As we enter fall, many small and mid-sized businesses are worrying about the flu. What will happen if my whole staff gets sick? Should I encourage getting the flu shot? Or just hope for the best?

Here at Mother, we prepare for flu season. We do things like find out what our company health insurance will cover for the H1N1 shot and make sure employees are aware. We offer reimbursement for anyone who gets the flu shot in before December. We send employees who are sick home. Employees are also encouraged to work remotely if they start to feel something coming on (but are able to perform their job duties).

We recommend any small or mid-sized business consider taking steps to keep their employees healthy. One of the most important things to consider is how well is your business model suited to handling "disasters" (be it the flu, weather, etc.) Some ways Mother's model is disaster (and flu!) resistant are:

• All employees have the capability to work remotely (so as not to spread germs) and can perform client network management from  home.
• The majority of our network maintenance activities are automated.
• All client facing employees have skill sets that overlap (so if someone is out sick, our clients still have full outsourced IT services).
• Most client work can be performed remotely, so we can limit face to face client-Mother contact if necessary.
• We rotate the on duty 24/7 engineer so employees are able to get enough rest.

What about you? How well suited are you to surviving this flu season?