Preparing Your Business for Flu Season

With autumn comes flu season, but this year's outbreak of swine flu, or 2009 H1N1, adds new urgency to preparations for combating spread of the diseases. To date, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 2009 H1N1 influenza virus "continues to be the dominant influenza virus in circulation in the world."

With the prospect for a harsher than normal flu season, business owners -- most especially retailers, who will have any number of people walk in and out of their stores -- have some very real concerns. These include how to mitigate the spread of the virus in the bookstore; how to keep their employees healthy; and how just the threat of a pandemic will affect business.

To help businesses prepare for flu season, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently issued Planning for 2009 H1N1 Influenza: A Preparedness Guide for Small Business [1].

In the guide's foreword, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano noted that small business owners play a vital role in protecting employees' health and safety, as well as in limiting the impact on the economy and society during an influenza pandemic. She stressed, "If prepared, small businesses can keep their doors open and our nation's economic health and security resilient. The most important thing you can do to prepare your business is to have a written plan."

Among the key elements of a well-developed plan are identifying a workplace coordinator who will be responsible for dealing with 2009 H1N1 flu issues and their impact at the workplace; identifying essential employees, essential business functions, and other critical inputs; and establishing an emergency communications plan.

To protect the health of employees, the department recommends:

• Developing policies that encourage ill workers to stay at home;
• Providing education and training materials;
• Encouraging employees to get a seasonal flu vaccine if it is appropriate, according to CDC recommendations [2];
• Encouraging employees to get the 2009 H1N1 vaccine if they are in a priority group according to CDC recommendations; and
• Providing workers with up-to-date information on influenza risk factors.

For individuals, the department encourages people to stay home if they are sick, to wash hands frequently, and to cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue or an upper sleeve, among other suggestions.

Rhett Asher, the National Retail Federation's vice president of loss prevention, noted in the NRF BIG Blog [3] that last year's swine flu outbreak has given the country time to prepare and to provide resources on how to best deal with flu season this year. (Look for a list of resources at the conclusion of this article.)

Asher wrote, "None of us know who the flu will affect or how bad it will become, so we take every threat very seriously. Since any virus has the potential to become more serious than others before [it], this is nothing to push on the back burner. With that said, if past historical disasters and challenges are any indication of future behavior, I am not too worried."

Among the "tactical steps" a retailer can take to prevent the spread of flu and illness in the store, Asher recommends that retailers:

• Encourage employees to get vaccinated, either on their own or through a company-sponsored program
• Remind employees to wash their hands many times through the day;
• Keep hand sanitizers near the cash registers, in the break room and bathrooms, and even consider handing out pocket-sized hand sanitizer bottles for associates to sanitize their hands throughout the day; and
• When you have a plan in place, communicate it to employees at all levels so they know what they should do if they feel sick or they are running a fever.

The Homeland Security department reports that the symptoms of seasonal and 2009 H1N1 flu virus include fever and chills, and cough and sore throat. In addition, symptoms of flu can include a runny nose, body aches, headache, tiredness, diarrhea, or vomiting.

Here is a list of resources that booksellers can use to help prepare their business for flu season:

• Flu.gov [4]
• Flu.gov Business Planning [5]
• NRF Big Blog [3]
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Seasonal Influenza [6]

--David Grogan [7]