One million. That’s the number of people in Singapore expected to contract the H1N1 virus within the next two years.

At the time of writing, Singapore has confirmed 18 cases of people who have contracted the H1N1 virus, a small number compared to the 20,000 confirmed cases worldwide. Even though all but one person contracted the virus when travelling overseas, in the words of Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan, Singaporeans should brace themselves for a time when the virus spreads within the local community here.

In the last few years, with an office shortage and escalating office rentals, employers have resorted to placing co-workers in closer proximity with each other. We’ve done away with cubicles and spacious offices, choosing to place most employees in what we term as an “open office” concept.

Should an outbreak happen in Singapore, offices, just like every other place where large number of people congregate, are going to be the places where the pandemic problem will be exacerbated.

Companies have already started looking into preventing the spread of the H1N1, should it ever spread within the local community. Some of the steps include distributing thermometers, putting hand sanitizer dispensers in prominent places, updating the corporate website on countries that have H1N1 cases and cancelling non-emergency work trips overseas.

There are also organisations which are looking into more strategic measures such as updating or implementing new business continuity measures, and looking at how employees can work away from the office should there be a breakout in the workplace.

While the necessary precautions such as these are good, but I wonder if a deeper mentality shift is required to fight the H1N1 pandemic.

A recent survey conducted by Monster.com found 71% of 12,000 employees have said that they still attend work even when they’re sick. In addition, 38% say they are too busy at work to afford missing a day and another 33% say they went to work even when they were sick because they were afraid of losing their job.

I am confident that if a similar survey were to be conducted in Singapore – the results would not differ much. The idea that employees should come in to work even when they are genuinely sick is a mentality that permeates throughout various companies big and small. Whether it is because they do not want to be seen as a slacker by their bosses or whether they cannot afford to lose a day off work, you can definitely tell when your sickly workers are putting in the time when they are violently sneezing or coughing, or looking pale and ghostly and just staring into their computer screens absently.

When the H1N1 virus starts to spread within the local community, every indivdual who goes to work with flu-like symptoms poses a risk to their colleagues and the business alike. Because of how the H1N1 symptoms are not all that different from its influenza counterpart, the risk that the person could be a H1N1 carrier without even knowing is a serious cause for concern.

So what should we do about it? First of all, we need to take the threat of the H1N1 more seriously. We need to understand that the potential risks of having an employee with the H1N1 virus coming in to work, and this can only be eliminated if we take a greater consideration for our employee’s health.

But what about the work, you say? Barring certain circumstances, if the right infrastructure is put in place, productivity need not suffer if employees are able to work from distant locations.

And the right infrastructure and mindset would pay off in the long-term as well, as the H1N1 is not going to be the last pandemic we would encounter in our lifetimes. With crowded cities and genetic mutations, we won’t be seeing the last of a pandemic such as this.

But first, a mindset change needs to happen. And it needs to spread across the workplaces fast, because time is a-ticking.

Lisa Cheong

Editor

lisac@humanresourcesonline.net