No 2 in a series of tax and business top tips this festive season......
"Wahey its snowed, no work today", shouts many an employee countrywide. For huge corporations, it's a contingency they factor in and generally (historically at least), grin and bear the lost worktime.
For the SME, the impact can be financially tough - having had three tough winters on the trot, many employers will have lost significant worktime to the snow - employees simply unable to get into the office.
So what can (and should) an employer do in this scenario? We think businesses should have a 'bad weather plan', covering how the business operates in adverse conditions, and covering:
TRAVEL: - Don't force employees into work if not safe for them to travel! This is a bad place for an employer to be if the employee subsequently has an accident en-route!
WORKING FROM HOME: - Think about remote working for office employees - services such as 'logmein' allow users to login to their desktop machine over the internet whilst sat at home sipping cocoa. Think about the phones - who will cover them and how? Technology (skype / voip) and telephone answering services have this base covered.
ENVIRONMENT: - If you are in work, make sure the environment is safe - grit any public areas you are reposnible for if iced up, and make sure basics like temperature are reasonable too. If an insurance claim is then necessary, you can demonstrate that you had necessary safeguards in place.
CONTACT: - Do staff know who to contact in adverse weather scenario's if they can't get in? No point in calling the office if no one is there, and that is exactly when the Bad Weather Plan needs to kick in. Also worth updating phone messages and the website with the situation, so customers know what is happening if they can't contact you.
PROLONGED OFFICE CLOSURE: - Your plans should cover the scenario of a prolonged spell of adverse weather (read snow, flooding etc). It maybe more than a day or two that access is not possible.
Plan in place and actioned, working from home, they'll be plenty of time during the day to go out and chuck a few snowballs at some schoolkids.
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