Lack of back-ups get my back up!

Ladies and Gentlemen... It has started!

I went to my car this morning and it was covered in frost for the first time this year. This is not a good thing; it signals that the real winter has started and it will be at least 3/4 of a year before it becomes warm to an acceptable level. It also means that I have at least a 25 minute wait when I get home before the radiators do their mighty work and warm the place up. It means that I will get home when it is night-time, it means that venturing outside involves putting on coats/hats/scarves/gloves which simply takes up too much of my time.

However, despite my whinging, I still make sure that I have my coat/hat/scarf/gloves ready for when this day comes. I may hate the cold, but I'm not daft enough to wait until the cold weather actually comes to think "maybe I should go get some clothing that is warmer than a t-shirt". I have reset the timers on my heaters for 25 minutes before I come in so it is toasty-warm when I arrive, and I had my warm socks ready for this morning. I made sure I was organised as I knew it was coming, so I planned for it, and I don't get why other people don't.

Take Christmas as an example. Ultimedia PR has done work in the past for a company called EuroDebt, who help people pay their debts back. It was always the way at Christmas apparently, that missed payments came about in December because, well, "it's Christmas". This isn't restricted to their client-base, people from all walks of life complain about being skint at Christmas. So, to help you out, I'm going to give you some privileged information: Christmas this year is going to be on the 25th December. I also hear it will be frozen at this date for the foreseeable future. There, Christmas will no longer be a surprise and you can now plan for it.

This may seem very obvious, but despite this it never ceases to amaze me how many businesses fail to plan for the cold weather. Every year, they don't plan ahead, and every year they're caught out by the same problems: more sick days, fewer staff, snowed in/out, delays on the roads, icy conditions, suppliers/customers being held up for all the above reasons etc. Why not? It makes perfect sense to plan for it, as you hopefully plan for most other things. Not planning for the problems the cold weather brings means that you are caught short when it matters most, your staff will resent coming in to an under-staffed office with no plan for them to get through the workload, your customers will not be impressed with the apparent chaos (which they WILL notice) especially if they have planned ahead, and suppliers will not be impressed by you holding them up when they have another eleventy six deliveries to get through that day.

Therefore, now that it has hit us, take some time to make a plan to cover for these. Think ahead about how you can avoid any problems before they arrive. Do you lose a lot of money to sick-days? Maybe paying for a round of flu-shots for your staff will be cheaper! Staff have to come down a road that is often blocked with snow? Can you make plans ahead for key staff to work from home?

There are many things you can do, but you need to start this now. Otherwise, you'll find out the hard way, when it's too cold to fix it.

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