Businesses might want to rethink sick leave policy

By Nicole Lucht

Friday, May 8, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Keeping the workforce healthy during an influenza outbreak can be a challenge.

It could be as simple as requiring employees with flulike symptoms to stay home for four days, or placing hand sanitizers and tissues around the office, or even encouraging telecommuting and teleconferencing.

There are more involved strategies businesses can use to combat a potential flu pandemic from hitting the workplace.

Swine flu — H1N1 influenza virus — originated in pigs, but officials have not determined how the virus transferred to humans. The virus circulating in humans has similar traits to the flu virus common to pigs, but also has some inherent differences.

The swine flu made its first known appearance April 11 in Mexico. Since then, it has spread to the United States, South America, Europe and Asia.

Earlier this week, the World Health Organization was one step away from assigning pandemic status to the flu strain, a measure of a disease’s or virus’ threat to public health.

There have been three confirmed cases in Nevada, two of which are in Las Vegas as of May 5, according to the Southern Nevada Health District. As of May 5, 38 states reported 403 cases of the flu with neighbors Arizona reporting 17 cases and California reporting 49, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Utah reported one case.

At a southwest valley CVS pharmacy, a clerk said the store had already sold out of face masks. On the checkout counter, antibiotic products were set up for easy purchase.

At a Sam’s Club, cashiers had large bottles of hand sanitizers set up next to their registers. At the Spice Market Buffet at Planet Hollywood, four diners were spotted donning face masks.

Harmon Medical Center offered free face masks to the public.

Days after the spread of swine flu was reported, Fisher & Phillips, a national employment law firm with offices in Las Vegas, released a workplace pandemic strategy and checklist.

At the top of the list: Developing an emergency response plan and analyzing business activities, such as travel.

Other suggestions include reviewing safety policies and practices.

“More than ever, employers should strive to develop ‘best practices,’ which go beyond legal requirements,” the law firm said. “Immediate changes to prepare for a pandemic may include education and communication programs, installation of additional hand-washing stations, eliminating or rescheduling meetings or even spreading out employee workstations or other efforts to accomplish social distancing.”

The law firm also suggested revising attendance and leave policies.

“If there is a medical or biological crisis, employers may not want sick or infected employees reporting to work or they may not have the luxury of terminating employees who are absent, even for an extended period,” Fisher & Phillips said. “Employers will need to revise their policies to anticipate such crises and to provide practical solutions to these unique problems.”

The CDC and WHO haven’t released guidelines for employers keen on preventing the spread of the swine flu as of May 5.

The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce suggests that businesses rework their sick leave policy if there is a chance employees will come to work sick out of fear of losing their job or smaller paychecks.

“It doesn’t take a lot of employees to be sick with the flu to be a detriment (to the workplace), so if a business prepares for the flu, that can be helpful,” chamber spokeswoman Cara Roberts said. “One sick employee can really put your workforce at risk.”

Businesses, she said, may want to evaluate having an auxiliary policy to extend sick leave for workers who may not have any or who have used it up already.

“It may make some sense to add paid sick leave to make sure that sick employees stay home,” she said. “Every business needs to think about their own operations and what works best for them.”

Don’t forget the operational side of a business, and cross-training workers to step in for a sick colleague could help alleviate the strain of a crucial employee unexpectedly out of the office, Roberts said.

It’s not only the workforce that is preparing for the swine flu. Health care professionals are being trained to spot and care for a patient with swine flu, Southern Hills Hospital CEO Mike Johnson said.

“There’s a lot of activity” preparing for a looming pandemic, he said.

Hospitals are reviewing their internal policies and procedures relative to pandemiclike outbreaks.

“It’s really a function of knowing what to look for, educating our staff, reviewing our policies and procedures and making sure that we have the isolation equipment, such as gowns and masks, and making sure patients are in isolation,” he said.

The hospital is also trying to educate the public and has extra drugs available.

“We’re prepared in that respect,” he said.

“Obviously, what you do is prepare the most and then hope it doesn’t come to fruition,” Johnson said. “But if it does, then we want to make sure we’re ready.”