My weekly Basex Newsletter this week had a commentary on managing Knowledge Workers in the aftermath of a catastophe or crisis. This past week was the two year anniversary of the blackout of the north east where 50 million people lost power.
One of the key points of the editorial was that our dependancy on high tech solutions means that as managers it is important to have an emergency management plan. Important to planning is ensuring redundancy of information systems (located in multiple sites), multiple locations in which knowledge workers can work (or possibly telecommute), and remember that not all employees will be available, based on the nature of the crisis and who may be most affected by it (as loyal as we want employees to be, if they have to bail water out of the basement or get a roof put on the house, they will not be in to work for a few days).
The article gave this advice.
"There are some steps companies can take, including:
- Providing reduntant access both on- and off-site.
- Understanding which tasks are part of every employee's daily work life.
- Evaluating what work by which employees is mission critical.
- Determining which critical tasks and employees could operate remotely.
- Creating a process through which a business continuity emergency is declared and implemented.
- Determining what work needs to be done and what tools will be needed."
As the saying goes, "hope for the best, plan for the worst."
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