In the Daily Telegraph on the 11th July Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent, reported that ministers are considering allowing workers to take two weeks off work without a sick note in a bid to minimise the spread of the swine flu (H1N1) virus.
Clearly if this were to be implemented, there is room for abuse by employees who may have just a cold, or who really aren’t suffering that badly. Employers would be placing a lot of trust on their employees not to abuse the policy, and may find it difficult to put in place any measures to counter any abuse. When the swine flu was first announced in the media, there was an increase in the number of UK employees calling in sick. As the country with the 3rd highest number of swine flu cases, something needs to be done to protect our businesses and fragile economy from mass absenteeism.
Some organisations are now preparing appropriately for ensuring business continuity with a vastly reduced workforce. A former colleague at BT told me that internally they are preparing for a third of the workforce to be absent at any one time. One of their key strategies is to employ flexible working where possible.
Where several companies are now allowing employees to access their emails securely from home, few companies understand how they can provide seamless working through incoming call re-routing, and rely on employees to use mobile phones to communicate with suppliers, customers etc. There are several disadvantages with this strategy including; batteries running out, extended use of mobile phones without headsets possibly causing headaches, lack of mobile signal in several parts of the UK and in many cases higher call charges for callers. By seamlessly re-routing individual DDI numbers, the caller has no idea that you are not situated at your office desk and the customer experience remains consistent, fuelling positive brand perception.
Deploying a robust and flexible telecoms resilience strategy during this heigthened swine flu pandemic, I believe gives employers the power to say to employees, ‘ok, take time to recover at home, but here are the tools you need should you feel well enought o carry on working.’ Or for the employee who is forced to stay at home to look after sick relatives, flexible working should allow them the opportunity to work around their caring responsibilities.
I believe that the employer has the capability of managing those employees from a distance through flexible working while not pre-judging those who may or may not have swine flu, so that everybody wins.
Author: Karen Jones
Tags: BT, business continuity, DDI, flexible, flexible working, h1n1, mobile, pandemic, swine flu
