Crisis management plans for employees

My heart goes out to all those who have been effected by recent flooding and extreme weather. In addition to the many individuals and families who were impacted, so too were many businesses.

Reflecting on these events has highlighted to me the importance of having a well-thought-out contingency plan in place to cope with crisis situations. Whatever the nature of the crisis — natural or man-made — being prepared for extraordinary situations can help to minimise negative impact on your business.

A key part of any contingency plan should be how to deal with your employees.

Your plan should include clear instructions for your team about who to communicate with, where to go and how to manage customer satisfaction. Also consider what systems and tools you will need to access in a crisis, and how you will access them. In a call centre that I once managed, we had an emergency pack by the front door. It contained prepaid train tickets, phone cards, a copy of the contingency procedures, relevant contact details and other useful information, all ready for our employees to grab-and-go should an emergency arise.

Putting together a contingency plan doesn’t need to take weeks. An effective way to pull one together is to get your team in a room with a laptop. Have them brainstorm things that could happen to disrupt or harm your business – natural disasters, computer failures, black outs – then brainstorm dot point plans for dealing with each one. When you have documented the dot point plans on your laptop, delegate one plan to each team member to flesh out and ensure the resources are in place to support it. Involving your team members will help you get a better plan and improve employee engagement.

Communication during times of crisis

Developing clear points of contact is crucial when preparing for potential crisis events. How should team members get information about whether to come to work or not, or notify you if they have been personally affected? Include in your outbound communication contingency a number that employees can call to hear a recorded message and the ability to put updates on your Website. Also keep an up-to-date list of all employee mobile numbers so you can send text message broadcasts. For inbound communications, make sure the number you give people to call you on will work from any location. Keeping people informed helps to keep a lid on your employees’ anxiety levels during times of crisis. It also helps to have them ready for action when you need them to jump in to get the business back up to speed in the event of a disruption to your operations.

Support your employees

Your employees may be directly or indirectly impacted by a crisis. Demonstrating empathy and providing support during these times will likely result in an increased sense of loyalty from your employees. While you will be rightfully concerned about disruption to your business, they may be more concerned about disruption to their income. By preparing your employees for a crisis and supporting them through it, you will find that you and your employees can work together toward the same aim: getting your business up and running with as little disruption to customer care as possible.

Here are some ways you can support your people during a crisis situation:

• Consider the impact on their productivity and performance – The emotional impact of a traumatic event effect a person’s productivity or performance at work. Think about how you might manage staffing levels if employees need to work reduced hours or have time off to deal with their own crisis management.

• Provide financial support – Often during times of crisis, people are affected financially and this can cause a great deal of stress. As an employer, you might consider assisting your team members, perhaps by bringing forward a bonus payment, paying salaries in advance, or allowing people to do additional shifts. Also consider those team members who are casual employees or contractors – if they don’t work, they don’t get paid. Providing support to people working under these arrangements can help to build long-term positive relationships.

• Donate to the cause – Either by contributing directly or working with your team to organise a fundraiser. Getting your team involved in fundraising for the cause can be a constructive way for them to channel their emotions related to the crisis.

• Allow flexibility – Whole families are affected by crisis events and this can impact on your team members’ ability to work their normal hours at their normal location. Being flexible about the hours they work, or the location they work from, can help to prevent them being absent all together.

An employee who has been kept informed, treated with fairness, and shown flexibility in a crisis situation, will almost always reward that generosity with hard work and loyalty.

Sheralyn Guy, is Director of HRhelp, a company dedicated to providing affordable, practical and effective HR services to small-to-medium-sized businesses. For further great HR ideas, call 02  8006 1280, email gethelp@hrhelp.com.au, or visit www.hrhelp.com.au