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

The leading authorities have been proven right in stating that the only certaintly about swine flu is uncertainty. One week the press reports that the symptoms are mild and there really is nothing to worry about, another week there are cases of seamingly healthy individuals being killed. Who knows how it would affect you or I?

I also found out today that swine flu is now present in the immediate area within which I live, as reported by my daughter’s nursery. This information, coupled with what we are hearing today has started getting me really worried. My immediate reaction is one of wanting to keep my family close to me and away from potential infection.

It really is time that we started closing ranks and finding ways of working flexibly to stop this flu pandemic being the killer that it has the potential to be. There is no reason why this pandemic could not be as lethal as that of 1918, if the virus mutates faster than a vaccine can be made. We have to protect ourselves as well as our colleagues and businesses. Working from home or an isolated location appears to me to be the best solution all round, and I for one will be doing so to protect my family, as I did last Christmas to spare family and friends from the seasonal flu we all suffered.

These cases I think will become more and more common, particularly in the winter months. So how can organisations minimise their decrease in productivity? In a white paper I published recently on our GemaTech website titled ‘The adoption of flexible working is the key to your business surviving the current swine flu pandemic’, I stated that even the Health and Safety Executive as well as the Department of Health have issued advice to employers which include considering home-working and tele-conferencing to reduce face-to-face contact.

When mass absenteesim starts affecting customer service and the key systems and processes which an organisation relies upon, enabling people to work from home will go a long way to protecting brand and organisational reputation.

Author: Karen Jones