Snow days and employers

At the end of the day, businesses are trying to make money, and a lot of that money goes to paying employees. Sudden and unexpected days where the workforce do not show is really bad for business. But at the same time, business owners are people too, with families to think about and long difficult journeys to the office.

Snow days and employees

Employees have a big decision to make – do I go to work? In fact, the more dedicated the employee is the harder the decision to go into work will become. With kids staying home from school, national warnings to stay at home and friends and family advising not to go out on the road, you should really stay at home. However, you feel uncomfortable letting the company down and probably can’t afford a day or more without pay.

The pay situation

Legally, businesses do not have to pay staff that do not work due to inclement weather. However, most staff will not be able to afford a day unpaid. Also, the idea of paying someone a full day even if it takes them a long time to get into the office is not without issues, especially whilst employees try to ignore the news report of someone taking 9 hours to travel a mile and wondering if the company will even be open when they get there. And full pay from less than a full day of work is hardly ideal for the employer either.

The solution

We are not going to suggest something as crazy as a Top Gear combine harverster complete with flame thrower. The first step is to be very clear about what your policies are – if there are snow warnings, send out a reminder to your staff of what the policies are. Most businesses go for granting annual leave or offering full pay even on late arrival. However, there is one option many companies miss:

Working from home!

With modern cloud computing, businesses can start making use of the fact that most people have computers, laptops and tablets at home, if not a work laptop. With an ERP with cloud capability, you can access your system from a web browser, as well as accessing all of your files through Office 365.

Dynamics Consultants runs Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Office 365 with SharePoint Online and Skype for business. This means that our team are able to run normally even if they are working from home.

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