Is your business ready for the coronavirus?

As Coronavirus numbers increase by the hour, businesses all over are panicking.

Whilst this is no doubt a stressful time for you and your business, there are steps you can take to leave you feeling more prepared.

If you need further advice on how to take action for your business, we know of some fantastic remote working and risk management experts so get in touch. 

Plan for home working

• Make sure everyone has a phone and a laptop, if relevant. Make sure everyone is taking them home every night without exception. 
• If this really takes a grip there is a strong chance that public transport will be stopped. Know where everyone is geographically and what the impact of this would be. Think about how you could work around it.
• Know how to divert your telephone lines. Almost all phones these days have some form of divert on them. It might cost a little bit more but it won’t cost as much as not being there to answer customers’ telephone calls.  
• Trial a day’s home working now. Tell everyone to work from home. You will very quickly learn what your issues are so you can work out how to address them quickly. 
• If you need to access physical items, consider ways they can be made available electronically or whether items can be moved physically closer to those that need them. This may have your eyes rolling but if that business case for making files available electronically didn’t stack up six months ago, it certainly will now.  
• Communicate with your people! Tell them what you expect from them, where you want them to be and what to do in case of an emergency. If the Tube stops in London and you employ 40 people all over London, do you want them all to call you? Be clear with your instructions.

Assume no one will be physically present for meetings

• Make sure you have accounts set up for online meetings. Skype for business, Zoom, Google Hangouts -  these all offer some form of free service before you have to commit. So pick one and sign up now.
• Try an online meeting while you're all in the office so you know how it works and can identify any potential issues. Is there anything you need that you wouldn't have access to if you were at home?
• Go through the diary and add online meeting details to every invite. Make it standard practice to do this, if you don't already.
• Sign up and familiarise yourself with Slack. This is one of the most popular online chat tools for business with very good reason. Get used to communicating with your teams in this way now.
• Look into making your resources available remotely - whether that’s uploading files to Google Drive, upgrading to Outlook 365 or giving everyone access to your cloud based service, make sure you know how to do it and do it quickly.
• Communicate your new working practices with your team. Make sure everyone knows what they should be doing and how to access these tools. They all have easy to follow user guides so make sure they know where to find them. 

If you are in the office, keep clean!

• Stop shaking hands, stop kissing and stop touching your face!
• Go out and buy hand sanitiser. Make sure it’s of the anti-bacterial kind. Dot them all around your offices.
• Wipe door handles and lift buttons regularly with antibacterial wipes.  
• Have people wash their hands when they come in, when they go out and on the hour throughout the day. If you need to, get a bell and ring it at “hand washing time”!

Get informed

• Remember that dusty old business continuity plan you wrote when you first started your business? Find it, update it and test it.
• If you never had one, now is the time to write one. You will need to make sure you have all of your team’s up to date contact details. There are experts that do this for a living. Otherwise there are lots of DIY resources available too - this IT Governance blog takes you through a detailed step by step process to generate a plan. Or for a simpler plan for smaller businesses, follow this Business2Community guide
• Contact your insurance broker so you know where you stand from a Business Interruption perspective. Are there any conditions you need to meet or anything you need to do in order to activate your cover?
• Communicate with your team! We’re just going to keep saying it - make sure everyone knows there is a plan, where to access it and what the process is for activating it.
• The government has confirmed that statutory sick pay will be available from day one of self isolation, not day four as it is normally. Make sure your people know this so they don’t come into work even if they think they may be affected.
• Keep on top of government advice, updates are being made frequently. Set up a Google alert for latest news.
• The World Health Organisation is also updated frequently and takes a much broader view including heavily impacted countries such as China and Italy.

Take this threat seriously and be compassionate!

• If someone in your office has cold or flu symptoms and has been to an affected area, get them to go home immediately and call 111. Then disinfect their desk! Jokes aside, keep an eye on the official advice from the NHS to make sure you are giving accurate advice to your people. 
• People are scared, there has been lots of horrible press around the impact of this virus and we’ve all spent the last few years watching The Walking Dead! People are thinking the worst!
• Remember that it's not just your business that is affected. The elderly are particularly vulnerable and if schools end up closing then parents cooped up at home with their children may be a bigger threat than the virus itself!

This country hasn’t really seen an outbreak like this before so make sure you are as informed as you can be for your business. For more information and up to date advice on the coronavirus, check the Government website. 

If you need any additional guidance on how to implement flexible working, contact Jess Heagren, CEO of That Works For Me, the flexible working platform connecting forward thinking businesses with skilled professionals in need of flexible work ([email protected]).