Winter

Winter

Winter has well and truly arrived and while there are many positives this brings, such as extra Christmas sales, festive joy and of course a brand new year, there’s also a number of challenges for businesses. The nature of these is also quite varied – which can make things trickier to manage – ranging from the wintery weather causing traffic chaos, to little things like covering holiday requests.

Read on to find out exactly what you need to do and how to do it!

 

Working around the poor weather

The UK weather is unpredictable at the best of times but during the winter it can be particularly bad. Whether it’s rain, snow, hail or cold and icy conditions, they can cause havoc on the roads and on public transport and in turn on your business. This might be staff being unable to get to work, or coming in late.

What to do: While we can’t control the weather you can work around it in a number of ways. Firstly, there’s the straightforward option of asking staff to be vigilant and check the weather before travelling. Also depending on the nature of the work you do, if possible you should setup systems that can allow staff to work from home.

If your business is dependent on travel though, it might be worth stating on your website or to your clients that due to adverse weather there may be delays in communication, deliveries and other arrival times.

 

Managing sickness

The colder seasons can also be a time where colds, viruses and other annoying illnesses can start to affect people. What’s more, these can be easily spread in smaller offices and workplaces and as you’ll be aware, staff absence can be difficult to manage – especially if you have smaller numbers to begin with.

What to do: Encourage staff to be sensible with their illness, remind them not to come in if they’re unwell as this risks them passing it on to others. At the same time, remind staff of basic hygiene such as sneezing and coughing into tissues and thoroughly washing their hands to again help prevent the spread of germs.


Offering seasonal promotions

Don’t forget that the winter is also a big chance to capitalise on seasonal sales starting from Black Friday, all the way up to the New Year.

What to do: With the festive period fast approaching, what you need to do is start getting in more stock and hiring or roping in more staff to handle the increased volume of sales. Along with this you should also publicise your seasonal promotions and winter deals on your website, other online platforms and through marketing methods like email and print media.


Seeking external help

On the subject of hiring more staff, it’s also worth seeking external help for other aspects of your business during this often busy time.

What to do: If you’re a smaller business or you are anticipating greater sales, then using the delivery services of an established and reliable company like Courierpoint can really help you out. Rather than having to deal with this yourself, you can leave it to an expert to do it for you.


Sorting out holiday requests

One more thing to remember is that during this period it’s likely that some staff will want to take holiday. This can sometimes be problematic.

What to do: While you won’t want to rob your employees of the opportunity to take holiday, the harsh truth is not everyone will be able to. Have a cut-off point to avoid any last-minute requests and you can always compromise by swapping shifts or ask people to work from home. You need to be firm with this though and not bow to late requests, as having a skeleton team around even between the national holiday dates is essential.

What you shouldn’t do of course is simply take each day as it comes; instead use this advice and get started today putting into place the respective steps that you need to do. This way you can ensure that the winter period isn’t as miserable as the weather can often be and is something that both you and your company can benefit from no matter how big or small your operations.

 

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