“Aon has created a stand alone insurance policy to reimburse companies for wages, fixed costs and extra expenses if they are unable to access their buildings due to government action.”

Hats off to Aon for identifying the gap in the market here as many generic insurance policies/ business interruption policies do not cover specific pandemic viruses, indeed they only usually cover costs caused by physical damage or ‘notifiable diseases’ which H1N1 does not always qualify for.

The new product from Aon is believed to be the first of its kind available to all kinds of industry, though the general target is for Retail, Transport and Manufacturing where employees would be hard pushed to fulfill their roles from home. I’m sure many of the 100 shops in Princes Street, Edinburgh which suffered a power cut during peak business hours this week, would now be very keen to take up such a policy…

Continous working much better than re-couping costs

It’s great that these industries can now be protected for office/ building closure in this way, however for those industries such as service and finance there is always the option for employees to work from home or another remote office or location and I believe that these types of organisations should be focusing their attention far more on continuing to operate effectively as a business, rather than relying on insurance policies to cover any unexpected costs as a result of a building closure. After all, who wants to pay out twice or three times following a disruption? First for an insurance policy, then for the costs which are not covered by the policy, and finally for a more effective strategy which enables employees to continue working through a disruption whereby your costs are limited from the start.

If organisations had a seamless way of working, regardless of whether their premises could be accessed or not, there would be no need for reliance on such insurance policies to cover unexpected costs.

Times Online has produced ‘The 10 best ways to cut petrol costs’ in a bid to help drivers make their fuel go further which includes tips such as; pumping up your tyres, turning off the air-conditioning, driving smoothly and changing oil regularly.

Although there is no doubt that these tips can make some difference (and actually I adhere to many of them myself already) there is no substitute to reducing fuel expenditure by being in a position to drive less!

Not only are drivers being taxed more in a poor economic climate, London commuters are going to see a rise in the congestion charge to £10 and those taking the TUBE, train or bus will also experience rises in fares (as bus fares are to go up by 12.7% and TUBE fares by 3.9%).

As we are all aware, unemployment rates are at their highest for years and as a result people who are in employment are working twice as hard to keep their jobs and are gritting their teeth against the cost and inconvenience of long commutes until such time that they can choose where they want to work.

My head therefore turns to the employers – how do they keep their employees, who have remained loyal through the recession, once the recovery brings more employment options to the suitably qualified?

Homeworking is the key to employee retention

Incorporating home or remote working practices for roles which are able to be performed outside the office environment has a multitude of benefits, so I have whittled down my top ten:

1. Home working tackles the rising costs of commuting for employees making them less resentful and more keen to stay with your organisation
2. It also tackles the extra costs associated with working in an office e.g. work clothes, make up, shoes etc.
3. It introduces a better work/life balance by reducing commuting times and leads to happier, more productive employees
4. Home working will increase employee loyalty once the recovery and employment choice increases
5. It saves organisations costs in terms of heating, lighting and equipment as well as less need for office space
6. For employees there is no need to buy expensive lunches or feel you have to go out for lunch with colleagues for birthday’s etc.
7. Co-workers can only judge you on what you get done rather than when you arrive at or leave the office
8. Employees don’t need to take time off work to be able to let the gas man or repair man in
9. When people decide to bring their flu and bugs into the office you can avoid getting sick
10. It’s been shown that people who work from home take fewer sick days

If you are a home worker and have experienced these or any other benefits I’d be interested to hear your point of view…or indeed you think that home working simply isn’t an option for you because your organisational culture would not embrace it.

Really?

I find these statistics extremely hard to believe in the current economic climate, however I’m hesitant to dismiss it completely as it does indicate that changing employee attitudes could have an effect on recruitment in the future. As the economy recovers and jobseekers once again find them themselves in a position to be able to choose between organisations to work for, what will be their decision criteria?

Money (nearly always the top consideration) , career development, location, availability of flexible working practices, company ethos (including carbon emissions?).

Many organisations, particularly the multinationals have entire departments designated to Corporate Social Responsibility. As defined by the EU CSR is “A concept whereby companies decide voluntarily to contribute to a better society and a cleaner environment. A concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis”.

Voluntary is a key phrase here but what would be the cost for an organisation who chooses not to join the club? Environmental concern is something that has become a necessity for an organisation to embrace rather than a differentiator, and with the CRC (Carbon Reduction Commitment) scheme starting in April 2010, organisations who used over 6,000 MegaWatt Hours in 2008 will have to participate, requiring them to trade carbon allowances and to cut carbon emissions.

Can you afford to be left behind?

