On January 29, the Financial Post reported on Canadian retailers and other businesses who have started eyeing contingency plans in case of a coronavirus outbreak.
Professors Ali Asgary and Jack Rozdilsky, from the Disaster and Emergency Management program, noted that there are many business hubs in Toronto and these companies will face difficulties controlling fluxes in the market.
鈥淏usiness continuity is not regulated, so unless a national emergency was declared, some of these regulatory measures would be difficult,鈥 Asgary said.
Prof. Asgary went on to tell the Post that the crisis is especially challenging for smaller businesses that might not even have a business continuity plan in place. 鈥淭hey can鈥檛 do as much to control the situation,鈥 Asgary said. 鈥淏ut they can minimize the impact to themselves.鈥
Prof. Rozdilsky told the Post that continuity plans are common for large businesses. 鈥淚n the same way a city or region would have an emergency manager who would be the person who would deal with snowstorms or floods, businesses have people who function in similar roles,鈥 he said.
With only three presumptive cases in Canada right now it wouldn鈥檛 be the time to implement parts of the continuity plan yet, but Prof. Rozdilsky said 鈥渃ompanies should start thinking about how they can temporarily change their business structure if the virus were to spread.鈥
鈥淭hink about how you can spread people apart. In other words, how can people be allowed to do their job more remotely? What is the minimum staffing that you need to have physically on the worksite?鈥 he said.
He also recommended looking into policies around sick leave and sick days. 鈥淲hen employees are sick, if there鈥檚 a policy in place that discourages workers from staying at home when they鈥檙e sick because they鈥檙e worried about job security or pay, they would feel compelled to come to work because they would be penalized by management policies in place,鈥 according to Rozdilsky.
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