Flooding, fire or flu pandemic are just some of the emergencies that could cause major disruption your business.
Imagine being faced with half your employees absent through illness, your premises inaccessible because of a terrorist threat, or total telecommunication failure resulting from a strike.
Surprisingly, Britain has no specific law requiring employers to have business-continuity plans. But there are plenty of regulations that would come into play should an emergency arise.
First, you have a general duty to provide a safe place and system of work for your employees. This means that you must take reasonable steps to make sure your employees are protected from reasonably foreseeable dangers. Having proper emergency procedures, training and communication systems are all part of this.
Secondly, you must provide appropriate support to workers caught up in the emergency. This could mean, for example, offering employees suffering stress, depression or other psychological disorders reasonable time off, or perhaps a phased return to work. In the most severe cases, it could even mean offering professional counselling.
A recent Chartered Management Institute survey showed that fewer than half of UK businesses have a specific business-continuity plan in place. While firms are not breaking the law by not having one, organisations that plan for emergencies tend to suffer less severely from the initial impact and recover more quickly from the subsequent disruption.
I therefore advise you to carry out a risk assessment. Identify your key tasks and the employees you need to carry them out.
Consider which alternative premises you could easily move into, or examine how home working might help you to get over the initial effects.
Plan how you would communicate with your employees and customers, and get back as quickly as possible to business as usual.
Constantly review and update your plans to take account of changes in the company, industry or wider world.
For further information or advice, please click here to contact a specialist business lawyer.
Notes to Editors
Pearson Hinchliffe Commercial Law is a commercial law practice providing a range of legal services to business and commercial clients in Manchester, Oldham and across the North West. The firm's specialities include Company & Commercial, Employment Law, Commercial Litigation and Commercial Property matters.
As one of the leading law firms in the North of England, Pearson Hinchliffe’s mission is to be ‘the complete law firm’ providing the highest quality legal services to its clients. It does this by offering practical and cost effective, high quality legal advice for a wide range of clients. Each client is catered for as an individual with their business and personal requirements taken into account which allows for a highly personalised service.
For more information on this article or Pearson Hinchliffe Commercial Law, please contact a member of the marketing communications team on +44 (0)161 785 3500 or email muhammed.shaikh@pearson-hinchliffe.co.uk
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