An HR guide to cope with Coronavirus outbreak in business

Enterprise Singapore has released a guide on business continuity planning (BCP) for businesspeople, employers, human resources (HR) managers, and operational leaders to deal with the 2019-20 nCoV outbreak in China, and Asia in general.

   This guide helps companies to minimize health risk to employees, the risk of premises becoming a node of transmission, to ensure that plans are in place for employees be on leave of absence, quarantined, or infected, and ensure alternative arrangements with suppliers and customers so that business operations can continue.

   The novel coronavirus (nCoV) belongs to a family of viruses known as the Coronaviruses, which can cause illnesses ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases, such as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).

   The coronavirus infections started in China but confirmed infections have also been reported in Singapore and other parts of the world. The symptoms are like that of regular pneumonia. Typical symptoms include fever, runny nose, sore throat, cough, and shortness of breath.

   So, from an HR perspective, a business continuity manager should be appointed to ensure that employees are familiar with the business continuity plans and comply with them during this period. Practitioners must develop a plan for the continuity of leadership in the event of absence of key decision makers and executives. They must consider flexible work arrangements for the high-risk employees, as well as employees who need to stay at home due to other reasons relating to the novel coronavirus.

   Furthermore, a review of health insurance policies for workers, and employee management policies such as leave of absence, absenteeism, sick leave, overseas travel, workplace closure and recall of non-critical employees and their families from affected countries, is important. Businesspeople must adhere to all travel and health advisories issued by government agencies and obtain a health and travel declaration from employees who have travelled to China recently, or who have any upcoming plans to travel to China during the virus outbreak.

   Additionally, it is critical to educate employees on infection control and good personal hygiene, develop a robust employee sickness surveillance process to identify and manage unwell employees, and identify critical business functions (prioritized activities) and essential employees.

   Finally, there are examples of health screening form for employees and visitors, see in photo, that can be very useful. But this process requires trust and enhanced consciousness.