The nightmare of transport system strikes is upon us again, striking when everything is getting back to normal after summer holidays. While many support the workers striking for fairer conditions it still doesn’t ease the nuisance of a disrupted commute.
What is creating more havoc is the amount of strike action proposed by Dublin Bus: three 48 hour strikes over the coming weeks with no sign of an agreement just yet. The strikes are scheduled for the 8th and 9th, 15th and 16th and the 23rd and 24th of September. Is your business ready for the negative impact this could potentially have on your workforce?
Multi-purpose Backup Plans for your Business
Businesses must have a sustainable Plan B and Plan C in operation for dealing with disruptions like strikes. Investing in plan B and C is a worthwhile activity because even though these strikes will be finished (hopefully) on September 24th there will always be another disruption around the corner. It’s not long ago since the Luas strikes caused mayhem and with the winter months approaching there’s a sure chance that flooding or snowfall could affect your employees’ ability to get to work on more than one occasion between now and Christmas. Backup plans are not just for strike days, they become part of a disaster recovery procedure in the event of unforeseen circumstances in the future.
Business Backup Plan for Dublin Bus Strikes
A backup plan needn’t be over complex; the crux of a backup plan is that it functions properly, you can flip over to it anytime, from anywhere and that it’s simple to implement. Enabling your employees to continue working seamlessly, whether in the office or remotely, is crucial in today’s fast paced environment. Having a backup plan such as an ability to work from home is a simple but effective solution: businesses revolve around people and their ability to do their jobs, you must ensure your people are enabled to do so no matter what happens.
Enable your Team to Continue Working during Dublin Bus Strike Days
If your office is based in Dublin and your employees are affected by the strikes why not have a flexible working system in place? Allow staff to work from home or have more flexible working hours. Working from home means your workers will need to have VPN access to your business network on a computer they can access from their home. Your IT team can set this up quite easily if you use cloud based systems.
Enable your Staff to Communicate on Strike Days
Your staff must be able to communicate, if they can’t communicate with others can they really be expected to carry out their work properly? A hosted PBX phone system such as Magnet Voice means they have access to their landline phone number anywhere in the world as long as they have an internet connection. A hosted PBX is a clever phone system that allows users to have their phone calls come through a broadband connection rather than fixed phone lines. Your workers can continue to use their phone through an online browser portal, a softphone app on their laptop or even with the Magnet Voice a smartphone app anywhere, anytime.
Ensure your Employees are Aware of the Backup Plan
Your team must know and understand the backup plan. There’s no point in having flexible working from home policies, a phone system they can access from anywhere and the ability work at their kitchen table if they don’t know they can do it. Our biggest tip? Email your employees when upcoming strikes or weather warnings are in place to remind them of your flexible company policy. They won’t thank you if you tell them after they have spent three hours in commuter hell.
Need some help getting your business backup plans in place? Give us a call and we’ll be more than happy to help you.
