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O P I N I O N
Before and after a disaster
Planning and preparation are crucial if you want to take care of your people, take care of your clients, and get your firm back to doing business.
H urricanes, bomb-cyclones, catastrophic floods – a well-considered plan for crisis and post-crisis operations can help your business weather the storm in more ways than one. Last year’s Hurricane Harvey, for example, was shocking even to a region that thought it had already seen the worst Mother Nature could serve up. While longer-ranging issues – why the region flooded where it flooded, how we should rebuild – will be years in resolving, the immediate imperative for area businesses was all about people. Who is safe? Who is missing? How can we help?
Brent Christian GUEST SPEAKER
Within days of Harvey hitting, RPS’ automatic notification system reached all 175 area employees to determine how each was affected by the storm and flooding, and to what degree. With the touch of a telephone button, an email, or a text response, employees could indicate the severity of “A well-considered plan for crisis and post-crisis operations can help your business weather the storm in more ways than one.”
For RPS, the key to operating after a major weather event or other disaster is first ascertaining the personal safety and location of each employee; then determining who’s been impacted, and to what extent; then working to mitigate and resolve those situations to get our people back on their feet and get our teams, our offices, and our business back to business. To make this happen, leadership must have robust processes for contacting employees, handling systems failures, and responding to widespread electrical outages, building closures, and inaccessible streets and transitways.
See BRENT CHRISTIAN, page 12
THE ZWEIG LETTER June 4, 2018, ISSUE 1251
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