Reducing Impacts of the Flu on your Business

With the flu or influenza season fast approaching, many employers prepare by offering influenza vaccination en masse to their employees. Before delving further into the subject of influenza immunisation, let’s start with a brief run down on the difference between influenza or the ‘flu’ and the common cold. The common cold which is caused by viruses such as rhinovirus, usually cause symptoms like runny nose, sore throat, cough and sinus pain. The ‘flu’, on the other hand is caused by the influenza virus and causes a more severe illness with symptoms including high fever, body aches, chills, cough and headache. These symptoms can last for up to 1 week or more. Furthermore, influenza can also cause secondary complications which can include bacterial pneumonia, encephalitis (brain infection) or even myocarditis (inflammation of the heart). Such complications can result in hospitalisation or even death. 

Though there is no vaccination available for the common cold which generally manifests as a less severe illness and has lower and severe complication rates, there certainly is a vaccination for the ‘flu’ or influenza. Flu affects workplaces in 2 major ways:
1.    Through sick days where the employee can take up to 1 week or more of sick leave to recover from the flu. According to a NSW Business Chamber sponsored survey in 2012, the cost of losing an employee to flu is approximately $1200 (this is excluding any temp replacement costs).
2.    Through the employee turning up to work sick and ‘toughing it out’. Influenza is highly contagious and will spread throughout the office like wildfire. Not only will you have an employee at work with reduced productivity due to illness, the business will lose more money through more workers taking sick leave.

Each year, a new vaccination is offered to the community which covers up to 4 strains of the influenza virus. It is important to vaccinate every year as the virus changes every year and so do the vaccines to keep up with the virus. New evidence has shown that the immunity one gets from the influenza vaccination wanes over time. It is therefore important to be protected when the flu is most common which in Australia is around August. It takes approximately 2 weeks for the vaccination to become protective. Therefore, the best time to vaccinate against the flu would be around June/July in order to be covered for the peak of the influenza season.

Advice on reducing the impact of influenza to your business includes:
1.    Offer preventative programs like workplace vaccination programs.
2.    Education to employees regarding reducing spread and contraction of viruses through hand hygiene practices.
3.    Encourage employees to take time off or work from home when they have a cold or flu. This will help reduce the spread of the virus throughout the office and thereby help contain the impact to the business.

ISOsafe offer workplace health education training at your site. Our specialists deliver tailor made training and establish a plan for improving wellbeing to get the most from every staff member, thereby reducing the costs associated with lost time resulting from a range of common health issues, from flu to mental health and fatigue management. Call us today on 1300 789 132.