If the trend therefore is moving towards ‘carbon reducing’ organisations, then you are either going to be ahead of the game , or a market follower and experience says that being ahead of the game makes you much more attractive to jobseekers, for example I wonder how many IT graduates are clammering these days to work for Apple, rather than Microsoft ?

How do you take the lead?

So, if carbon footprint does become much more of a key decision criteria, how will companies ensure they are attractive to high calibre, environmentally conscious jobseekers? Well other than the obvious (recycling policies, using renewable energy wherever possible and sourcing supplies from the UK rather than abroad)  flexible working practices are vital and should include the use of conferencing facilities to combat commuting pollution and reducing the number buildings an organisation requires to heat, light and power in order to save energy.

For those job roles that can accomodate remote working, organisations can tick both the work/life balance box as well as the carbon reduction box. We shouldn’t under estimate these drivers in the months and years to come.

It seems to me that this is just another way of squeezing more money from companies in the name of climate change. However if the scheme does take off then it strengthens the argument for allowing widespread remote working for jobs which can be performed anywhere, in my opinion. Having fewer cars on the road can only lead to less congestion, less pollution, less noise and less need for disruptive roadworks, so I am all in favour for schemes which encourage a flexible approach to how we work and how organisations operate.

Clinical Attack Rate: Up to 30% of the UK population (source: Uk Planning Assumptions 3/9/09 Cabinet Office)

Predicted absence rate of employees within a single organisation due to sickness and caring responsibilities: 30% (research undertaken by GlaxoSmithkline)

During the peak, the infection rate may be sustained for 2 weeks (source: Uk Planning Assumptions 3/9/09 Cabinet Office)

Number of deaths to date in the UK: 59 (Fergus on Flu BBC Online 21/8/09)

Estimated loss of revenue per company: between 2% and 8% (Research undertaken by GlaxoSmithkline and validated by Milliman consultancy)

From my own experience last winter when seasonal flu caused havoc at my husband’s company, I would say that the 30% absence rate is pretty accurate. When one employee came back to work for a meeting, while suffering from the flu, he managed to infect and disrupt around 30% of the company’s workforce over a period of around a month, as some took one week off and others took two weeks at varying times.

The company has learnt its lesson and put firmly in place plans for the swine flu pandemic. As soon as there is a whiff of a rumour that an employee may have swine flu, they are sent home to work remotely and their calls are redirected home to offer customers a seamless service. But employers shouldn’t have to get their fingers burnt in order to properly plan for mass flu infection, it should be their top buisness continuity planning priority, especially as we are now in the ‘calm before the storm’.

Backed up by research from the BCI (Business continuity Institute) confirming that over half of organisations they surveyed had weak or no pandemic contingency plans, the CIPD warns that senior managers will ignore the second wave threat of increased swine flu cases and will be hit by substantial staff absences, a great threat to businesses and the recovery of the recession.

Warning companies to not underestimate the potential threat posed by a second wave of swine flu does not seem to be making any difference. There are many factors that contribute to a sense of apathy, but the key obstacle is overcoming the feeling that it will never be as bad as the media would have us believe. As humans we tend to be naturally optimistic, playing down any negative possibility. Indeed I fell victim of this myself recently in a car park…as I went to the machine to put in my card to pay my money the man before me told me it wasn’t working and that it had swallowed his money. Being in a rush and ever the optimist, I thought that maybe it would work for me. You can guess what happened!

So the lesson to be learnt from the information given to us, is that organisations should be factoring ‘optimism bias’ into their contingency plans and planning for the worst case scenario. This is much less work and effort than some managers tend to think, as you can simply and seamlessly re-route incoming calls to employee homes and allow secure access to corporate networks. After all not all staff absences will be due to illness, so why not make better use of their time away and give them the tools to continue working?

Remote working should not be seen as a ‘fad’ but as the 21st century way of doing business, for those jobs which are able to be conducted wherever a broadband or wifi connection is available. There seems to be an assumption that there are only two ways of working, office based or home based. I beg to differ, flexible working should be the norm, allowing employees and employers alike the choice on a day by day basis where work should be performed, be it 2 days in the office and 3 at home, or 1 day at a remote, satellite office and the rest of the week elsewhere.

Making it easy, and accesible for business to get done in a time and cost effective manner is the key here, not simply just a way of saving a few pounds in the short term!

However firmly back on terra firma it is clear that swine flu is still prevalent in the news and media, suggesting that this virus is not being killed off by the warmer weather and fuelling suggestions that a re-surgence of cases is likely this autumn. Indeed there are 263 people in hospital with swine flu and 30 people in intensive care, as reported by the BBC last Friday. As children prepare to go back to school during the first week of Spetember, it is from then that experts are saying that the number of cases are likely to increase, based on past pandemics. The test will be whether the promised vaccine will be administered before the virus can undertake too much damage.

