Three things you can do right now with your technology that may prevent the flu pandemic from affecting your company’s productivity.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) predicts that 1/3 of the US population will catch the flu this year, with the average employee missing between two and four weeks of work. This pandemic has the ability to cripple many small- to medium-sized businesses, according to disaster recovery experts.
But believe it or not, how you deal with your computers can actually prevent the flu from affecting your business productivity.
When most business owners think about the impact of a pandemic illness, the first scenario is often most or all employees calling in sick. Realistically, the possibility of a large number of your employees becoming ill at the same time is pretty low.
Your business is much more likely to feel the impact from the response and containment measures organizations will use to minimize an outbreak. Consider these senarios:
Employees can’t come to the office because they or a family member may have been exposed to the virus, but aren’t necessarily ill.
Or, an employee can’t come to work because their child is ill, or their school or daycare service has closed for a week to ten days to contain an outbreak.
In each of these scenarios, your employees are healthy, but have pressing personal demands that conflict with showing up at work.
Here are several ways you can use your technology investment to mitigate some effects of a swine flu outbreak both for ill employees, and employees who can’t make it to work because of other issues.
Do Everything You Can To Slow The Spread Of The Flu
The flu spreads through personal contact like shaking hands, touching a keyboard or mouse used by an infected coworker, and through the air by coughing and sneezing.
So watch who you touch and use disinfectant wipes to clean your workspace including the keyboard and mouse before and after you use them.
You can also reduce the amount of people who need to touch your computer equipment by using a program like our Experts Total Support service, where the technician can work on your system remotely.
Stay In Touch Electronically
Timely communication may be one of the keys to keeping your employees from becoming ill. Consider setting up an email list service so that employees can notify one another if they or a family member has become ill. You may even consider using the email to text message capability most cell phone providers offer to alert employees if another staff member is ill, or will be out caring for a family member.
Prepare For Employee Absence With Remote Access
No matter how hard you try to prevent it, you may still have some of your staff out sick at the same time. While no one with the flu is going to do much besides lie in bed, many employees will work part time from home if they have access to their office computer.
Some doctors believe this could actually hasten their recovery by eliminating boredom. So, setting up a way that your employees can remote into their computer from home helpsyou both.
We’ve compiled a free report to help you address some of these issues. “The Ultimate Small Business Owner’s Guide To Setting Up A ‘Work From Home’ Or Remote Network Access System” includes all of the information you need to set up a work from home program that is both useful for employees, and safe for your business.
For a free copy of this report, call the office at (734) 457-5000, or email “info@expertsmi.com.”