What H1N1 Taught Me About Contingency Planning
I have not had the H1N1 flu. I hope to keep it that way. However, this flu is starting to really affect me because of the number of people who are not so lucky.
As an example, in just the last week:
- I attended two important meetings where key participants were missing in action.
- Three training events and webinars were canceled.
- A professional associate stayed home with his son for several days.
Two days ago we had to scramble to replace the speaker for one of our own training events. That really brought this home.
Scramble really describes the activities. There were many emails sent looking for a replacement, and the reply often was “I’m already scheduled for another training, meeting, travel…” Fortunately, a replacement was found (who did a great job) and I am grateful for the size and quality of the network of consultants in the Twin Cities. But it’s clear that none of us have any slack in our schedules anymore. All the reductions in staff and hours in the past year have taken their toll, removing any elbow room (if there ever was any to start with).
Contingency Planning
The whole process got me thinking about contingency planning. This is going to happen again and again this year and we all need to be prepared. We have a Disaster Recovery Plan, but it wasn’t developed to address this situation. We need to have a plan for deciding when to cancel a meeting or training, when to use a backup plan, and who to call on for reinforcements. We might need to look around for some elbow room again by scaling back a little on commitments for the next few months.
How are you adjusting to more and more absences caused by this flu? Do you have a clear agreement on priorities and steps to take when you have multiple staff members all sick at once? The Nonprofit Risk Management Center has a number of useful resources and tools, including a list of contingency planning resources and a tutorial on business continuity planning.
As with any planning process, agreeing on the priorities and responsibilities is step one. We’re starting today.
Update: Here is an H1N1 Flu Preparedness Toolkit from the National Council of Nonprofits.