Only this last week the Met Office issued yellow weather warnings for rain and wind. While this year has been relatively dry, the last week has proven that summer is truly over, and we’ve entered a wet and windy autumn season. Now is the time to start thinking about winter safety.

As the year goes on, and the months become colder, it usually becomes much drier and much cooler too. The cold, dry winter season can cause multiple problems for businesses and the general public combined, when weather alerts become more alarming as ice, snow and treacherous conditions cause issues for companies across the country.

How best, then, can you prepare your business for the cold months ahead? Here are a few pieces of winter safety advice from us.

Prepare by Informing Employees in Advance

You can’t prepare for everything. Yet each year, we know what to expect when winter arrives. Cold weather, hectic roads, ice and snow and energy issues. Depending on your type of business, any one of these factors could affect you. Planning ahead of time for extreme weather can allow your employees to know what to do if poor weather hits.

For example, building an extreme weather plan can help you keep business running smoothly. This can be anything from building work-from-home processes (something that may have been perfected during COVID) to what happens if the heating goes down. The idea is to increase awareness of ‘what happens next’ so that more employees know how to handle a cold weather crisis. This would no doubt help business return to normal quicker.

Buying in Resources to Avoid Winter Safety Disruption

Nothing causes more disruption than not having what you need to continue working. While the weather is icy, your employees should be able to get to work, but when they get there, are you ready for them?

Buying in rock salt, for example, can keep your car park and entrance safe to use. You have a duty to your staff, visitors, and customers to keep them safe. Applying an effective amount of rock salt around your premises is doing your bit to keep people safe. Direct365 have a vast range of rock salt at reasonable prices and different sizes.

Set Up Your Company for Multi-Channel Business

Companies are much more ready for disruption thanks to the adaptations they made during the COVID-19 pandemic. More restaurant’s started delivering food, therapists held sessions over video-call and call-centres pivoted to home working. These are just some examples of businesses adapting to keep moving. With the winter months offering up different challenges, it is important that your business can be as flexible as possible.

Minimise any Physical Damage

Cold weather is known to cause physical damage because as things freeze, they can expand. It’s always important to keep an eye on utility pipes, damage to your business and prevent breakage to physical structures too. You can often prevent damage and interruption with the right amount of planning. You can also ensure safety of your staff and customers by actively keeping an eye on any areas of potential damage.

Frosty mornings have already arrived, so it is important that you prepare your business for the cold winter ahead. Winter safety is important and planning well ahead of time could be the difference between a normal winter and one that had wreaked havoc for your company.

Implementing our tips above will help avoid much unwanted winter disruption. At Direct365, we have many of the items you will need to keep your workplace safe from ice and snow. See here for our salt and grit range.

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