I spoke this week at a Harvard Business School Publishing conference about how reputations would be affected if a pandemic were truly to arrive. The conference was held at the Harvard Medical College. Without a doubt, reputations would flip overnight. During 9-11, Hurricane Katrina and SARS, we quickly saw how company reputations got shaped and twisted. A pandemic would be unlike anything else we’ve encountered. Just imagine the following if a pandemic did emerge:
**The CDC estimates that the economic impact of a pandemic on the U.S. would range from $91.3 to $166.5 billion.
**The World Bank estimates $800 billion in economic damage and disruption in virtually the entire world economy.
**U.K. Department of Health estimates that 25% + of country workers would take between 5 and 20 days of sick leave.
**CDC projects U.S. employee absence rates between 20% to 60% due to illness, fear of illness, caregiving, inability to get to work, inability to travel and physician-recommended isolation.
**HSBC expects that up to 60% of its staff would be off.
**Microsoft estimates up to 30% of its staff to be affected. Absenteeism could reach up to 40% during pandemic periods and all sites are expected to be affected eventually although perhaps at different times.
**Mercer Human Resources Consulting interviewed companies across 38 countries and 26 industries and found that there is a considerable gap between organizational concern about a pandemic’s impact and its current state of pandemic preparedness. Those countries that endured the 2003 SARS crisis are generally more prepared.
**The EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit) surveyed global executives in 2006 and found that 43% cited bird flu as a significant threat to business after power outages. Also 68% agree strongly that preparing for bird flu requires a different set of business continuity capabilities than those developed for other threats.
**Only one-third of companies believe that they communicate catastrophe risk management plans to their employees successfully and only 20% of companies believe they communicate plans successfully to customers.
What’s in store for reputation? The EIU survey found that 42% of executives consider a company’s reputation as the most important priority in the event of catastrophe, following employee safety and IT continuity. Undoubtedly one company would become the poster boy for the pandemic. Either the pandemic threat would surface at this company or it would react poorly or slowly to the news. This unlucky company would be known as the Pandemic company and its reputation forever tied to the unfortunate circumstances.
The Internet (if up and running and that’s a big question mark as employees stay home and repair slows to a crawl) would change everything. Companies that treat employees poorly or barely communicate during a pandemic threat would be vilified on the Internet. They would live in infamy as pandemic-offenders. Those admired companies that are not prepared to deal with a pandemic will quickly lose equity because of the general public’s high expectations for them. Some unknown companies would rise up in the reputational rankings for being champions of pandemic preparedness and savvy communicators. CEO reputations would rise and fall depending on how well they kept their employees informed and enforced the right rules of hygiene and social distancing. Board reputations would also be affected.
A pandemic would change everything. Being prepared is the best and only antidote.
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Harvard Business School Publishing, pandemics, reputation, CEO reputation, EIU, Mercer Consulting, Microsoft, HSBC, pandemic-offenders, Harvard Medical College, CDC
Harvard Business School Publishing, pandemics, reputation, CEO reputation, EIU, Mercer Consulting, Microsoft, HSBC, pandemic-offenders, Harvard Medical College, CDC
