Workplace Challenges
The (snow) show must go onRight across the country this winter, employees have dealt with inclement weather and employers have lost thousands of hours of production. |
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 [ 2008-03-12 ] |
There's not much we can do about Mother Nature's winter whims, but recent research from the Workforce Institute suggests that both employees and employers should collaborate to balance staff safety concerns and the need to keep the organization running.
The Kronos-established think tank that focuses on staff management issues affecting productivity and organizational performance recently surveyed 2,810 employed adults about the impact of extreme weather on the workplace.
It found that 33% of respondents had their commutes affected by weather in the past three months.
"Once at work, employees note they are distracted from their jobs by concerns about how their commute will be impacted when they do leave, how they'll provide alternative child care or pickup arrangements, when or if their employers will decide to close early," the survey says.
"Employers, in turn, grapple with assessing the true severity of expected storms and determining the best course to ensure the safety of their employees while minimizing the adverse impact of closing or cutting back on staff," it says.
The institute's board of advisers came up with a number of suggestions to help strike a balance between the concerns of employees and the needs of employers:
- Workers appreciate it when their employers put their safety first. If a company has a generous policy towards workers under extreme weather conditions, what will it cost the firm on average per year? The payoff in employee loyalty could easily surpass that cost.
- Companies can't predict the weather with 100% accuracy, but they can proactively create an extreme weather contingency plan that should detail standard operating procedures during bad weather including how to contact personnel; prioritization of skills and roles needed; how personnel can contact their workplace; how to assess the staffing needs given the weather to avoid overstaffing.
- Many employees already have laptops and can do their jobs from home. Employers are already leveraging this reality to meet their talent requirements with geographically dispersed workers. For those mobile workers who normally report to an office, managers can make it clear in advance that telecommuting is encouraged when the weather is severe.
- For employees paid on an hourly basis, the issue arises about how to pay them (or not) when the business is closed due to inclement weather. While companies can't generally afford to pay people when they are closed for business, they might consider creative strategies to help people make up for lost time.
- Leveraging flextime policies is another strategy that can work for companies -- allowing people to work around the weather.
- For many businesses, weather that makes it tough to commute will make it equally likely that fewer customers will show up to be served. Companies using automated attendance-recording equipment, scheduling and analytics tools can leverage historical data to better plan for future weather-related disruptions to their business.
- In truly extreme circumstances, companies may need to provide their employees with transportation to and from public transportation hubs and/or home.
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