With flu season looming, large companies are ramping up to make sure they are equipped to handle a workplace disruption. Wikipedia's entry on Business Continuity can make the whole concept seem daunting for any IT director in a big company. It can take a lot of money and resources for a big company to set up a Business Continuity plan. But it seems necessary because the cost of taking hundreds of employees offline is so great.

I would argue that workshifters aren't worried about Business Continuity and that large companies can learn a great deal from their own workshifters. Here are a few things enterprises could learn from workshifters when thinking about their BC plan:

1. Think SaaS - When all your "stuff" is in the cloud, it doesn't matter where your employees are working from. Here's what I need to work outside the corporate office:

• Salesforce - Access to all client data
• Twitter - Network and communicate with a larger community
• iPhone - Get email, contacts and calendar anywhere
• GoToMeeting - Ability to work with anyone, from anywhere
• GoToMyPC - Ability to work on my office computer from anywhere
• Google Docs - Access documents from anywhere

I realize there are more technical jobs that require access to more complex software but most employees can use SaaS for almost everything they do. And using remote access can get you straight to the desktop where any non-SaaS apps live. Check out a previous post from AJ Leon on all the SaaS available.

2. Make Telework/ Web Commuting Part of Your Policy - Workshifters are flexible workers by nature. They are very comfortable working wherever they may be, but it wasn't always that way. Setting up shop for the first time in a coffeehouse is uncomfortable. Working at home is tough if you're used to spending 40 hours in the corporate office. We can talk technology all day but there's a learning curve to becoming a workshifter. By rolling out a formal telework/Web commuting plan within your company you're preparing employees for a workforce disruption. Employees will be more comfortable working outside the office if they've done it in the past.
 
3. Adopt and Advocate Informal Communication - When you work in the corporate office all day your communication can often be locked down to email and office phone systems. Workshifters are masters of informal communication. Using other communication tools like IM, text messages, and Twitter frees  your workforce to communicate wherever they may end up in a disruption. If employees aren't used to communicating in informal ways it may be hard when they're suddenly asked to work from home to avoid a disruption. Build policies within your company around the use of informal communication tools and advocate usage of these tools.  

I'd love to hear from the workshifting community. Why aren't you worried about Business Continutiy? What can corporations learn from the way you do business?

Photo by: Eric M. Martin