The 24 hour strike is on with the usual chaos and uncertainty that a service denial of this magnitude brings. Even Transport for London doesn't really know who will honour the strike call and who won't, so the TFL cannot say what service will be running, if any?  Sadly no one really cares about the customer as his inconvenience becomes the bargaining tool in the eternal battle between management and unions, in this case the TFL representing the management and two unions, the  TSSA and the RMT, looking after the interests of their members.

Can any good come out of it?

Well yes, peace and harmony until the next sticking point but from a company's point of view, these are the times when you should be testing out how advanced you are in flexible working.

Can your staff operate efficiently from home?  In this day and age, without the big stick of rail and tube strikes they should be comfortable with the change of scenery and out of the communual grief of a strike.

This is a perfect opportunity to test your systems if you have them in place and if you don't you are not really up with the times.

On a day when you might expect to lose production, just switch to the home plan for those affected and carry on.

These strikes can be live opportunities to tighten up your flexible working practices, so don't let them go, turn strike days.... and there could be more of them, into something positive.

Mark James Editor New Business