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Designing a Workshifting Disaster Recovery Plan

By Matt Martin on August 14, 2010 1:33 PM | Comments | No TrackBacks
Blue PrintOne of the things we have been wrestling with is building a sound disaster recovery plan for our business. If you have never done it, disaster recovery quickly turns into one of those never ending rabbit holes that take a lot of planning to get it right. But all of this time I never really translated disaster recovery into my personal life.

Until...

I lost the hard drive on our main iMac in our home. All of our digital pictures, our entire iTunes library, lots of documents, you get the picture. I have talked about some technology sins that I have committed in the past but not having a good backup of this system had to be my worst. I know better, I know how to build a good backup and recovery plan for a business, have done it several times in the past. But I sure didn't have a good one for home and I will bet that I am not alone.

After rebuilding our iMac, and being really lucky to come across a tool called Disk Warrior that saved my hide, I got to thinking about the close call and wondered why I couldn't apply some of the things that I have learned in business to my workshifting world.

Like I mentioned above, disaster recovery can be as big and as complex as you want to make it, but here are a few key areas to start your own workshifting disaster recovery plan:

  1. Get a good idea of where all of your important data resides. For us the killer apps on this machine were our iTunes and iPhoto libraries. For you it might be some important work documents. Find them and document where they are being stored.

  2. Identify your must have applications. These are the ones that you can't do without on a day-to-day basis. Document these must haves and then think about prioritizing them. In the event of a disaster you likely can't bring them all back at once. By having them prioritized it will give you a good concrete list to work from.

  3. Now that you know where your data lives get it off of your machine and preferably out of your home. There are several, cloud based, tools to help you do this. Take a look at Mozy and DropBox to get you started. To survive a real disaster (fire, flood) it does no good to have your backup disks sitting in the drawer under your machine.

  4. Take your key list of applications and start thinking how you can make them more resilient. This one can be a tuffy, but if you are a small business it could be that your Quickbooks invoices are your lifeblood. What should you try to get back first? Hopefully you will already have that answered.
These are a few key areas to think about but there are certainly many other areas that may be important for you, depending on the nature of your work, data, and needs.

How about you? Had any personal disaster stories that you want to share?

Photo Credit: Will Scullin

When a Workshifter Comes In From the Road

By Chris Brogan on August 10, 2010 12:13 AM | Comments | No TrackBacks
Workshifting Goes To Ground


I've been workshifting since before there was a term for it. I started back in the late 90s, when I convinced my office that I could manage most of my project details remotely. By the early 2000s, when the company where I worked acquired a new building, I even built workshifting (then called telecommuting) into the desk counts for the office space. Years later, I brought workshifting to my marketing company, New Marketing Labs , because my home is 67 miles away from my desk.

But recently, I picked up an office space closer to home because working out of coffeeshops was getting too disruptive. And in so doing, it gave me pause to reflect on the differences between being 100% nomad and having a desk. It also gives me a new way to workshift, so I'll share that, too.

The Immediate Stretch Out


The first thing I noticed upon getting an office is that I've stretched out my stuff again. I bought a second monitor right away (because living inside a laptop lid is restrictive). I had to buy all these "supplies" like an easel board and dry erase boards, so that I could have some "object permanence." When we're workshifting back and forth to different coffee shops, we can't do that kind of thing.

Planning Board


Oh, and I had to start thinking about refreshments and breaks, because when you're at a coffee shop, you're surrounded by things to snack on and drink, but in an office environment, especially if you've rented your own, there's nothing unless you bring it in.

New Benefits for Workshifting


One thing I noticed right away. The moment I had a desk in my office, I didn't want to be tethered to my cell phone all the time for communication. I turned on Skype right away (though I roll in invisible mode all the time). I'm also renewing my GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar usage (they're a client and the sponsor of this blog).

The benefit of having my office is that I'm not worried about all the loud noises and interruptions of others around me. It doesn't matter when the espresso machine runs, because there's not one in my office. So, I can use remote communications tools much more effectively here.

