Drawing off the massive flooding in Colorado and Naval shipyard shootings in Washington, D.C., the second in a sequence of webinars being wear for National Preparedness Month curious about unforeseen crises as examples of the need for organizations to have well thought out emergency plans.
Titled “The New 10 Steps to Preparedness,†the webinar was presented by Agility Recovery and the United State Small Business Administration. The webinar followed last week’s webinar, “Protect Your organization by Preparing Your Employees.†Next week’s webinar is “Crisis Communication for Any Origination.â€
The webinars are timed with National Preparedness Month in September, an idea that sprang out of the tragedies of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
A webinar timed with National Preparedness Month outlines some lessons to be learned from recent events.
They are timely, for the reason that should be prepared for any event is being driven home for U.S. businesses and citizens. The widespread flooding in Colorado is being viewed as an “unprecedented†event in which losses will take quite some time to calculate. The impact of the D.C. shootings that left 13 dead is additionally still being assessed.
“Already this month we have seen two gigantic tragedies impact america,†said Bob Boyd, Agility’s president and CEO.
The lesson eliminate from these events, he said, is “if you don’t already have a plan…it doesn’t mean it’s impossible in order to recover, but boy it makes is hard.â€
During the webinar Boyd offered 10 Steps to preparedness:
- Assess your risk - both internally and externally
- Assess your critical business functions
- Back up your data
- Prepare your supply chain
- Prepare your employees
- Create a crisis communications plan
- Assembly emergency supplies
- Plan for another location
- Review your insurance plan
- Test your plan
Prioritize
Good planning starts with a risk manager, executive, or insurance agent advising clients, asking themselves and the organizations they represent several questions.
“You must think about it,†Boyd said. “What are different departments or services or functions that you simply provide to you stakeholders?â€
This enables business managers to prioritize those functions and judge what should be handled first in crisis.
For example, member services for some businesses can be a critical function, whereas accounts payable will not be a priority.
“The day after a disaster, I’m not going worried about writing lots of checks,†Boyd said.
Following that assessment, it enables organizations to cross-train employees to serve in alternate functions during an emergency, such as having accounts payable employees how one can work in customer services, he said.
Backing up data is another important planning step, according to Boyd. Again, he suggested asking questions: Is this the info backup automated? Is it backed up daily? Is tit stored in an off-site, secure location? Is the understanding backup plan tested regularly? Is the organization’s regional footprint, who the customers are and where they're, being considered?
Also essential, but not always obvious when designing an emergency plan for an organization, is communicating with key vendors and suppliers about their recovery plans, Boyd said.
“Call them up and ask them,†he said. “That’s not an unreasonable request to call them and say i truly depend on you.â€
He added, “(Superstorm) Sandy was a good example of this. There were lot of people that didn’t get directly impacted by Sandy, but they had vendors go down.â€
He also suggested developing relationships with alternate vendors to “eliminate single points of failure.â€
Beside company-wide preparedness, employee preparedness is equally important, he said.
Steps suggested to prepare employees include:
- Involving employees in planning and testing the emergency strategy
- Preparing employees for make money working from home challenges
- Cross-training employees, even between departments
- Addressing family preparedness
- Providing build a kit workshops or other family involvement days
- Formally sharing the plan with new hires
- Participating in local emergency management drills
Beyond just the steps, there are considerations to be made with each measure. Preparing employees to do business from home in the case of an emergency isn’t always the top answer, Boyd said, adding that working from home during Superstorm Sandy wasn’t effective for many organizations cause power wasn’t just on in the office, but there was not power in people’s homes as we;;.
“There are plenty of big events where that won’t work,†he said. “It’s an outstanding option to have, however just can’t be the only option.â€
Bringing in a mobile unit, or going to a hotel to preserve workflow going can be other options to be prepared for possible power outages, Boyd advised.
Crisis Communication
“Creating a crisis communication plan is so critically important,†he said. “You need to make sure you have quite a lot of other ways you'll be able to communicate with your stakeholders after a disaster impacts you.â€
Some ideas offered include:
- 24-hour phone tree
- Password protected web page
- Previously established radio/TV/print news partners
- Call-in recording system
- Email alert system
- Text/data alert system
Boyd suggested making an emergency call list for staff that includes a home phone, alternate mobile phone, personal email and family contact information.
Lest nobody forget, among the important parts of being prepared is to ensure proper insurance is in place, Boyd said.
“Please, please review your insurance plans,†he said.
Insurance considerations include:
- Be sure the organization is insured for all potential risks
- Consider business interruption insurance and added expense insurance
- Keep up-to-date photos of the property, equipment lists and policy information stored in safe and secure offsite location
- Asset management program
“There are thousands and thousands of employers fighting with their insurance carriers because they thought they'd coverage,†Boyd said.
Finally, he suggested, conducting annual exercises to work the kinks out of the plan.
“Conduct a test of it, at least once a year,†he said.
Testing data restoration, the alert notification system, employees’ knowledge of the emergency plan, vendors resilience and knowing power needs are all checks that should be made at the very least annually, Boyd said.
“Find the failures and simply update your plan, make it better,†he said.
The next webinar is “Crisis Communication for Any Origination†on Sept. 25 from 2 to a couple p.m. EST. Stay tuned to InsuranceJournal.com for coverage of that webinars.
