Bad weather is back on the menu, with a potentially record-breaking helping of snow as the main course. Extensive talk of Northern Blocking also suggests that even if we don’t suffer “the worst winter for 100 years” as the Daily Express has been suggesting, there will still be plenty of snow and ice. It will be vital to prepare your organisation for every meteorological eventuality. And keep all your people working effectively, even when the office is unreachable.
Because, fickle weather forecasting or not, weather is likely to have a big impact on the daily commute. After all, snow, ice and lots of traffic do not mix well. In fact, severe weather over the past four years has caused more disruption to business than any other issue.
Forget severe illnesses cutting swathes through the working ranks. It’s the nasty stuff falling out of the sky that causes the biggest losses. According to a recent Chartered Management Institute report on business continuity management, Weathering the storm, 77% of organisations were adversely affected by last winter’s heavy snowfall (nearly twice as many as for any other event):
- 63% of people were unable to come to work because of travel disruption
- 46% of people had issues with school closures/childcare
- 43% of external meetings and business trips cancelled
Some businesses even claimed up to £1 million in financial losses as a result of this unavoidable absenteeism. So, we underestimate the impact of bad weather to our costs.
While flexible working won’t clear blocked roads or babysit the kids, it will remove the disruption of your people not physically being able to get into work or out to business trips. This is where Managed Mobility comes in. It gives all your people the network connectivity, the tools to video conference, the data security and even the custom apps they need. Whether they’re happily mobile workers, office hoppers or dyed-in-the-wool desk-huggers.
So, everyone can keep on working even when, as Dean Martin would say, the weather outside is frightful…
November is #O2MobilityMonth and, with all the bad weather on the way, we’ve been focusing on Managed Mobility to enable effective flexible working. We’re also running a Twitter competition that gives your organisation a chance to win £500 for a charity of your choice. If you’re not on Twitter and need more information, just give us a call on 01235 433507 or visit our website.
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