Winter is coming. Summer has been a little different to usual, with a global pandemic and a national lockdown. You may have been living an entirely different lifestyle both personally and professionally, but now it’s coming to an end. While you’ve been busy preparing your business to deal with reopening and taking precautions to make sure it’s COVID-safe, winter may have snuck up on you.
But, after what might have been an uncertain year, with low takings and other challenges, your business might not be able to cope with a poor winter season so it’s more important than ever that you take the right precautions to keep it at its best, even when the weather might not be.
Make a Detailed Plan Considering Your Specific Needs
Preparing your business for winter will be very specific to your company and its operations. A retail store may do well financially over the colder months, but they will still need to be prepared for poor weather, staff struggling to get to work, cold conditions, and ready to make changes to keep both staff and customers comfortable and happy.
If your business includes water flow, you may need to take precautions such as installing Fiberglass Building to protect your water management equipment and help you to manage flow effectively, whatever the weather.
Sit down and spend some time writing a list of every way the weather could possibly affect your business, its operations, your customers and your staff. Think about any challenges that you may face and the things that you can do to help.
Prepare for Snow
The worst-case scenario for many businesses when winter hits is deep snow. What would you do if the snow was deep and people couldn’t travel? Make a plan, just in case. If you have team members that live close, could they be on call in emergencies? Or, could you move some of your employees into a hotel close to your workplace? Could you improve your online services so that you can carry on making money even if you are unable to open?
Protect Your Staff
Winter can be great, but it can also be dangerous. Make sure your staff members know that they are your priority, no matter what. If any of your team live far away, don’t make them work in the snow unless they can stay closer. Make sure your building is warm and inviting, allow your staff to wear warmer clothing, and offer regular breaks when the conditions aren’t ideal.
Consider Home Working Options
Some businesses don’t lend themselves to home working, at least not easily. But you might be able to change some job roles to make remote or flexible working possible. If people can work from home without doing too much harm to your business, let them. If you aren’t sure that home working could work for your company, try it out on a trial basis.
Communicate Well
The problem with winter is that we don’t really know what will happen and when. Some years are terrible. The temperature plummets suddenly, even in fall, the snow starts to fall, and it doesn’t get better for weeks or even months at a time. Other years, it’s relatively mild, or at least the cold weather doesn’t last for too long. This makes it hard to plan and is why it’s best to plan for the worst.
But, it does mean that things are likely to change quickly. Make sure you have contact details for your staff so that you can communicate easily, and be sure to keep in touch if they spend some time working from home. Then, make sure you’ve got ways, such as social media and email, to communicate any changes to your business, such as reduced opening hours, or selling online, to your customers quickly and effectively.
Protect the Building
Of course, your staff aren’t the only things that will be affected by the poor weather. Failing to protect the building that you work in can lead to costly damage. Take some time now to get the boiler serviced, to protect the pipes with lagging, to check window and door seals and to make any necessary repairs to insulate the building better.
Winter isn’t necessarily bad for business. Some sectors, such as retail, do very well, at least in the run-up to Christmas and the January sales, but it is always different. Weather forecasts are unpredictable, we don’t know whether we’re going to be snowed in or face other inclement conditions and so it’s crucial that we take the time to prepare our businesses.