The wellbeing of your staff comes into focus when you create a pandemic plan, explains Tiina-Liisa Sexton.
Pandemics raise new ethics issues
Dilemma: My board has requested a report on the ethical implications of a pandemic. Which ethical issues beyond emergency preparedness and business continuity must I consider?
Answer: In preparing for a possible pandemic organisations face both legal and ethical challenges.
Traditional business contingency plans identify essential functions and people and anticipate short-term, near-normal conditions rather than long-term, catastrophic events.
Therefore, in planning for a pandemic, the definition of 'essential' needs to be refined to include only those functions and people that are critical to maintain the minimum operations of your organisation to ensure survival and recovery.
This raises consideration of the following key issues:
Requirements to work
Is there a requirement for all employees to continue to work in the face of high risks? How much risk should employees be required to take? If employees do continue to work, is there a duty on the organisation to acknowledge that their work is dangerous by, for example, setting up an insurance fund for death and disability to cover employees who become sick or die? Particularly if such activities are not normally covered by workers' compensation insurance.
Travel to work by public transport may itself expose employees to a risk of infection and in some jurisdictions is specifically excluded for workers' compensation.
Moreover, is it ethical to dismiss or penalise employees who do not show up to work? Employees may be absent because they are sick, must care for sick family members or children, or are simply afraid to come to work. Requiring doctors' certification during an epidemic may be unreasonable.
Workers may also be required to stay away from the workplace as the organisation closes sites and offices. If such employment restrictions result in financial hardship or job loss, is this in accordance with the values of the organisation?
Are there policies concerning issues such as benefits and compensation packages, financial assistance, flexible worksite and work hours and so on. Issues such as incentives for workers to come to work and the response to workers who refuse to work in a potentially unsafe environment all need to be determined well before the outbreak of any pandemic. Legal considerations include contract, employment, insurance and labour issues.
Priority setting, including the allocation of scarce resources, such as vaccines and antiviral medicines
If there are insufficient vaccines and masks for every person at risk during a pandemic outbreak, ethical as well as logistical challenges arise. How do you decide on the allocation of scarce resources and do employees understand the basis for such decisions?
Will you require compulsory vaccination of workers providing essential services? Employees need to know in advance what to expect and require complete transparency in setting such policies.
It is therefore necessary to engage employees regarding ethical choices in order that they understand the decisions that will have to be made.
An ethics framework can be used to address the ethical issues in a clear and comprehensive fashion, as well as articulating the underlying principles and values.
Questions of whose values should prevail during a public health emergency need to be established in advance.
Employees are more likely to accept decisions if the decision-making processes are inclusive, responsive and accountable, and if reciprocal obligations are respected. Costs of not having an agreed-upon ethics framework include loss of trust, low morale, fear, misinformation and absenteeism.
Dilemma solved by Tiina-Liisa Sexton, CPA Australia's ethics adviser
