@Risk

Over the weekend, it was anticipation of a strike by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) employees that had me thinking about the human capital of supply chains.

Now, the spotlight is shining on that aspect of risk management again as yesterday, no less than three Cabinet secretaries from the Obama administration took the stage to urge employers to prepare for a widespread swine flu outbreak.

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano held a joint news conference to release new federal guidelines designed to help businesses prepare for and respond to the upcoming flu season.

For example, federal officials are advising that employers:

• cross-train workers so that vital functions are covered

• encourage employees with fu-like symptoms to stay home

• provide work-at-home options for high-risk employees

• offer the seasonal flu vaccine

• aggressively clean work areas

• consider curtailing face-to-face meetings, and

• limit company travel.

Additional resources for both employers and employees are available at http://www. flu.gov and http://osha.gov/dsg/topics/pandemicflu/index.html.

Of course, no one knows just how widespread the problems will be.

“In some areas, there may be a lot of flu; in other areas, very little,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said.

And so, the impact of a global flu pandemic on business remains relatively unclear.

The limited spread of H1N1 in early 2009 resulted in nothing more than a manageable ripple on supply chains.  But even so, a new study by Aon revealed that companies are beginning to consider swine flu a major concern. It looks like the possibility of a much broader problem this fall now requires a unique level of comprehensive supply chain risk planning specific to this one event.