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London Tube Strike to cost £48M: Organisations need to offer ways of working from home

As the London Tube Strike looms, Cloud computing companies say that organisations need to find alternatives such as working from home for their employees.

The 24 hour RMT tube strike starts today (6th September), at 5pm and 8pm, and is set to cause major disruption and misery for commuters in a dispute over job cuts in ticket offices.  However, a separate 24 hour strike already began for Jubilee and Northern Line maintenance staff yesterday at 7pm.

According to Cloud computing outfit Riverbed technologies, organisations need to find alternative ways for staff to be able to work from home to minimise disruption to their business.

“In light of the problems workers are likely to face travelling to and from work during a tube strike, organisations could look to adopting a home working contingency plan,” says Mark Lewis, Senior Director of Marketing and Alliances at Riverbed Technology.

According to the London Chamber of Commerce, the strike will cost £48 million each day the underground is shut.

Colin Stanbridge, Chief Executive of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry said in statement, “The RMT need to accept that everyone in the private and public sectors are having to do more with less nowadays and understand that holding millions of commuters to ransom is an unacceptable response to not having its demands met”.

Some companies are already protecting themselves from any potential tube strike by allowing working from home for their employees.  Those that are lucky enough only need basic broadband access and a telephone line in order to carry out their day job.  Others need a more complete solution that includes allows them to be like a virtual employee in the office.

Some Cloud Computing companies offer services that allow companies to detect presence of an employee as well as voice and multi-media communication options such as video conferencing.

One such company is Outsourcery, who offer an integrated solution that brings together presence functionality, group chat, video conferencing as well as email and phone services.  Piers Linney, joint CEO of Outsourcery said that enquiries to them have risen by 125% in light of the planned tube strikes.

For those that cannot work from home, or must get to the office, should check the TFL journey planner for further information on planning a journey.  Extra buses are also planned on some routes.