Not a day goes by without another suspected or confirmed case of swine flu hitting the news, however many businesses are still under prepared should the worst happen and their workforce become affected.

Swine flu is expected to cost the UK economy up to £50billion in lost earnings due to absenteeism and many businesses are implementing remote working solutions to minimise the impact of staff being unable to physically get to the office.

Prevention is better than cure

The snowstorms in February that brought London and the South East to a standstill highlighted the need for remote working solutions to be implemented for as many employees as possible. However, many businesses have still not implemented any infrastructure to ensure that key staff can access systems from home.

According to Government estimates up to 12% of workforce is likely to be hit by the H1N1 virus by September, forcing at least one in eight workers to stay at home. Gartner puts the figure higher at 40% at the height on the pandemic and is urging businesses to be prepared.

What does this mean for me?

Large businesses with a well established IT infrastructure are expected to cope reasonably well, but for many SMEs the threat of swine flu is greater.

Many smaller organisations do not have remote working capabilities and may not have budgeted for this investment to take place this year. With 80% of UK companies falling into the SME category, there will be a large amount of pressure on these organisations if their staff or their supplier’s staff fall ill. Deadlines may be missed, which can have adverse affect on the cash flow of smaller companies who are most at risk in the current economic climate.

Planning for the future

Gartner advises firms to identify key skills and begin cross training staff to ensure they can cover critical business operations. Firms should also make sure that retrained staff are given access rights to relevant IT applications, as provisioning often causes delays and disruption.

Gartner advises businesses to use wireless broadband to allow employees to work remotely. Organisations should consider buying mobile broadband adaptors with built-in wireless capability.

“It is also probably a good idea to spread your purchases across several networks, because if there is a pandemic or epidemic, some may become overloaded,” said analyst Nick Jones.

To further safeguard day-to-day operations, businesses should identify which functions are mission critical and create a plan that will allow them to operate their most important processes with minimal staff. In the event that a large number of staff are unable to get to the office they should look to implement this plan as quickly as possible.

Organisations can then look to implement which remote services they require including; Voice over IP (VoIP) to allow users to access phones as if they were in the office, network file shares, email and access to key applications.

Aztech IT Solutions regularly work with businesses across all sectors to identify their remote working requirements. At all times we are focused on delivering value for money solutions that accurately meet the business requirements of customer.

What measures can businesses quickly adopt

• Encourage workers who are ill or think they may be ill not to come to work
• Have mobile numbers for your staff available in case you need to close the office at short notice
• Ensure your staff are aware of the company stance and procedures relating to swine flu
• Cross train staff to cover for ill colleagues