The Experts’ Corner

Business Continuity is our passion, and we want to share that passion with our clients. Expert’s Corner is where we share information on some of the most important and  interesting topics in our industry today: from best practices to standards, from real-life crises to hands-on experience, leading players and experts bring you their comments and experience to provide a window into how business continuity is developing worldwide.

For this update we went looking for someone who could share with us their experiences in the issues surrounding people during a crisis. Gerry Lewis, an acclaimed author,  shares with us his thoughts in this article entitled PROTECTING THE EMPLOYEE.

Chris Oliver FBCI, Office-Shadow Global Operations Director and Editor of The Experts’ Corner


The Expert: Dr Gerry Lewis
Dr Gerry Lewis
Dr Gerry Lewis

The Credentials:  Dr. Lewis, an international consultant and trainer, works with government agencies, healthcare facilities, educational institutions and private businesses on a wide range of work, behavioral health and organizational issues.  His focus is facilitating organizational recovery and resiliency with the emphasis on “people-recovery.” He has authored numerous articles and three books: Critical Incident Stress and Trauma in the Workplace (1994), Workplace Hostility: Myth & Reality (co-author, 1998) and Organizational Crisis Management: The Human Factor (2006 ).

 



 

 

PROTECTING THE EMPLOYEE
Experts Corner - Gerry Lewis
PDF Version

You can get your phone lines back up… and have your computers backed up… yet, your employees may still be messed up.

As the contingency planning profession moves forward it has begun to accept, yet still not prioritize, the concept of workforce resiliency.  Lip service is often paid that “people are the highest priority.” Yet, the time, effort and money devoted to protecting IT goes far beyond the paltry efforts to do the same for HT (human technology).   Taking care of your workforce (and their families) is not rocket science and does not take a great deal of money… just time.

The first task is to evaluate the organizational culture.  Time does not permit a complete description of how to conduct a culture assessment, yet it is a critical factor to preparing, protecting and providing for employees.  Stating the obvious, a financial institution has a different culture than that of a retail operation…. healthcare differs from manufacturing… and a university culture is quite a leap from that of a start up software company. BIAs and Risk Assessments might examine the potential impact as well as the probability of an event occurring.  However, culture is critical as part of such assessments, because the same event will generate different concerns and require different responses from a work organization based on its cultural expectations.  As an example, compare a hospital to a coffee shop during a hurricane.  The dynamics and demands for each are quite different in terms of customer expectations, public perception and employee requirements.  While the coffee shop may just close the doors and tell employees to stay home, the hospital and its workers are required to have a very different response to the climactic event. 

Communication is the lifeblood at times of crisis as humans seem “wired” to require information at times of duress.  Consider how we are glued to the TV during times of disaster.  With information, we are able to gain a sense of mastery and control… even if the information is “bad news.”  When information is not forthcoming, the tendency is to grasp for data… even if it is inaccurate… and then to pass it on to others for further inaccurate elaboration.

A good communication system requires the following:

  • Accuracy and consistency - vetted information whereby the same message is coming from all.
  • Frequency - information gets stale quite quickly, therefore it must be updated regularly
  • Redundancy - a variety of utilities should be used to impart communication.  Email, text, voice, faxes, etc.
  • Circularity - communication is a two-way street.
  • Continuity - communication must continue on for a long time after a crisis has been managed. Most crises go on for a long time with respect to the employees’ reactions.

There are many relatively simple and cost effective pre and post incident policies and programs as well as services and strategies that may be implemented to prepare, protect and provide for your employees.  Start by acknowledging that HT needs to be a major part of your resilience plans; “your building may be up, you systems may be up but what if the employees are messed up?”

  • Develop a robust communication plan that considers more than just the crisis commanders, but the entire HT on whom you will be depending when the IT is back online.
  • Encourage employees to consider their own personal crisis plans prior to incidents.
  • Take courses that focus on human resiliency  and crisis mitigation 
  • Don’t assume you’ll ever be able to test and exercise fully the  complexities  of the human element…but do test, nonetheless.
  • Remember that recovering or rebuilding your HT can be a very long term project, much longer that the physical assets.  Employees may be suffering, dysfunctional or merely disillusioned for years and your only visible symptoms might be reduced productivity and increased turnover.
  • Plan / budget for post-crisis counseling and employee assistance programs (EAPs).

We hope you have enjoyed this column and found it useful. Please feel free to contact me with ideas for future columns. We will do the legwork and find the expert who can provide sound, actionable advice.

Chris 

Chris Oliver FBCI is Group Operations Director at Office-Shadow and Chairman of the Business Continuity Institute’s Membership Council http://www.thebci.org/.  Email Chris at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .