Although most businesses nowadays tend to have quite clear and comprehensive policies in place which detail how their employees should react should they need time away from work due to illness or visits to doctors, hospitals and so on, when it comes to being unable to attend because of adverse weather conditions, many workers don’t have much of a clue as to the organization’s expectations of them. Are they supposed to make reasonable efforts to walk to work if they can’t use their cars or just stay home? Even if they did don their most appropriate all-weather clothing and try to make it on foot, how would they know whether the company’s premises would be open when they got there, and who should they notify, and when, if getting to work is impossible? Are there work-related tasks that they are expected to get on with at home, or should a snow day for example, just be written off in terms of getting anything meaningful done?
Bad weather conditions, like major flu epidemics and the like, can literally bring businesses to a standstill, especially if the organization doesn’t have clear procedures for dealing with them. Because these types of situations arise relatively rarely, however, often companies fail to prepare themselves for the eventuality so that when disaster does strike, they find themselves faced with utter mayhem and confusion. In most places though, inclement weather conditions which are severe enough to disrupt normal working do occur on a regular enough basis to warrant having an appropriate policy in place, and with the increasing incidence of catastrophic weather-related disasters around the world, any business which hasn’t yet produced a clear set of procedures for their workers to follow would be well-advised to do so.
Good communications are absolutely vital when bad weather threatens to disrupt your business’ activities and workers need to be absolutely clear in terms of their responsibilities when such circumstances arise. Make sure that your organization is prepared in advance, otherwise what could have been a minor inconvenience could well turn out to be a financial disaster.
December 8th, 2011 at 5:18 am
Agree with your post. As a prior business continuity manager however many businesses would rather take the risk than spend some $$$ to address issues. As more businesses develop global footprints business continuity becomes more complex. For me raising unpopular fact based concerns regarding quota of offshored functions and the lack of ability to bring them onshore cost me my job. Figures are there however if you don’t plan and disaster strikes that your business will go under. An unfortunate example of this occured with many businesses in the twin towers 911 tragedy. An additional tragedy on top of the unthinkable.
December 16th, 2011 at 7:59 am
Thanks for you comment Lisa, although unfortunate you have noted a good example.