exercise and test your plan, once you get passed the emotional element of the disaster, your execution will be routine.


About Agility Recovery:
Company LogoAs a client/server and disaster recovery consulting firm, Agility Recovery Solutions has learned there is no single way to protect all businesses from disaster. There are only individual ways to protect individual businesses. Their Disaster Recovery solution is modular and flexible. They provide a wide range of business continuity planning solutions and service options.
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Published: Friday, August 8, 2003

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