Having an office space away from my main office (but not a coffee shop) means that I can have more team-minded meetings again. Because I can use remote communications software, I can see everyone's frustrated heads more easily, and that sometimes helps (because nonverbal cues are important to better understanding).

Still a Nomad at Heart


I still have to leave this office behind sometimes. Not counting airports and hotel rooms, I still have to get out to coffee shops and bookstores sometimes. I can't stand too much silence. And hey, sometimes a change of locale helps the experience of thinking and understanding.

When all is said and done, there are benefits to having some kind of office space from time to time. Workshifting isn't about giving up offices entirely, nor is it about staying out there away from the mothership forever. What it is about are options. The more you can work in ways that best suit your role at work as well as your roles in life, the better it is for everyone.

Desktop Virtualization as Workshifting Enabler

By Landon Fraley on July 20, 2010 11:06 AM | Comments | No TrackBacks
3778910786_9583c1063b_m.jpgAs a sales engineer at Citrix I spend a good deal of my time working with customers as they investigate our desktop virtualization technologies.This means I rarely work from the same location for more than a day or two at a time. I definitely consider my home office my primary workplace, but I could just as easily be at our local corporate office, a customer's office, one of our partners' offices, or camped out at the nearest Panera or Starbucks in between meetings. It's pretty obvious I'm a workshifter and I love the lifestyle, but even better is that I get to work with some of the best technologies for enabling workshifting.

I'm regularly brought into meetings to discuss topics like device mobility, desktops and applications that roam with the user and secure remote access solutions. Most of the time my customers are trying to target a specific problem area like disaster recovery, supporting their branch office desktops ordealing with the increase inlaptop usage across the enterprise, but lately I've heard more and more questions about supporting mobile devices like smartphones or tablets. It probably doesn't hurt that I'm a heavy user of my iPadin meetings, but when you're dealing with hospitals, media companies, law firms, or accounting firms - to name just a few - it's no surprise to hear these types of devices are already showing up in their user communities. What's great is that I can show them how I leverage my iPad in conjunction with our internal implementation of desktop virtualization to work from anywhere. It's just as easy for them to implement a similar solution for their users.

They may not realize it, but the organizations that implement desktop virtualization are paving the way for workshifting to become a more widespread and accepted practice. They may be looking to solve a specific business problem, but in the process they're changing the very nature of how their users interact with and consume their desktops and applications for the better. Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way implying that desktop virtualization begets workshifting, but I honestly believe that as desktop virtualization usage expands within the enterprise, the rate of workshifting will also increase.

If you work for an organization that's implemented desktop virtualization, do you use it on a regular basis? Do you have secure remote access to your desktop or is it only used internally? I'd love to hear if you've been able to use it to workshift and how your experience went. I think the two are a perfect fit, but I want your feedback.


Photo Credit: Aranath

The Great Debate: Coffee Shop vs Home Office

By Adam DiStefano on June 9, 2010 4:50 PM | Comments | No TrackBacks
2488092622_55b522c1d6_m.jpgThere has long been a great debate among workshifters.  The magnitude of this debate has people from either camp bitterly divided, fiercely loyal, and ready to do battle to defend their side.  I speak, of course, of the great workshifting debate of coffee shop versus home office.

In order to take a stance on the topic, I'm going to make a good ol' fashioned pros & cons list of the two options, and by the end, hopefully, you'll be able to decide for yourself which of these two options makes the most sense for your workshifting lifestyle.

PROS


Home office

1. Quiet.  There is no question that when you work from a home office, you can generally get as much or as little quiet as you want.  Close the door, take a deep breath and start hammering away at your tasks.  If you need absolute peace to get anything done, there are few other settings that will provide this level of tranquility (unless of course you have kids at home... in which case, this point's moot).

2. Uninterrupted privacy. 
Sometimes, workshifters work on sensitive projects.  If you're working on design or copy for a big client who wants to make a big splash, you can't afford to have someone catch a glimpse of your sketches.  In a home office, you can be sure that there is no corporate espionnage going on.  Unless your significant other works for the competition.  In which case, you may want to stay with friends until your assignment wraps up.

