Getting back into the swing of things

Like I said on Monday, I’m lucky I work from home, because I’ve been sick all week.  Really sick.  Sicker than I’ve been in years it feels like.  Now that I’m feeling better, and can string words together in my usual semi-logical fashion, this experience makes me wonder if companies are prepared for a major flu outbreak or something else that would keep people from the “office”.  Heck, it makes me wonder if companies have ways for letting sick employees just stay home and work if they can, get better, then return to work (and therefore not infect their co-workers).

There is nothing like a cold or flu running rampant through an office to ruin productivity.  My advice to companies large and small would be to just let people stay home.  Let them work remotely.  Check e-mail, work as they can.  What you don’t want as a company is your employees coming into work sick and spreading it to everyone else.  The productivity loss can be tremendous.  Better, also, to plan and work out the bugs on a small scale, then wait until there is a major flu outbreak and people are told to stay home.

Suggestions:

• VoIP phone systems
• Web-enabled Exchange
• Web-based document management
• IM/Skype

So are you ready?