As soon as Christmas was over, the shops were talking about Easter.

Britain was warned yesterday of another big freeze this winter – with snow expected to sweep in as early as next month.

Climate change does not mean that there will be no severe cold weather conditions during the winter months; it means that the weather will be less predictable and that there may well be greater extremes.

Now, temperatures are forecast to drop to below average for the time of year over the next few months.

The early onset of winter was predicted by experts at Exacta Weather.

Long-range forecaster James Madden said on its website: “As we head towards winter, I expect to see the first signs of some moderate to heavy snowfalls as early as October or November in certain parts of the UK.”

“I expect December, January, and February to experience below-average temperatures, with the heaviest snowfalls occurring within the time frame of November to ­January across many parts of the UK.”

The UK and Ireland would be hit by ­“prolonged periods of extreme cold and snow from the Arctic regions as cold easterlies or north-easterlies develop”.

Mr Madden said: “Huge swirly low-­pressure systems also offer the potential for widespread disruption from heavy snowfall across many parts of the UK including the South, as they clash with the predominant cold air.”

Basingstoke-based Hampshire Snow Clearance is reminding Facilities Managers and commercial property managing agents about the perils of snow and ice, especially with changes in legislation relating to prevention of slips and falls.

Hampshire Snow Clearance (www.hampshiresnowclearance.co.uk), a division of the FRL Group, operates a specialist snow clearance and early morning gritting service for commercial premises, retail parks, industrial estates, private schools and car parks in the Basingstoke and Hook areas of Hampshire.

Hampshire Snow Clearance Managing Director John Hicks explained, “Last winter caught out many Facilities Managers when the unexpected snow and ice put the safety of staff and customers at risk, caused inconvenience to many and resulted in loss of working days”.

“However, it is too late to start thinking about gritting paths, ice removal and snow clearance when waking up early one morning to find slippery ice on the pavements and roads. So we urge Facilities Managers to think about booking services now.” John added.

Hampshire Snow Clearance service also offers a gritting supplies and off-site storage facility so that businesses do not have unsightly grit and salt stocks occupying valuable car parking spaces.

Give Hampshire Snow Clearance now a call on 01256 220561 for a free site survey and quotation – don’t wait until the big freeze returns!

Call now and help keep your staff and visitors safe.

Security

Does Your Company Need a Camera Phone Policy?

By John Hicks, FRL Group, London

These days, most mobile phones have a camera built in and staff carry their phones with them just about everywhere they go so John Hicks, Facilities Management and Security Management Outsourcing Consultant with Facilities Resource Limited, reflects on the issues around instituting a corporate camera phone policy.

The numerous cameras in your offices and your facilities every day can create a new security and liability issue for your company.

What would you do if an employee came into your office and demanded that you stop a co-worker from taking pictures under her skirt using a camera phone? This problem is commonly referred to as “up-skirting”. Such incidents could cause legal issues for the individuals as well as you, the employer for not protecting your employees.

What would you do if you found out photos had been taken of human resource documents which contained sensitive personnel information? What are the Data Protection, civil liabilities and Human Rights issues?

What would you do if a disgruntled employee had taken photos of a product in development, the specifications of the new product, or secret ingredients, and passed them to your competitor?

If you are a high security establishment (maybe a List X building), do you need a policy to maintain your security status?

These are all incidents that do happen and could easily happen any day in your company. Without a camera phone policy in place, it is going to be difficult for you to protect your company and your employees from such acts of invasion of privacy, corporate espionage, or sexual harassment.

Incidents of camera phone abuse are happening in offices, hospitals, fire departments, locker rooms, research and development facilities, schools, military installations, fitness centres, and factories.

In America, a fire fighter took a video of a dead car accident victim. The photo was passed around to others by text, and eventually reached the victim’s father. Many fire departments over there are now looking into creating camera phone policies to make sure these types of incidents don’t happen.

Again in America, two engineers were accused of bluffing their way into a Goodyear plant, photographing sensitive production equipment and passing the photos to their tyre-producing client in China.

Many employers are implementing camera phone policies designed to prevent these types of incidents. What can a company do to protect against such misuse? Creating a camera phone policy will put employees on notice about the limits of camera phone use in the workplace.

Only this week, one of our clients asked advice about an upskirt issue. The incident was reported to management and this was the catalyst for my thinking about camera phone policies.

So what should such a policy include?

Before devising a policy, ask yourself these questions:

1. What mobile phone issues or potential issues already exist within our company? If you’ve had incidents in the past, analysing these incidents will allow you to create a policy that might have prevented them.

2. What types of guidelines are reasonable for your kind of business? Take the time to assess the daily activities of your employees. If your employees need the use of their mobile phones to communicate regularly, then you don’t want to devise a policy that bans mobile phones completely from the workplace.

