Is your business ready for winter? Are your employees?

The one thing that is certain when it comes to Scottish winter weather is that it is unpredictable. Irrespective of whether it is snow, ice, wind, rain or flooding – mother nature can play havoc with the smooth running of businesses. Extreme weather may impact directly on your location, interrupt your supply chain or prevent you meeting the needs of customers.

Alongside the work being undertaken by Scotland’s emergency response organisations to ensure the nation’s infrastructure continues to operate in the event of extreme weather, the Scottish Government is running its Ready for Winter campaign from 21 October to 30 November.

The campaign has a simple message. Take a little bit of time to prepare for winter to save a lot of time and trouble should the weather take a turn for the worst.

To help businesses prepare for severe weather www.readyscotland.org contains a wealth of information and advice, including this business continuity leaflet.  Businesses are strongly recommended to consider how severe weather could impact on their operation, and what they can do to keep trading when it happens.

It is also important that businesses are reminding staff about the need to prepare for winter. If staff are prepared it means employers are less likely to suffer business disruption owing to staff being unable to work.

The Scottish Government has published a set of marketing materials that can be downloaded, printed out or added to a company intranet to encourage staff to get ready for winter. These promote the message of taking an hour to prepare now and save a lot of trouble later.

Materials are available for download by clicking here.