3. Work in your pajamas.  The holy grail of frustrated cubicle workers is to be able to work from home in their pajamas (or less, if that's how you roll).  While most successful workshifters have long ago learned that the key to good performance is to treat every day as if they were going into the office, having the option of working on a quarterly report in your boxers is certainly a perk.

4. Minimal expenses.
  Sure, you have to get an internet connection, and you have to brew your own coffee, but chances are, even if you were working in an office, you'd still have those expenses.  What you can save on is expensive cafeteria lunches, the cost of a dozen grande lattes, and commuting costs.

5. Making phone calls is easy.  If you work with clients or colleagues, you need to make at least a handful of phone calls a day.  Being able to speak on the phone in a closed door office is a lot more comfortable than making that same call with chattery background noise, or loud colleagues having their own calls.

Coffee Shop

1. Action keeps you awake.  No matter how much you love what you do for a living, there are definitely times when you have to slog through tasks that put you to sleep.  Working in a coffee shop can perk you up not only through the caffeine, but also through the action going on around you.  For better or worse, being around people forces you to keep up certain appearances.  Passing out on your laptop in a Starbucks just wouldn't do.

2. Benefit from someone else's wifi connection.
  A lot of coffee houses offer free wifi connections, which make them the ideal place if you're out of town, or if your own home internet connection is down, or if you haven't gotten around to setting up your own home internet connection.

3. Serendipitous encounters.  Chances are, if you're working from home, you're not going to be having too many adventures.  There is no chance to be interrupted, but there is also no chance to have serendipitous encounters with possible business contacts (or other).  Part of the beauty of coffee shop workshifting is that you will run into other workshifters, and while most can offer only their camaraderie - not a terrible thing to have in and of itself - others may surprise you by turning out to be important business contacts.

4. Entertainment.  Sometimes, when working from a coffee shop, I like to point and laugh at all the people running away from the office for 10-15 minute coffee breaks, only to scurry back with their treats.  This behavior should be practiced discretely and only when you're having a rough day.

5. Inspiration. 
If you do any kind of remotely creative work, chances are you're always looking for inspiration.  In my experience, there's little more inspirational than people watching, and coffee shops, after parks, are probably the best people watching spots in any city.

CONS

Home Office

1. Loneliness.  As much as it sometimes feels like a relief that you no longer have to hide from Bob from accounting when he stops by "for a quick chat," it is easy to forget that we're social creatures and sooner or later, the water cooler chatting will be missed.  When you work from home, there's no one to chat with (except for maybe the cat).

2. Must have your own internet connection.  It stands to reason that if you're going to workshift in the modern age, you need an internet connection.  For most people this isn't an issue, but for a handful of people who have still been getting by without internet at home, working from home will force you to bite the bullet and shell out for a decent connection.

3. Risk of never changing scenery.  When you work from home, you enter a weird time warp where you lose track of the outside world, and it becomes all too easy to become a complete shut-in.  I've heard tales of workshifters who haven't left their homes for three or more days at a time, because they've fallen into the trap of laziness.  This isn't good for your mental well-being, or for your happiness.

4. Possibility of procrastination is huge.  Every office worker's biggest enemy is procrastination.  Whether it's wasting time surfing the web, checking facebook, twitter, or anything else.  This is easiest to do at home.  Not to mention you could also procrastinate with a myriad of other activities, like television, doing laundry, tidying up the den, re-arranging photo albums, building a birdhouse...  the possibilities are endless.

Coffee Shop

1. Intimidation.  While many coffee shops have gotten used to the idea of workshifters buying an overpriced caffeinated beverage and installing themselves at a small table for a few hours, some still aren't particularly fond of the practice.  Getting dirty stares from a frustrated barrista who is waiting for you to order another $6 cappuccino to replace the one you finished 20 minutes ago is not conducive to productivity.

