If you own a business, you know that running it isn’t all a bed of roses. Unfortunately, some complications may arise from time to time – whether it’s something to do with the market, employee issues or both. Businesses usually have a contingency plan for disasters – and you should make sure you’re prepared for any sort of thing that may go wrong.
One of the things that business owners don’t think about day to day is a workers’ strike, as such a form of protest may leave them without valuable workers to fulfill the business’s demand. If you run a large business, you should be prepared to face such a scenario someday, and have a set plan to efficiently handle such a situation, before it permanently affects your business. Employees are known to strike for various reasons, mainly those related to the working conditions or receiving a higher wage.
Whatever the reason behind the strike may be, you should aim to manage it from its core and try negotiating with the workers. However, such negotiations can at times be very time consuming, that’s why we prepared a list of the most effective ways to handle a workers strike, in order to keep your business running smoothly, and without any unnecessary mishaps.
Strike Staffing
The first and foremost approach to a strike should be for you to keep your business going. The reality is that just because your company is striking doesn’t mean the whole world is, and you should try to still keep up with the work you currently have to keep up with the demand. Suppose your business stops operating because of a strike. In that case, it may lead to a domino effect of you losing customers, as they will have to go to another business to receive the product or service they require.
If you don’t have enough workers on your hands to meet the demand of your business, you should look into implementing strike staffing replacement workers, who will fulfill the positions for the time being. This can be a great temporary solution, as this will ensure that your business is functioning as per usual and that you’re meeting the demand, rather than missing out on potential clients.
Negotiate
It would help if you aimed to face the core of the problem and negotiate with your current employees. It is essential that you have contingency plans implemented and act fast when a strike happens; however, shifting workers’ positions or hiring temporary staff is only a short-term solution. In order to keep your business correctly functioning, you should ensure that you’re able to get your primary staff back on your team, who are specialized at the work they’re conducting. This would mean facing the route of the problems and negotiating their demands.
Negotiations can be a stressful, and time consuming part of running a business, that’s why you might want to think about hiring a 3rd party company that specializes in such labor negotiations.
Cooperate With Other Businesses
Many companies have cooperation agreements with each other in place to protect themselves in the event their workers go on strike. Businesses can suffer because of a major strike, and companies now form agreements to help one another in such instances.
If you’re running a business and want to implement some contingency plans in place, if a strike would occur, maybe you should look into simply connecting with other companies, which may have the same fears as you do. This will allow you to negotiate agreements with each other, which could be on the lines of providing each other with workers when the other companies go on strike or shifting a part of a production’s process to the other firm.
Such cooperation is more common than you might think and can be often seen in the airline industries, with other airlines providing flights for passengers of an airline that has gone on strike. This ensures that the damage caused by the strike is minimized and that your company won’t lose valuable clients and thus revenue.
Concluding
Unionization might be a vital part of many workforces, protecting them from exploitation, and allowing for effective negotiations, however, it can also be a burden for many employers, as they are always in fear of their workers going on strike. That’s why it’s essential for businesses to implement contingency plans to protect themselves from potential union strikes. It’s essential for companies to be prepared in case of a strike, to minimize any damages that could result from it, and cause them to both lose their client’s trust and decrease their client pool.
A business should always have contingency plans to protect itself from potential crises, and implementing strike staffing is an important one for companies to have. Such methods in place will form a protective barrier for companies to survive during any strike or negotiation period.
