Pandemic Tabletop Exercise for Building & Property Management

This exercise is part of our catalog of tabletop exercises for building & property management.

Scenario Overview

Participants work as the property management team for a fictional multi-tenant building as media reports describe the growing impact of an influenza outbreak. Staff availability begins to drop rapidly due to illness, the need to care for sick family members, and growing concern about exposure. At the same time, the tenants who rely on the building are also affected as staffing shortages and service limitations spread across the region.

As the outbreak worsens, the loss of staff affects chain-of-command, day-to-day operations, and the resources available to support both the building and its tenants. Conditions become even more difficult as fatalities occur, including the loss of a senior member of staff, forcing leadership to manage continuity, communications, and operational resilience under sustained pressure.

This exercise challenges building and property management teams to evaluate how well prepared they are for a prolonged workforce disruption and how they would continue serving tenants while normal operations are strained for an extended period.

Why This Scenario Matters for Building & Property Management

Building and property management organizations are responsible for maintaining safe, functional environments for tenants, occupants, vendors, and support staff. A pandemic can affect far more than attendance. It can disrupt staffing, tenant services, contractor availability, building operations, and the ability to sustain essential services over time.

This exercise helps leadership teams evaluate how they would respond when staff availability declines steadily, resources become strained, and tenants continue depending on management for communication, coordination, and continuity during a prolonged public health event.

Exercise Objectives

• Evaluate leadership decision-making during a prolonged workforce disruption.
• Discuss continuity of building operations and tenant support under reduced staffing.
• Review chain-of-command and succession planning during a sustained incident.
• Assess internal and tenant-facing communications during a worsening public health event.
• Identify priorities for maintaining essential services when staffing and resources are constrained.
• Strengthen preparedness for extended operational disruption affecting staff, tenants, and service providers.

Typical Participants

• Executive leadership
• Property or building management
• Operations and facilities leadership
• Tenant relations or occupant services staff
• Human resources
• Communications or public affairs staff
• Business continuity or crisis management team members

Exercise Format

Conduct-It-Yourself Tabletop Exercises are structured, discussion-based simulations designed to help organizations test their response to disruptive events without the time and cost of a fully facilitated exercise. Participants are placed in the middle of a realistic scenario as it unfolds and must work through decisions, priorities, and consequences as a leadership team.

Each downloadable exercise package includes everything needed to conduct the session internally, including facilitator instructions, exercise overview materials, participant forms, a detailed scenario script, and a ready-to-run PowerPoint presentation that guides the scenario and discussion. The materials are designed so organizations can conduct the exercise as delivered or customize the storyline and supporting materials to reflect their own facilities, tenants, operations, and emergency planning objectives.

Most exercises are designed to be conducted in approximately 2 to 4 hours. A typical agenda includes an exercise overview and scenario briefing, the facilitated disaster simulation discussion, group review and preparation for debriefing, and a structured post-exercise discussion to capture lessons learned and improvement opportunities.

Exercise Focus

• Preparedness
• Crisis Communications
• Business Resumption

Related Tabletop Exercise Scenarios

Organizations exploring this scenario may also find these exercises useful:

• Biological Outbreak Tabletop Exercise for Building & Property Management
• Multiple Disruptions Tabletop Exercise for Building & Property Management
• Train Wreck Tabletop Exercise for Building & Property Management
• Earthquake Tabletop Exercise for Building & Property Management
• Shelter-in-Place Tabletop Exercise for Building & Property Management
• Gas Main Explosion Tabletop Exercise for Building & Property Management

Purchase & Download

This exercise is delivered as a downloadable package that includes facilitator instructions, scenario materials, and structured discussion prompts to guide the exercise.