The Coronavirus is evolving rapidly. Health Organisations worldwide are responding to the threat. A vaccine search may take months until it is ready to begin human clinical trials.
Without a vaccine or treatment, the most effective way to stop it spreading is to limit transmission by identifying infected individuals as quickly as possible, and isolating them for treatment before they can infect others. As with SARS and other health pandemics, there is clearly a huge effect on business continuity and a need to ensure policy is in place to support companies and their employees. Employers need to look at contingency plans to keep their business moving, such as remote working, and ensuring that they have the technology in place to enable their teams to do so.
Most analysts are currently forecasting limited economic damage and a rebound by midyear, but the closing down of China is having a ripple effect across the global economy. Coronavirus may be getting all the press attention at present, but in the US the common flu kills over 40000 Americans every year. So what can businesses do to ensure that they can prepare for the impact of pandemics and mitigate threats? How would your company survive if your workforce was unexpectedly hit?
The WHO provides much guidance on epidemics and how to approach them, but a key feature to ensure productivity and profit are not driven to a halt is employing remote workers. With today’s technology, face to face interaction with colleagues, employees and customers is rarely required – and teleconferencing tools are commonly used instead of in-person meetings. When the government advises against all non essential travel, companies already working this way will undergo much less disruption.
Many other institutions affected by pandemics, such as school closures and reduced public transport, could affect your employees ability to get to the office. Working remotely means employees are able to care for family as well as continuing to complete projects without the problems faced by in-house workers.
Remote working as a response to pandemics should be integral to business continuity and emergency planning. But can also be an answer to many other issues which can affect workers ability to get to the office – think about how floods, heavy snow, childcare issues, terrorist attacks, train strikes, or even a major football match can hinder your employees ability to work effectively? Ensuring you have a remote workforce can increase productivity and ensure your business is not brought to a standstill.
With the belief that outcome-based delivery should be at the heart of all business, ten80 are first to deliver a connected workforce – linking every SAP client with every SAP contractor globally. With links into contingency planning and disaster recovery, ten80 allows clients to facilitate global remote working utilising SAP experts from any continent. The process is simple – SAP clients raise outcome-based work requests and the global contractor workforce bid to fulfil the outcome. The marketplace guides contractor selection with some clever algorithms (so you get the perfect expert) and, on selection, the marketplace connects both together to facilitate ‘work’. Switch on your global remote workforce today.