It could happen tomorrow…
What if there is a severe weather event that impacts the entire region where your business is located and you are shut down for several weeks? What if there is an accidental release of an extremely toxic chemical in sufficient amounts to immediately threaten your facility? What if there is a fire at your facility overnight and everything is lost? What if an emotionally distraught former employee returns to your facility with the intention of killing as many people as possible before killing themselves? What if one of your workers files a large law suit against a fellow employee, supervisors and the company for sexual harassment? What if there is a security breech within your data banks exposing customer and client information to loss of confidentiality and possible identity theft? What if a critical piece of equipment breaks down and results in significant loss and disruption to your operations because there is no backup and there is a delay in fixing or replacing this equipment? What if your supply lines are disrupted because of some disruptive event elsewhere? What if something does happen and you find too late your insurance coverage was not adequate to cover all of the costs? What if there is a terrorist event that impacts your business either directly or indirectly? Obviously, a lot can happen. What can be done to either prevent problems or reduce the severity of impact? What are the backups or workarounds? Are your employees prepared to respond? What about families? How are your customers and clients going to be impacted? What about suppliers? How does your business continue functioning until full recovery is accomplished? What if…What is the plan? Preparing in advance for crises and emergencies, some of which have the potential for disastrous results requires solid commitment and most often change. It is a process that requires time, money and consistent effort. Adequate preparation happens over time, not over night. It requires constant vigilance and focus. Providing adequate safety, security and preparedness, all of which go hand in hand, is an on-going challenge. It never ends. Ultimately the goal is to incorporate safety, security and preparation into all that we do on a regular basis rather than making it an added task. Find simple but effective ways to combine activities and tasks. That’s working smart. Do it now. All too often we wait until there is a clear warning or we see a threat to do anything about preparing. Most often that is too late. Here is where we begin to rationalize…”yes, it could happen tomorrow but….” Anything and everything is possible. How can we prepare for any and every possible outcome? We can’t! Be proactive and look for ways to improve protections based on your vulnerabilities and likelihood of specific threats. Place a high value on safety, security and preparedness within your company and make everyone responsible for becoming involved and vigilant. Where to start? Lay out a clear vision of what is expected and a schedule for getting the job done. Select a qualified coordinator and, depending on the size and complexity of your business operation, board member, to oversee planning and implementation. Begin with a basic design, addressing the essentials of safety, security, preparation and your operational needs. The plan itself is nothing more than a map or blueprint showing where you want to go and how you want to get there. It’s a starting point. It will grow and mature over time with experience. This is something we all know very well, skill is gained through practice. It is a lot like playing golf, master the basics and the rest is practice, practice, practice. Strive always for simple effectiveness and efficiency. The goal is always results, not activity. Remember, complexity for the sake of complexity serves no useful purpose. The glove has to fit and be comfortable or it is not going to be worn. Stay focused on results. There are a number of good examples out there on how to get started correctly, especially for businesses with few employees and limited resources. One is the Emergency Management Guide For Business & Industry, http://www.fema.gov/library/bizindex.shtm published a number of years ago by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Another is Open For Business, published by the Institute for Business and Home Safety http://www.ibhs.org/business_protection/. You may want outside help. That’s fine. It may be the most cost effective way for you to proceed with getting started in the right direction. Checklists are very good to use. They can be done in such a way as to reflect policy and provide procedural guidelines. They are effective, efficient and can be used for a variety of purposes. They are great as guides and quick review. Posters and illustrated fliers are great tools to educate and stay focused on what is most important. Done correctly, a picture is still worth a thousand words. The US Department of Homeland Security has done some of this on its website, a good resource to use in getting started correctly. Encourage creativity. Sometimes much can be accomplished with little or no out of pocket costs when we are willing to do a little work to find it and put it to work. When there is a will there is a way. There are a few tips I would offer to small businesses in particular when it comes to continuity planning. Figures suggest that around 40 percent of small businesses do not reopen after a disastrous event and 20 percent more are gone within two years. One of the main reasons for this, beyond lack of planning and preparation, is loss of cash flow and inadequate cash reserves to ride out the recovery. Delays are going to happen. Normal expenses will continue and there will be added expenses requiring immediate cash. Arrange ahead of time for adequate reserves or backups for getting it. Don’t rely solely on insurance and public assistance. Communications is something we are all highly dependent on and most often take for granted. Know that in an emergency and during times of wide scale destruction one of the most formidable challenges is going to be communication. Business owners that have experienced this know how important it is to pay particular attention to this aspect of planning. No doubt emergency planners across the board will say the same. Don’t forget to include families in the loop. They need to know. They need help and encouragement. Their safety, security and welfare are essential in a crisis or emergency affecting the entire community. To quote Zig Ziggler, motivational guru, “if you help enough other people get what they want in life, you will never have to worry about getting what you want.” Family ranks above work on most people’s list of priorities. Be proactive in this regard. It will pay large dividends. Back-up all important information and store separately in safe location. One way to do this with information stored on your desktop computers is flash drives. If you are not familiar with them, they are small separate drives that can be plugged in to any computer. They can store large amounts of information and are highly portable and easy to carry with you or store. Important file documents such as insurance policies and contracts can be copied and stored electronically by scanning and storing them on a flash drive. Duplication and backup in today’s world is essential. Make safety, security and preparedness a priority. Make it a team effort. Being ready for the unexpected is not only vitally important, it can be an exciting and rewarding challenge. It can input new energy you’re your entire business operation. Innovation is fun. Through a good faith effort, what you will most likely discover in terms of overall benefits to your business will probably amaze you. See what it does for morale. Dr. Bob Hester is an independent consultant living in Gainesville, Florida. He is affiliated with IBC Innovative Business Consultants out of Houston, Texas and can be reached at rhester@ibcus.net
•Date: 10th Feb 2006 • Region: US/World • Type: Article •Topic: BC general |