3. Will you ban camera phones? Will you require security labels to be placed on camera phones while employees are in restricted areas?

4. Who will enforce the policy? Human Resources? Security? IT department?

5. How will you discipline? Will you fire employees who violate this policy? Will you confiscate banned images?

Beyond a sound policy, there are other measures that can be taken to protect an employer and its employees.

• Ban camera phones on company premises. This approach is effective, but can be difficult to enforce as employees rely on cell phones for business and necessary family communications throughout the day.
• Require employees and visitors to surrender camera phones before entering sensitive locations, such as research facilities or human resource departments. This solution also proves difficult to enforce.
• Require employees to disable camera function in the workplace. This can be done by requiring the use of security patches. An employee or visitor is required to have the label on their camera phone over the lens. If removed, the sticker will change. When leaving the workplace, the employee or visitor is required to show their security patch still in place on their camera phone. This allows an employee the ability to still use their mobile phone, and still protects the employer.

Employers do have much discretion on what to include in a camera phone policy. When establishing a policy employers should communicate the policy clearly to employees and visitors. A policy alone cannot physically prevent someone from taking forbidden photos, but it can decrease the risk, and can educate employees on the ways such devices can be misused in the workplace.

If you would like an independent review of this, and other possible security management policies, affecting your business then you are invited to contact me at Facilities Resource Limited. Drop me an e-mail via the contact page on our website www.facilitiesresource.com

Facilities Resource Limited’s facilities management outsourcing and specialist security consultancy delivers viable solutions which address a wide range of organisational, security and facilities-based management challenges.

Facilities Management Consultancy: Preparing for a Scheduled Inspection by your Insurance Company

By John Hicks, Facilities Resource Limited (FRL Group)

Your insurance company may well wish to make a scheduled inspection of your premises to check on your systems and practices in relation to their exposure to risk so, as Facilities Managers, we need to prepare.

That is not to say that you should remedy defects in your systems and procedures in advance of the inspection only to return to them afterwards. This is an opportunity for Facilities Managers, or your Facilities Management Consultants such as Facilities Resource Limited (www.facilitiesresource.com), to review and, if necessary, improve them for the longer term.

Each business will have different requirements and you will need to look at your insurance cover to give yourself a clear picture of the scope of the inspection. But here are some of the most common key areas for you to review in advance:

• Make sure your boilers have been inspected and that safety controls are working and have been tested within past 12 months and that the inspection certificate is displayed
• Make sure your fire sprinkler systems have been inspected and the main riser has been tested. Make sure your fire & smoke alarm system is functional, in good repair and inspected. System devices should have been cleaned and tested within past 12 months.
• Check that you have held, and recorded, fire evacuation drills and that designated Fire Wardens have been trained.
• Check first aid kits and check the expiry date of your First Aider training certificates.
• Make sure your fire extinguishers have been inspected, are appropriate for the type of area they will be deployed in and that the dates on them are current.
• If you have food areas or expensive cabling which could be attacked and damaged by pests or rodents, check your Pest Control records are current.
• Because of the changes in UK legislation relating to trips and falls, make sure you have contracts for gritting of your paths and car parks with a reliable contractor such as with Hampshire Snow Clearance (www.hampshiresnowclearance.co.uk).
• To facilitate continuity of business and to minimise disruption to your business during periods of heavy snow, have an advance contract for snow clearance in place – again with a company such as Hampshire Snow Clearance – as you cannot expect to get in a snow plough on the day of a sudden downpouring of heavy snow!
• This raises the issue of business continuity so review your plans for business continuity and disaster recovery. Your external facilities management consultancy such as Facilities Resource Limited (www.facilitiesresource.com) would assist you and give you a outside view of the strategy and implementation.
• Check your security arrangements – do you need to review physical equipment, fencing, bollards, security lighting, cctv surveillance cameras, covert security cameras, lone working alarms, panic alarms. Some contractors, such as Asset Fencing (www.assetfencing.com) will undertake a free survey for you so this is often a good option for obtaining another person’s expert opinion.
• Beyond that look for potential risk hazards where the insurance company has a liability; injuries through equipment failure, mould remediation, ventilation hazards and kitchen exhaust cleaning.

My advice, as a Facilities Manager or Facilities Management Consultant, when faced with a Scheduled Insurance Inspection is to use it as a positive experience to review the premises operations, procedures and systems and then work with the Insurers to remedy any defects.

If I can help with some general advice, do please e-mail me at Facilities Resource Limited, john@facilitiesresource.com, where I am pleased to share my experience as a facilities manager, facilities management consultant and facilities management outsourcing consultancy with you.