CONTACT INFO
Flu Season & H1N1
are you prepared?
are you prepared?
TA Staffing Corporate Headquarters 1100 Kermit Drive Suite 105 Nashville, Tennessee 37217 (615) 366-1100
Prevention: educating employees
Businesses of all sizes and types need to take time to prepare for flu season, particularly this year with the threat of the H1N1 virus. Your current sick-leave regulations may need to be altered and employers must prepare for the worst.
The top priority should be to prevent the spread of flu viruses by educating employees and providing prevention tools. Prepare employees by giving them a fact sheet outlining the symptoms of seasonal flu and the H1N1 virus. Symptoms of flu are fever or chills accompanied by a cough or sore throat, other symptoms include running nose, body aches, headache, tiredness, diarrhea or vomiting. Employees need to understand that they should stay home when experiencing these symptoms and know how to care for themselves or an ill family member.
Also, provide a list of nearby places to get the flu shot; many pharmacies now have clinics that offer the shot for a small fee. Encourage employees to get the shot and if possible help pay for shots. Remind everyone the importance of covering their mouth when coughing or sneezing and reinforce proper hand washing techniques. Stock the office with tissues, hand soap and alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Make sure desk surfaces and items such as keyboards and telephones are cleaned regularly, especially when shared.
Planning: handling absences
The flu and the H1N1 virus are predicted to be widespread and cause increased absences in the workplace. Employers and HR managers need to determine a plan for handling absences and explain all policies to employees.
Review your current sick-leave policies and consider revising them for the fall/winter in order to be more flexible and keep them consistent with public health recommendations. In addition, develop an ADA-compliant pandemic preparedness plan by using EEOC's pre-pandemic employee survey for the H1N1 flu virus. The survey can be found here: http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/h1n1_flu.html.
Under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance, it is recommended that employees with flu-like illness stay home until at least 24 hours after they no longer have a fever (100 degrees Fahrenheit or higher) or signs of a fever, without the use of fever-reducing medication. Also consider that employees might miss work because they have to care for a sick family member or have to stay home with their children due to school dismissals or closings.
Health officials want businesses to advise sick employees to stay home in order to prevent the spread of viruses. "Regardless of the size of the business or the function or services that you provide, all employers should plan now to allow and encourage sick workers to stay home without fear of losing their jobs," the CDC said in guidelines recently issued to employers nationwide. It is essential that employees are aware of this prior to becoming sick and understand how it will affect workplace and leave flexibilities, pay and benefits.
The plan not only needs to outline when employees should stay home and what happens with pay and benefits but it also needs to address how business will continue despite absences.
Make sure to address productivity, whether employees are going to be able to work from home or if you need to have temporary staffing in place. Consider cross-training employees so operations can continue if there are absences. If feasible, establish ways employees will be able to work from home. Use temporary replacements for positions that cannot be replaced internally or cannot be done from home.
Flu season and another H1N1 outbreak is predicted to have serious consequences. Don't let your business get behind due to absences. Educate employees and have a plan established now. Visit http://www.flu.gov/ and http://www.cdc.gov/flu/ for the latest updates and more recommendations.
September 2009
