London, UK, (PRWeb UK) October 17, 2009

The imminent arrival of the swine flu vaccine won’t help businesses as most employees won’t take it – according to research conducted by Glasscubes.

The long-awaited H1N1 vaccine has arrived and mass vaccinations are being prepared in the US, the UK and Europe, but will this really help businesses? The key targets to the vaccine programme are pregnant women, the young and the elderly, most of whom do not work; while those who do work are adamantly declaring in blogs, on twitter and in the press that they will not get it done. With the number of cases on a steep rise recently, the pandemic is far from over.

H1N1 is predicted to cost businesses between $ 1.5bn and $ 10bn globally* in lost work days, and the arrival of the vaccine is unlikely to change that. Most swine flu sufferers are requested to stay at home from work or school for up to 5 days, regardless of symptoms, yet many of those affected by the disease would have been capable of working for 2 out of those 5 days. The other issue of course is parents needing to take time off work to stay at home with sick children, leading to even more lost work days.

In order to deal with this problem some larger companies have been able to put home-working options in place to combat the forced time-off, but smaller companies often do not have the necessary cash flow to allow this; sadly they are also far more vulnerable when employees are out of the office as it equates to a greater percentage of their workforce.

A recent report from the UK’s CIPD (Chartered Institue of Personnel and Development) states up to half of the working population could go off sick and they recommend remote working and flexible hours to prevent the spread of infection. Ben Willmott, a senior public policy advisor at the CIPD, explains that this winter could see a major resurgence of the illness.

“There is a real danger that senior management teams ignore the threat to their business posed by a second and more serious wave of swine flu after seeing the first wave subside much more quickly than anticipated,” he said.**

So how do companies go about putting home-working options in place? Wayne Pope, Managing Director of Glasscubes (http://www.glasscubes.com), explains “Most businesses can set their employees up to work remotely easily and cheaply by using online applications, for example Glasscubes allows employees to share documents, calendars, tasks and discussions online securely as well as enabling free conference calls.”

No one really knows where Swine flu is going to take us or how effective (or not) the vaccine might be, but we all know that during an economic recession businesses need to protect themselves as best they can.

*based on average salaries, predicted numbers of cases and number of people employed in Europe and the US

** http://www.cipd.co.uk/news/inthenews/_Archive/swine-flu-sick-leave-rates.htm

About Glasscubes

Glasscubes is a privately funded, UK company that was created in the autumn of 2008, at the beginning of the financial crisis, the aim of which has always been to help small and medium businesses be more productive without exploding their budget. Glasscubes does this through their simple online service that brings together branded intranet, document management, project management and simple CRM. To make this affordable to all companies the entry level is free and there are also several low cost monthly packages to choose from.

For more information:

http://www.glasscubes.com

Contact Sophie Le Brozec:

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7873 2275

http://twitter.com/GlassCubes

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MADI Corp Emergency H1N1 Staffing

Needham, MA (PRWEB) September 29, 2009

For countless businesses of all sizes, suddenly having to operate with fewer employees can have a devastating effect on business operations. When the cause of fewer employees is a sickness that is easily spread and with a vaccine that is available in limited in quantities, a business continuity plan is an absolute necessity. With the H1N1 virus reaching pandemic status in April, it has become clear that H1N1 emergency staffing is a very real need for businesses.

In light of concerns from the CDC about the 2009 H1N1 Season, MADICORP has announced it will extend its emergency staffing services into emergency H1N1 staffing

for businesses with employees affected by the H1N1 virus.

Typically MADI has specialized in temporary staffing for labor disputes, however with the very real threat of H1N1 impacting businesses across the country, they realize non-strike related resources for crisis situations such as an H1N1 outbreak are necessary as well and have taken steps to offer emergency staffing to counteract the unfortunate effects of a pandemic.

According to Spokeswoman Michele Vincent, “The CDC has recommended that businesses send home employees who experience flulike symptoms because of the high level of risk.” With the number of H1N1 related cases expected to rise in the coming year, Vincent added “If they have employees who go home sick, we can step in and supply them with the technical skill sets they need for their specific industry.”

So far, MADI reports that a variety of industries have already shown a keen interest in preventing the impact of an H1N1 outbreak from affecting their business, demonstrating that the threat is already a very real concern with a potential influence that’s more significant than many would expect.

For the 2009-2010 H1N1 season MADI has prepared to provide H1N1emergency staffing for the Aerospace & Defense, Beverage, Chemicals, Corrugated, Energy, Food Processing, Industrial Manufacturing, Media, Packaging, Paper, Pharmaceuticals, Plastics, and Warehouse Industries. For more information, call 800-7800-500 or visit www.madicorp.com

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