Are you prepared?

Now would be a good time to stock up on N95 respirators, tamiflu, and…webcams.  Although the H1N1 pandemic may have abated for now, corporations, institutions, and governments worldwide have seen this event as a wakeup call and are assessingtheir level of preparedness for the next outbreak.

Preparing for employees to work from home is a necessary part of any business continuity plan.  The CDC’s business checkist includes establishing “policies for flexible worksite (e.g. telecommuting)” while Forbes, in an article entitled Virtually Flu-Free Meetings, says “With the specter of swine flu rising, companies have yet another reason to consider holding their meetings virtually rather than sending executives on planes.”  SANS Institute President Stephen Northcutt warns in a podcast that you don’t want to wait until the day of a disaster to be setting up your work-at-home plan.

We use VSee every day to coordinate among our far-flung workforce.  Our regular weekly staff meeting is all online anyway, so working from home would not be something that would require us to make any changes in our routine.