2. Risk of crappy connections.  In a coffee shop, you have no control over the quality of the internet connection.  You will eventually get to know which shops have good internet service, and which are flaky, but at the beginning, you may find yourself getting your cup of joe, setting yourself up for a day of work, only to be frustrated by constantly dropping wifi signals.

3. The unexpected run-in.  Unless you drive to a coffee shop 100 miles outside of your hometown (maybe more), there is always the risk that you will have an unexpected run-in with acquaintances.  These run-ins are made awkward by the fact that most people you run into don't realize that you're actually working.  It's often difficult to back away from these conversations.  Especially when you're in the middle of a real creative flow, these run-ins can be a serious deflater.

Conclusion

In the end, there is no right answer. Some people will prefer the calm of working from home, while others will prefer the hustle and bustle of working from crowded cafes.  For most people, however, switching between the two common modes of workshifting from time to time is a good idea.  It keeps things interesting.  After all, workshifting is about increasing freedom, so might as well take advantage of that freedom and explore all the possibilities.

What do you think?


Photo Credit: Earl G

What Do You Do At The Office?

By Hugh Tonks on May 13, 2010 4:01 PM | Comments | No TrackBacks
3631119830_7be2edf6aa_m.jpgHave you ever been asked that question, either by an adult (who might understand your answer) or a small child (who probably won't)? How do you describe what you do all day? Well, the answer might be simpler than you think; it all depends on how much detail you want to go into. In truth, there is an infinity of different answers, all of which lie on a spectrum that, at one end, provides no detail at all, and at the other, an excruciating amount. Useful answers tend to be somewhere in between these two extremes.
 
Here's an example: to what extent are people the same? You could categorise us all identically, by saying that we're mammals. Or you could claim that people fall into two categories - male and female. Or you could divide us up by other characteristics: eye colour, hair colour, ear shape, foot size,  .... or you could choose so many descriptive characteristics that everybody, even an identical twin, falls into a category of size 1. In fact, the technique of deciding how detailed your answer needs to be is an important one (as it determines the level of abstraction at which you are operating), and can help us solve some of the problems of remote working.

If you are trying to come up with a technological "solution" (and I use quotes because it will only be a solution if it works for you), then you don't want a view of the world in which all remote workers look different; you want one where they look the same. That way, you only have to devise one solution, not millions. So we need to take a highly abstract view of what remote workers do. An important first distinction is between task workers and knowledge workers; we can lump task workers together, because all they need is access to whatever software lets them carry out their allotted tasks (such as a CRM system for a home-worker who would otherwise be a call centre operative), plus any comms equipment (such as a phone to talk to customers). There's probably a bit more to task workers' lives, in that they may need to communicate with their coworkers, but they generally live at the task end of the task-knowledge spectrum.

So what about knowledge workers (and the knowledge-working component of task work)? Here the situation is more complex, but we can attempt a broad classification, with a small number of categories, which fits most jobs pretty well. It's safe to say that the vast majority of knowledge workers undertake a subset of the following activities, in some proportion:

  • Decision-making
  • Generating new or improved "material" (any kind of artefact, output or information),
    • As a solo activity
    • As a group activity
  • Finding material
    • Which is new to you
    • Which you've seen or worked on before
  • Communicating with others
    • Synchronously (at the same time, e.g. phone)
    • Asynchronously (at different times, e.g. email)
  • Pre-communication activities
    • Discovering who can help you or answer your questions
    • Determining someone's availability
    • Determining the best way of contacting someone
  • Sharing your material with others
  • Dealing with incoming material (shared with you by others)
    • Filtering (removing the dross)
    • Prioritisation (sorting the non-dross)
Some people may carry out other minor activities that don't fall into any of these categories, but the list above is complete for most purposes. Now go down the list and look at each item: with the exception of decision-making and solo material generation, all activities require access to remote people, remote information, or both. Therefore, any software that can realistically claim to be a "solution" must provide the remote worker with help in all such activities. Instantly, we can see that many touted solutions are nothing of the sort, because they only address a fraction of the problem space. And the more solutions you need to get all the bases covered, the less well such solutions will be integrated.

