Not Business as Usual

This report chapter outlines the components of a comprehensive institutional response to HIV/AIDS in the workplace, emphasizing a holistic approach that combines prevention, treatment, and the mitigation of operational impacts. It details guiding principles, the necessity of workplace policies, and strategies for maintaining institutional continuity despite personnel loss.

• The ILO's Code of Good Practice on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work provides ten guiding principles for workplace responses, including the recognition of HIV/AIDS as a workplace issue, non-discrimination, gender equality, and the protection of confidentiality.
• An effective institutional response must be holistic and systematic, consisting of three essential components: the prevention of new infections, the treatment and care of people living with HIV and AIDS, and the mitigation of the epidemic's current and future impacts.
• Institutions can determine the nature of the HIV/AIDS threat through situational analyses or institutional audits. These audits involve personnel profiling, critical post analysis, assessment of organisational characteristics, liabilities, productivity, and organisational context.
• Workplace policies can be either HIV/AIDS-specific or broader 'chronic or life-threatening illness policies'. While the latter avoids stigmatising a specific illness, HIV/AIDS-specific policies are often preferred for their ability to raise awareness and combat discrimination.
• Workplace prevention programmes are most effective when they provide basic knowledge, motivate action, and use peer education, as peers are often viewed as more credible sources of information than non-peers.
• To manage the loss of personnel and knowledge due to the epidemic, institutions can adopt non-replacement strategies: knowledge management (recording individual knowledge), work design (multi-skilling and automation), and career development/succession planning (mentoring and coaching).
• Successful implementation of HIV/AIDS responses requires leadership from senior management, the establishment of a dedicated coordinating unit with a specific budget, capacity building through staff training, and clear communication strategies to ensure employee 'ownership' of the programmes.

APA

Pharoah, R. (n.d.). Not Business as Usual. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/NOTBUSINESSCHAP3.PDF

Chicago

Pharoah, Robyn. Not Business as Usual. Institute for Security Studies, n.d. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/NOTBUSINESSCHAP3.PDF.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Pharoah |first1=Robyn |title=Not Business as Usual |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/NOTBUSINESSCHAP3.PDF |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{pharoahndnot, author = {Pharoah, Robyn}, title = {{Not Business as Usual}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/NOTBUSINESSCHAP3.PDF}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }