09/ 20/ 2006
by Emily McMackin
Donna Childs, owner of Manhattan-based Childs Capital, knows what it's like to experience the unthinkable. When terrorists struck the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, her investment firm, which sat only four blocks away, was nearly destroyed. Though it took Childs a week to reach her Wall Street office and months to get her business back to normal, having a disaster plan in place kept her company afloat, while more than half of the small businesses around it folded.
"We had all of our critical business data online for employees so they could work from wherever they happened to be," Childs says.
Now with health experts warning that the widely publicized bird flu could cause a pandemic that could take millions of lives, cost the economy billions and cripple businesses and transportation systems, Childs isn't taking any chances. "We're preparing for this in the same way we have prepared for everything else, including natural disasters and terrorist attacks," she says.
Few businesses are taking the bird-flu pandemic threat seriously, but ignoring it is irresponsible considering other "unbelievable" disasters (such as Hurricane Katrina and the Washington, D.C., floods) that have caught communities by surprise, says Eli Dabich of Global Risk Advisors, a Redwood City, Calif.-based independent risk-management consulting firm.
"Everybody always thinks that the worst will never happen," Dabich says, "but at the end of the day, you never know."
Encourage employees to stay home if they show flu symptoms, but also try to provide technology to support telecommuting. Minimize germs at the office by providing flu shots, stocking desks with disinfectant gel or wipes, using water bottles instead of glasses in meetings, implementing a no-handshaking policy and keeping the refrigerator clean and the garbage emptied. And don't forget to ask clients, suppliers and vendors about their pandemic plans, Dabich says.
Childs has backups in case a pandemic puts her suppliers out of commission, and she keeps a disaster plan with a phone tree on employees' laptops. She also makes it easier for staff to work remotely by having a phone system that allow calls to the office to be transferred to other landlines. Her Sept. 11 experience inspired other precautions as well.
"We have cross-trained everyone on key functions, so if someone can't make it to the office, someone else can do the job," she says. "And we keep cash in locations that we don't advertise, so we can get our hands on it in an emergency."
Nothing to Sneeze At
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has created a checklist for businesses to plan for the impact of a pandemic. To download the list, go to "Business Planning" at www.pandemicflu.gov.
