Noro bug causes surge in home working
Employers urged to make home working more accessible during virus outbreaks to minimise impact on business.
With over 100,000 people a week catching the Noro sickness virus when most should be heading back to work after Christmas, Signify has reported up to 18% more remote logins to corporate systems over the past three days. With GPs recommending that Noro sufferers should remain at home for 48 hours after their symptoms have gone, for more enlightened companies there is no excuse for their employees not to work from home while they are ‘in quarantine’.
“The Noro virus has already lost millions of man hours for ‘UK plc’ but the impact on companies that have planned ahead for this type of event will be minimized,” says John Stewart, marketing director at Signify, a UK managed security service provider. “We have seen a surge in user login activity during the first few days of this week, compared to equivalent periods in previous years,” says Stewart: “We put this down to people taking NHS advice to stay away from the office and simply logging into the corporate network from home and getting on with their work.”
But the Noro virus is just the latest problem. Every 3-6 months there’s a significant national or regional issue that seriously affects a large number of people’s ability to get to work. These include floods, blizzards, train and tube strikes, terrorist threats and bomb scares, foot and mouth and avian flu. As a result, more companies are now taking measures to provide a short term response, sometimes referred to as ICE – In Case of Emergency.
“Employers that make provisions to allow their staff to work flexibly away from the office when and emergency strikes are reaping the benefits,” adds Stewart. “Most organisations provide secure remote access for a few senior staff and ‘road-warriors’, but the ability to give everyone short term secure remote access to email, files and applications really minimises the stresses and business losses created by these short term emergencies.”
