5 Things Your Business Can do to Run Smoothly in all Weather Conditions
Come rain or shine, it’s important to keep your business running smoothly in all weather conditions. Careful preparation is therefore needed to ensure you’re ready for heavy rain, power outages, severe heatwaves and erratic weather caused by climate change. Mother Nature should never be underestimated, so here are five things your business can do to stay up and running.
- Protect business supplies with adequate storage solutions
The right storage solutions can keep essential business items safe from the elements with sheds and garages being a great way to protect expensive machinery, equipment and tools. Damp and warm conditions alike can cause erosion over time, so it’s better to be safe than sorry. After all, you don’t want to replace items due to neglect or lack of care. Similarly, if you have salt piles you need to protect all year round to deal with severe weather events when they occur, a custom salt Storage Dome from the likes of SteelMaster USA could be just the right investment for you.
- Have a back-up plan in case there’s a power cut
Being knocked offline can be bad for business. Facebook, for instance, loses $6.3 million for every hour of downtime, with the social media giant’s worst-ever outage on Wednesday 13th March 2019 costing $90 million in lost revenue. With this in mind, it’s really vital to prepare for events such as power cuts, as while they’re often avoidable, there are things you can do to make the situation easier to deal with.
Firstly, if you’re a digital company relying heavily on tech equipment, you should install a UPS (uninterrupted power supply). This allows your devices to run off battery power and gives employees the chance to save important documents and shut down their machines properly to avoid errors. Secondly, connecting to an ad-hoc network via a hotspot MiFi device will help you stay connected when the power in your area is out.
- Create a bad weather policy
If people are forced to leave work early due to bad weather, you may still be obliged to pay them for a full day, even if they’re exempt employees. Similarly, if you decide to close the business completely, you will normally be required to pay exempt employees their entitled salary. This can put huge financial pressure on a business, especially if the work that needs to be done is abandoned, so why not have a bad weather policy in place that allows people to work remotely where possible?
An impressive 66% of companies allow remote work, so it’s certainly something to consider if you want to avoid missed days in the office due to dangerous travel conditions.
- Keep your eye on the forecast
It may sound obvious but keeping your eye on the forecast is one of the easiest ways to keep employees safe and your business working properly. If you know weather conditions look bad for the week, perhaps activate your ‘bad weather’ policy. To do this, you should have a very clear communication structure in place. Employees should know where and when you will notify them about a change of plan. You could send a group message out via WhatsApp if your company is small, for instance, or send out an email. It’s also a good idea to let customers know how you will contact them if weather effects your normal service. This will help build respect and repour.
- Take out business insurance
Business insurance acts as a financial safety net should the worst happen. If you don’t have insurance, you run the risk of footing significant bills if damage is caused by bad weather. This can, in turn, have a negative impact on business. With so much to do on a daily basis, it can be easy to brush insurance to the side and leave it for a later date but try to make it a priority. In some instances, you may even be required to take out insurance by law. Rules vary by state, so do your homework to stay legal.
Weather across the US can be erratic so it’s really important to be proactive rather than reactive.