Tips for Maintaining Productivity During the Flu/Cold Season

Tips for maintaining productivity during the Cold/Flu season

We may just be entering summer, but it won't be long before 2013’s cold and flu season comes back with a vengeance. Not only does this leave many people suffering for a week or longer, but it can also have a direct impact over the productivity of businesses. There is never a better time than now to prepare your business for the worst eventuality during this year's flu season, staff shortage, workload management and putting in place any policies that will help both your business and your staff during tough times.

The most important item that needs to be in place is a way to ensure staff that are infected stay away from work, to get healthy and also to stop the spread of infection, but that they have access to their work during this time. It may be that they are well enough to work from home and they are staying away for the sake of other employees. This is the type of situation is where having protocols in place in the first place will ensure that workload doesn’t over stretch your other staffs capabilities.

Here are some examples of clever ways you can keep the productivity up and make sure your employees are happy and healthy.

Install a Remote Desktop Protocol

It wasn’t all that long ago that if you were off work due to sickness there was very little work you could do from home, unless you had all the documentation, access to emails and other important data. As illnesses cannot be planned, the majority of employees would have to rely on their colleagues to cover their absence. Luckily, these days are gone as technology has lead the way to a world where we can access our desktops from wherever you may be by using an RDP system like ericom.com for example.

RDP systems let you access your desktop computer at work from your home, using the internet as a means for your two devices to communicate. This allows you to work as normal, checking emails, working on projects and making sure that you are up to date for your return to work. Even if you staff can’t work full time at least the option will be there, especially if someone needs to access their work during their absence. All your staff will need is a device to access their desktop, a laptop or tablet and an internet connection with good bandwidth.

Make Sure Your Employees Have Mobile Devices

Many businesses are now supplying staff with a mobile device that they can use at home for work purposes. Now this may sound like an expense that you could surely do without, but the benefits of knowing that your employees are contactable at home will outweigh the initial cost. This is never more important than if you also have staff travelling for work, without access to the RDP system, or their emails you cannot ensure work productivity to be maintained.

  

Cloud Computing Can Help Your Business Productivity

One of the most important things for the staff that are in the office is that they have access to the work of employees unavailable due to sickness. Having documents saved on internal servers is all well and good, but difficult to access without passwords etc. By turning to cloud storage/services such as Google Docs, you can make sure that your workforce can access all the information they need to cover someone’s priorities.

Not only can this reduce stress levels for staff in the office, but create a happier atmosphere for all. Plus it will lead to a greener environment in general with extra layers of security should there be a flood, for example in your business building.

Finally, whatever choices you make as to how you will manage the loss of staff due to the flu seasons arrival, you need to make sure they are easily accessed by all staff. This could be in the form of an employee’s health policy that is handed out to existing staff and part of new staffing introduction packs. This way everyone will know exactly what they are expected to do if you are unlucky enough to catch a cold or flu.