But does integration of these partial solutions matter? You betcha! The brain works through chains of association, by following links between remembered people, places, things and experiences. If software isn't chained together in the same way, it won't keep up with the way in which you think; you'll be dragged down to its pace and way of doing things, not freed up by it. The best overall solutions will be designed around the way you want to use them - that's largely what a great User Experience is about.

In my next post, I'll start exploring some of the technologies at our disposal today, and examine the degree to which they can help the remote worker. But I feel fairly confident in saying that we haven't yet seen the killer app in this area.

Do you agree?

Photo Credit: mkosut

The A.B.C.'s of Workshifting

By David Baeza on May 7, 2010 11:58 AM | Comments | No TrackBacks
2214743879_131a6f2968_m.jpgThe idea for this post hit me this morning as I was struggling to balance Workshifting with my personal life.  I finished a video call and than was scrambling to get out of the house when my daughter grabbed me and asked, "Daddy, can't you stay home?"

At that moment I thought, "do I really need to be going into the office?"  I have all the tools I need to workshift successfully, including a supportive work culture, yet I was compelled to go into the office.  As it turns out, it was my insecurity.  I believed that to be effective in my meeting, I had to be face-to-face.

So out the door I went, I got to the meeting, grabbed a coffee and found a great seat.  I looked up at the presentation screen and watched 3/4 of the attendees join the meeting online.  This got me thinking about challenging accepted norms.  Not just my personal norms but traditional meeting norms, and norms in terms of process, technology, marketing, social media, and more.  What I blurted out next was purely coincidental, "...always be challenging!"

A: Always
B: Be
C: Challenging

Sometimes I get comfortable with how things are; how I interact with my peers, the technology I use, when I should meet face-to-face, etc. This also got me thinking about "sacred cows" at work.  What is their real value, and is it productive to even allow a "cow" category?  In my view, the problem with norms, like sacred cows, is it may breed a sense of complacency.  I guess it could be called a Complacency Cow, which is not to be confused with the infamous Purple Cow (thanks Seth Godin).

BaezaABC.JPG


However, the terms Cultural and Sacred are powerful forces within a company, and are to be treated with respect.  The ability to influence or lead change needs to be candid but measured.  Be sensitive to the words you choose, but in all cases be an effective voice.  The key to being effective is not about being right.  It's about convincing others that there is a better way.

So next time your faced with a cultural norm, a scared cow, a must-have report, a can't-miss meeting, think about the A.B.C.'s.  The point of A.B.C. is to stimulate creative thinking, which is nothing more than figuring out a better way of doing things.  Next time try this, put your "sacred cow" on a mind map and draw out all the dependencies.  This is a great visual way to spot inefficiency, which can help slaughter a sacred cow or two.

What do you think?

Photo Credit: Mattack


Is Workshifting Becoming More Prevalent Within the Federal Government?

By Inga Rundquist on April 29, 2010 10:55 AM | Comment | No TrackBacks
fullofideas.jpgMartha Johnson, the new administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA) has become a passionate endorser for Workshifting since her appointment to the post in February of this year. She has given numerous speeches in which she has touted the advantages of remote working environments.

 Earlier this week she backed teleworking during a speech at GSA's Interagency Resources Management Conference in Cambridge, Md:
"Why are you not teleworking? Are you in love with the 1980s for some reason?"
And at a keynote for FOSE in March she talked about the role teleworking played in keeping government agencies operating during the storms that rocked the Northeast this winter. She said that nearly 60 percent of GSA employees worked remotely during the blizzard.

"I am personally passionate about this notion that 'work is what you do, not where you do it.' I believe we are moving away from the industrial model where you watch workers do work. That is waste in the system. There's no need to have a system where people watch people. There's a fundamental shift in culture that everyone needs to understand, and that is something that is core to this for me."