The government’s decision not to close schools during September could in fact give the swine flu virus the advantage, despite the fact the scientists have claimed that closing them could cut cases by 45%.

But if that is the decision then we have no choice but to prepare for what may happen. Are organisations resting on their laurels or are they preparing for a worst case scenario? I would personally side with the scientists rather than the politicians in this issue and I have ensured that I can continue to work from home if my children are off sick from school. By choosing not to limit public gatherings ministers think that they are reducing social and economic disruption, but from what I have read and heard, I have a niggling feeling that the exact opposite is likely to occur.

Follow my daily thoughts on twitter as the pandemic moves on.

1. Identify which employees can easily work from home. Working from home should provide the employee with the ability to undertake the vast majority of their normal job responsibilities, particularly if they are desk based. This is easily achieved by equipping them with secure data access and a telecoms system which enables them to answer their incoming calls just as if somebody was calling them at their normal place of work. This technology is easy to implement and is fast becoming the norm for many organisations.

2. Define the nature of the work to be undertaken by each employee and you will be able to provide the IT and telecoms tools necessary to seamlessly continue undertaking their job from home, as if they were at their desk in their normal place of work. You may wish to consider implementing tools such as incoming call re-routing and wireless/ 3G data connection applications delivering secure access to your corporate network.

3. Develop a checklist or agreement so that both employer and employee understand the terms under which home working is allowed. As a consequence, employees will then understand how home working will be managed and facilitated by the employer, because safety and security is crucial within such an arrangement.

4. Consider any other issues, such as how costs for heating, lighting, phone bills, and broadband access may be re-imbursed to the employee.

5. Consider how the employee will securely access corporate data and systems, such as via a corporate and secure VPN or secure web based email systems. Don’t forget to ensure a company directory of contact information is readily available.

6. In order to ensure home workers don’t feel isolated and to facilitate meetings you may want to make tele/ web conferencing or regular email/ web chat and Intranet communication available. These tools are easy to implement and relatively cheap. Some web conferencing packages offer free 30 day trials.

7. Communicate health and safety requirements for minimum home working standards and ensure employees comply. This is not as daunting as it appears. What you require for your employees in the office is just the same as what you would require for employees at home, including risk assessments. It’s just at a different location.

8. Ensure that employees can receive their incoming calls. Customers and suppliers should not be given a new number to call, they should be able to get through to the person they have dialled on their regular published contact number, rather than a new mobile or landline number to ensure seamless customer service and business continuity. This also protects the privacy of the employee by not publishing their personal mobile or home phone numbers to the public.

9. Management of home workers is not difficult as long as regular communication between team leader and employees is maintained. For the manager who fears losing control, secure voice recording of re-routed phone calls is easy to introduce as is keyboard key stroke monitoring.

10. Finally don’t expect sick employees, or carers to be accessing their emails as regularly as if they were in the office. You are giving them the tools to allow them to do what they can within a relationship of trust. Even if they are only able to work for example at 30% capacity every day, this could save your organisation between 7 and 10 days worth of 30% capacity which you would have lost were they not able to work from home!

If you found these tips useful, you may also wish to visit our blog for future tips and helpful advice on flexible working and the flu pandemic:

Recession and Swine Flu: A lethal combination?
Swine Flu: A greater threat than terrorism?
Swine Flu: Will your organisation survive?
Swine Flu Pandemic: Would Your Employees Take Advantage?

Author: Karen Jones

At a time when job security is at its lowest and few people want to be in the front of the queue for redundancy, how many of those people will want to take time off sick with swine flu for fear of possible repurcussions? What organisations could find is that sick employees will be forcing themselves into the office in order to show that both they and their jobs are indispensable. Such behaviour will lead to a longer and more impacting flu pandemic and, as sky news also reports, could lead to the recession lasting a couple of years longer than expected and a decrease in UK GDP of around -7.5 per cent.

Additionally if businesses cannot fulfil their contractual obligations becasue their employees are off sick, they may find legal action taken against them from customers and suppliers. How many companies can afford such liability in the current climate?

I would suggest that managers overtly show that presenteeism is not a key criteria for discerning between those who should be protected from redundancy, and those that shouldn’t, and I belive that offering to let employees work from home communicates that they are trusted, appreciated, and that they feel needed by the organisation through these difficulat economic times.

Author: Karen Jones