Pandemic Communications Planning

Over the past several years, Room 40 has had the benefit of developing a number of pandemic flu communications strategies for public and private sector organizations. While we're not yet at the pandemic stage with the current outbreak of swine flu, it's worth keeping in mind one of the important tools organizations will have should this outbreak turn into a pandemic - social distancing.

Social distancing is a behavioural change that should occur during a pandemic to limit the spread of the virus. The key strategies to consider when integrating social distancing include:

• Communicate information on social distancing to all employees and suppliers.
• Educate customers/clients about social distancing and that staff are using this tool to keep them safe and limit the spread of the virus.
• Avoid shaking hands or other direct personal contact.
• Avoid significant overlap at shift change times to minimize groups of people.
• Use telephone, video conferencing, e-mail or the internet to conduct as much business as possible.
• Allow people to work from home or telecommute.
• Allow staff to arrive early or late.
• Avoid unnecessary travel.
• Avoid gatherings in common spaces in offices – including lunch rooms, photocopy rooms, mail rooms, etc.
• When meetings are necessary, have the meeting in a larger room were people can sit with more space between them.
• Encourage staff to avoid social gatherings outside of work where they might come into contact with infectious people.

Implementing successful social distancing strategies bring sizable communications challenges for organizations, but it's a critical tool in the fight against an influenza pandemic.

Source: Ontario Ministry of Health