This shift in culture that she references is just as big of a barrier for private companies as it is for the federal government. While many companies have embraced Workshifting, there are still plenty out there that have yet to accept this idea that (as Johnson so eloquently puts it) "work is what you do, not where you do it."

I still regularly come across people - from clients, friends or family - who have a hard time grasping that I don't work in the MindFire office. Many people automatically assume I don't work as hard as my office counterparts or that I have the luxury of sleeping until noon (not true). Others think that my remote working environment will come in incredibly handy once my husband and I have kids. After all, I'll just be able to watch the kids since I'm not in the office all day, right?

So the question becomes - how do you help facilitate that shift in culture? A solid "business case" for teleworking is certainly an important part. In addition to productivity and efficiency, Johnson believes there are also security and environmental benefits that should be touted.

But in order for the established cultural beliefs to take hold, change needs to take place on a more personal scale, as well. I think the sheet logistics of Workshifting are daunting enough for some to simply dismiss the idea. I believe that the more people work with Workshifters and are exposed to the benefits (and perhaps downfalls) of this type of working arrangements, the more accepted into the mainstream teleworking will become.

As such, an increased acceptance of teleworking in the federal government will likely also ultimately help increase the acceptance in the private sector.


What do you guys think?


Photo Credit:
Cayusa

Professional Space and Coworking

By Philip Proefrock on April 27, 2010 1:02 PM | Comments | No TrackBacks
Phillip.jpgIf you're a WorkShifter, that great coffee shop may be a nice environment for you to work in, but where do you go when you need to meet with someone? Holding a business meeting at a cafe table might work in some instances, especially if the person you are meeting with is not a complete stranger to you. But what if you need to meet a new client? Then things can be a bit more difficult.

Home office workers can face the same problem, too. Not everyone keeps their house in presentation mode at all times. The distractions of a personal space may not be the right environment for some meetings. And family and pets can be added distractions, as well.

Coworking can provide a good option for a workspace with the characteristics of an office, but without the associated overhead. Coworking spaces are, first and foremost, work spaces. So there are fewer extraneous distractions than you are likely to find at home or a coffee shop.

Those of us with young children face the nearly insurmountable task of keeping toys and clutter out of the way. Staying on top of that, as well as running a business is just one more headache to deal with if you are meeting people at your home.

Some pets may not be conducive to a good meeting environment, either. Not everyone's dog is calm and quiet when strangers come to visit. Even locked away in a back room, a barking dog can disrupt a meeting. And a visitor with allergies to your pet may be uncomfortable in an environment where the animal has been living.

Another problem that neither the cafe nor the living room address very well is the kind of furniture that is available. Meetings with more than a couple of people are often difficult with the small tables found in most cafes. And very few homes have tables other than a kitchen or dining room table that are the size and scale of a meeting table.

Coworking spaces not only have work furniture, but private meeting rooms are the norm, so that you don't have to disturb your fellow coworkers, either. My coworking space has two meeting rooms, one that will accommodate 4-5 people, and the other for as many as 12. There's also a small phone room that sometimes gets used as a two-person meeting room.

Even with a home office, it can be useful to have a coworking space available as a place for meetings. For people who don't need full-time access, but who may occasionally find access to a coworking space useful, some coworking spaces offer day-passes or other short-term options that allow use of the facilities on an as-needed basis.

Do you have other options for meeting space?

Photo credit: Workantile Exchange

The Grass is Always Greener

By Inga Rundquist on March 26, 2010 2:13 PM | Comments | No TrackBacks
cubicles.jpgNo matter how liberating it is to work remotely, I'm sure most Workshifters would agree that we all have those days where we long for the traditional official environment. Whether it's the unannounced "drop-ins" from family and acquaintances during business hours, or the added pounds around the waistline as a result of coffee shop food, sometimes the office just seems like it would make everything better.

