Could You be Leaving Your Employees and Your Business at Risk this Flu Season?

flupreventionEach year, the spread of influenza costs U.S. employers nearly $10 billion in healthcare and lost productivity, and last year’s influenza pandemic – the first in more than 40 years – caused huge concern for businesses and employees on a global scale. The month of October marks the beginning of the ever-dreaded flu season, and this year, it may be more important than ever to take steps to help prevent a flu outbreak in your workplace.

With heavier workloads and an uncertain economy where fears of job loss loom, employees are more hesitant to miss work when they’re sick. When sick employees come to work with their germs in tow instead of staying at home to recuperate, this is called presenteeism. It’s a growing problem in the workplace that costs employers more than $2,000 per employee every year.

The threat of presenteeism, coupled with weakened immune systems caused by high stress levels, could help increase the spread of flu this year. Influenza can have a big impact on your business, your employees, and your bottom line. And for small businesses, an outbreak could even shut down the entire company. Rigid leave policies and insufficient communication on how to prevent the spread of germs can increase the risk of an outbreak in your office.

It’s important to ensure you’re not leaving your employees and your company vulnerable to the spread of flu viruses like H1N1. So, take steps now to protect your staff this flu season with these tips.

Take Preventative Measures
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the “first and most important step of flu prevention” is getting the flu vaccine. The 2010-2011 vaccine protects against three different virus strains that are expected to cause the most illness this season. So, encourage every employee to get vaccinated and, if possible, provide free or subsidized flu shots to your staff on-site.

Another measure to help prevent the spread of viruses in the workplace is continual communication. Make sure your team members are aware of your sick leave policies and who to contact if an employee is absent because of an illness. Also, talk about ways to cover workloads for employees who are out of the office. Educate your staff on the CDC’s recommended ways to protect against the virus, including covering your nose and mouth when you cough, washing hands often, and avoiding touching your eyes, nose, and mouth as much as possible.

Be sure to also stock up on items like hand sanitizer, Kleenex, and disinfectant wipes and sprays for your employees to use. You may even talk about improving the cleaning crew’s procedures to make sure phones, door handles, faucets and other surfaces are thoroughly scrubbed down at night to help kill germs.

Combat Presenteeism
To help deter presenteeism and the spread of germs in your office, encourage sick employees to stay home. Consider implementing a flexible-leave policy that allows contagious workers or employees with sick children to work from home. If employees experience flu-like symptoms, the CDC recommends they stay home for at least 24 hours after the fever subsides without the use of fever-reducing medicines. To help cover for absent employees, start cross training employees now or contact a staffing company like your local Express Employment Professionals office to quickly find temporary workers to fill positions until staff members can return to work.

Flu viruses are serious illnesses that can threaten your team’s health and your business’ daily operations and productivity. This season, make sure you and your team are ready to fight illness and the spread of influenza by taking preventative measures and combating presenteeism at work.

For more information about how you can protect your staff this flu season, check out these additional resources:

Think your flu I.Q. is high? Take the CDC’s test to see.

One Response to Could You be Leaving Your Employees and Your Business at Risk this Flu Season?

  1. Antone Rochow October 5, 2010 at 12:46 pm #

    Happy to see this, I am happy to find this well Post

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