Daily Mail urgent - are your staff working at home until Christmas due to strikes and snow?

With the rail strikes and postal strikes already planned as a double whammy of doom this week, the unexpected snow has been an added blow to small businesses right when they didn't need it. Whilst the rail strikes don't have quite the same impact now most are so well set up to work from home, the weather has closed a lot of schools here in Hertfordshire, so parents who were trying to get some work done are now juggling deadlines with demands for snacks. With this happening so close to Christmas, when high streets are desperate for footfall and shoppers to spend their money, it's a tricky balancing act for those employers who are trying to strike a balance between necessary precautions and making sure they have their staff ready for this busy period.

We're a work-from-home contact centre and business process outsourcing company. All staff are onshore and based throughout the UK. The benefit of the decentralised home worker model is when weather events and strikes like this occur, there is no impact on our ability to deliver support to our customers. Today we have had a stream of organisations, UK-wide, get in contact to request support with their telephone calls in the absence of their own staff at their offices due to the weather and strikes.

Our Christmas party was cancelled due to rail strikes and members of staff crashing due to ice. It's not been a great week. Our staff's wellbeing is more important than being in the office. Working from home during Covid means we are all now used to staff staying home and working productively, and when the weather gets like this they're safe.

Our staff work from home all the time as it stands, travelling to clients or suppliers as and when needed. This is a great advantage when you have travel disruptions due to snow and ice. Although I still find it incredible that inclement weather always stuns our transport networks, as though it was such as rare event and not something that in reality happens every year.

Loch Insh is an accommodation and outdoor centre near Aviemore. We are open to residents all year and our winter sports offering is opening this weekend. It's critical that our staff can get to work and only a limited number of head office staff can operate from home. That being said, we are in Scotland and the roads are clear despite about 6 inches of snow on the ground so we certainly haven't experienced the disruption expected in the south of the UK. Most of us prepare and have winter tyres on our cars by late November. Today (12 Dec) when temperatures reached -14 degrees, one staff member couldn't get into her car and was able to work from home and another couldn't start her car so took a taxi. There is no public transport from the rail network but the busses are running and even some footpaths have been cleared and gritted.

Courts have to carry on during the strikes so Judges, Court Staff, Barristers and other advocates will have to find alternative means of transport. As the legal system in England is still heavily weighted to London, that also poses a significant problem for claimants and defendants in particular who often live many miles away and rely on the rail network. With many courts still experiencing backlogs due to Covid and other reasons, it is vital the current transport issues are resolved. Hearings that are cancelled, often late in the day, cause additional costs to claimants and defendants, but may also increase emotional stress by dragging out proceedings unnecessarily.