The National Defense University (Wikipedia) has released a report for how organizations should respond in the case of a (flu) pandemic outbreak. In this report, under the section of “Making the Workplace Safe”, employee telecommuting is given as one of the things that an organization should prepare for in the case where large numbers of workers are unable to make it in (page vi).

The report also compares preparation for a flu pandemic to the preparation for the “Y2K Bug” that swept through the IT world a decade ago (page 13). Although much of the panic over Y2K was not really necessary, the investments that companies made to fix their computer systems also gave other benefits, as other upgrades, enhancements and bugs were taken care of at the same time. The case could be the same if a company chooses to prepare its infrastructure for telecommuting now, with worries about a flu pandemic as part of the impetus. We all hope that this infrastructure will never have to be used for this purpose. However, a business setting up its infrastructure to allow for telecommuting may also yield some other unexpected positive returns:

Once a company has prepared its workforce for telecommuting, however, the potential for increased productivity is considerable. A 2001 survey from the International Telework association and Council noted that almost three-fourths of managers polled reported slightly or greatly increased productivity from their employees who were working at home. About one-fifth of managers felt that productivity stayed about the same, and only about six percent felt that productivity declined. The impetus for spending money to remove old code was preparation for Y2K. Similarly, the impetus for preparing the workforce for telecommuting may be pandemic preparedness. In the end, the chicken with bird flu may eventually be the source of a golden egg for your organization, as the pandemic expenditures may well prove as beneficial to organizational efficiency as the Y2K expenses.

Though this is not the normal sales-pitch for telecommuting that we are used to hearing, the argument does have some merits (and in the eventuality that there ever would be a flu pandemic, those companies prepared to support their employees while working remotely will have a very large advantage over their competitors who do not have any such infrastructure in place). (Via ThreatsWatch)

This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 by Yaakov Ellis and is filed under Articles, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: flu, infrastructure, it, pandemic, preparation, technology, telecommuting, y2k bug
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