Technology keys for a successful emergency staffing plan
Natural or man-made disasters can sink companies if they aren’t ready. But with the right planning and the right technology, they can survive. Here are things to help you plan for a disaster.
Most often, disasters are some type of weather event that shuts an office down, or prevents people from traveling. If that happens, you’ll need ways to keep employees connected and working when they can’t make it in to the office.
Communication is key
When a disaster hits, the first thing you need is a way to keep in touch with employees. Make sure all of your emergency contact information is up to date. On a regular basis, ask employees for home phone numbers, cell phone numbers, personal e-mail addresses, and any other ways they can be contacted. The more options there are for reaching them, the better.
One way of spreading news about the disaster and giving updates about the company’s status is to set up an old-fashioned call tree. But you’ll also want a way for employees to get updates on their own. For that, you may want to have a telephone number that plays a pre-recorded message when an employee calls. That message can be updated as news happens.
Also, you can set up a dedicated page on your company’s Web site with news and everything else people need to know during a disaster. It should be password protected, so only current employees can see it. Just make sure all employees know where the page is and how they can get to it.
To keep communication as simple as possible, give employees a card to keep in their wallets (about the size of a business card). It should include whatever contact info they’ll need (department heads, HR people, health insurance information, etc.), as well as the URL and password to the company’s disaster news page.
Maintaining workflow
If a disaster prevents people from coming into the office, you’ll also need to make sure people can still work.
The first question is: Where can they work? If you’ve got multiple locations, or a call center that’s separate from your main building, one of those might be usable. Some vendors also lease out office space for disaster recovery (for info, go here).
The best option is to have people work from home, if they can. You can find out if that’s possible by taking a survey. Send an e-mail to everyone and ask about the technology they have in their homes – most importantly, ask what kinds of computers and Internet connections they have.
Also, there might be some special applications that are essential to people’s jobs. Ask if they can access those apps from home. If not, work with IT to try and find alternative ways to work, or ways to provide remote access to the essential apps.
Keeping employees connected
One way to make sure employees have access to everything they need is to give everyone a virtual private network (VPN). Basically, that’s a secure way for people to get into your company’s network through the Internet and access everything they would be able to if they were in the office.
Also, you can use the dedicated disaster page on the company Web site to upload key documents that people will need for work.
Finally, when people can’t make it the office, it’s important to make sure they can still communicate with each other. Providing a directory of phone numbers and e-mail addresses is a good start, but there are also some technology tools that can help. Instant messaging software is a convenient way for employees to talk to each other while they’re home.
Like with everything involved with a disaster, whatever you do, you’ll need to plan what you’re going to do in advance.