I realize that this is a typical "grass is always greener" scenario - after all, for each one of the points below it would be easy to craft a counter argument for Workshifting. Nonetheless, in my moments of Workshifting weakness, here's what makes me long for the office:

  1. Missing out on the watercooler chats and updates from coworkers lives. Same goes for the meeting before and after the meeting. Sure, social media can make up for these conversations, but it's just not the same as catching up on each other's lives in person.
  2. The body language cues during meetings. Let's face it - conference calls can be a huge pain. Next to making sure you can understand everyone clearly and trying to make out who exactly is talking, we're missing out on all the "between the lines" stuff that's going on. Not being able to see people's reactions during meetings can be a huge disadvantage.
  3. Being able to access files instantaneously instead of waiting on slow server downloads and dealing with finicky VPN connections.
  4. Unexpected client drop-ins at the office. Those unscheduled visits by clients and vendors are huge relationship builders and pretty rare when you're Workshifting on the road.
  5. The 11th hour cram sessions where everyone in the office is working together to get a project done on time. That energy is hard to replicate when you're sitting at home or among strangers in a coffee shop.
  6. Having an IT person to rely on to fix those crazy computer issues that pop up.
  7. Office potlucks. Sitting at home in your bathrobe and noshing on some brownies just isn't the same.  
  8. Listening to "Morning Edition" and "All things Considered" on the drive to and from work. I really miss the commuting time to catch up on the day's events and wind up and down from work.
  9. Those late Friday afternoons when everyone is crashing and just longing for the weekend to start.
What about you? Do you have these "grass is always greener" moments?

Photo Credit:
Stewf

Business Continuity Needs to be Continuous

By Justin Levy on March 9, 2010 10:14 AM | Comment | No TrackBacks
Today Andrew Millard stops by from across the pond to give his input on how to retain business continuity in the face of the unexpected.  Andrew is the eCommerce Director of EMEA at Citrix Online.

This winter has seen some extreme weather conditions on both sides of the Atlantic with snowfall causing havoc for businesses and employees alike. Of course, as savvy workshifters know, it doesn't have to be like this! But the sad fact is that there are many who are just not as prepared for these unexpected conditions when they occur.

In the UK, we conducted some research during the heavy snowfall that hit in January and found that the cost of the inclement weather was £1.35bn in lost productivity for British businesses in just one week!

In addition to this, we found that despite 78% of small businesses saying they were prepared to cope with the snow chaos, over half admitted that their business suffered as a result of the winter weather.

When we look at the impact on employees, around a quarter of British workers claimed they lost more than five working hours, with as many as 124 million working hours estimated to have been lost in total.

Let this be a warning!

But now is not the time for us to breathe a sigh of relief.  More snow is predicted, and it's just one of any number of unexpected events that can prevent workers getting into the office. During the rest of the year we're likely to face a gamut of other incidents that will make life hard for employees and employers, whether its strikes on public transport, natural disasters or something totally unexpected.

airplanes_in_snow.jpgSo for all those businesses that were impacted by the snow, now is the time to get your business continuity plan in place, so that next time round there will be no nasty surprises and you have the right processes and technologies in place so productivity losses are avoided.



And it doesn't have to be hard! Here are my five top tips for businesses on how to prepare for the unexpected:

1.    Communicate clearly in advance - make sure your workers know what they need to do if they can't get into the office

2.    Equip employees with the right technologies - remote access and Web conferencing tools can help them remain productive even if they can't get to their desk

3.    Talk to your customers - Phone redirects and remote access software will allow you to go about business as usual, but if clients or customers are likely to be affected let them know as early as possible and keep communication channels open

4.    Consider alternatives - Travel to the office or to client meetings may be impossible, but instead of canceling, conduct the meetings online instead

5.    Put in place a business continuity leader - if the unexpected happens, it's wise to have one person in your organization responsible for coordinating efforts and informing all staff of the potential impacts and company policies


What will do you to prepare for the unexpected?


Photo Credit: Anirudh Koul


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"If you work from your home, out of coffee shops, hotels, and airports every bit as much as the office, workshifting is for you. Tips, reviews, and opinions on the world of web commuting are what workshifting is all about."

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