Disaster planning: Would your company sink or swim?

While it looks like the southern US coast evaded Hurricane Ike for now, it reminds us how serious the threat of disaster is and the importance of being prepared. Does your business have what it takes to come back from a catastrophic event?

No matter where your business is located, disaster preparedness and continuity plans are critical to survival after a disaster. A lack of planning can have dire consequences.

According to the Association of Small Business Development Centers:

• More than one quarter of businesses will experience a “significant crisis” every year.
• After a major disaster, 43% of businesses without an emergency plan will never reopen.
• Of those that do reopen, only 29% are still operating after two years.

Whether your business is threatened by hurricanes, tornadoes, flood or man-made disasters like identity theft or crippling computer viruses, no business is immune to disaster. Blocked roads and flood waters may limit access even if your building suffers little damage.

"How quickly a company gets back to business after a fire or flood, terrorist attack, tornado, or man-made crisis often depends on emergency planning done now," said Dr. Robert Leviton, president and chairman of the board of the Corporate Emergency Access System (CEAS).

What can you do to limit lost productivity and profits after a disaster? The first step is to put together a disaster recovery plan. A basic plan should include:

• Emergency contact numbers. Keep a current database of employee and emergency service phone numbers.


• Detailed communication plans. How will top management deliver information to employees after a catastrophic event?


• A list of critical tasks. Identify and distribute critical business operations to supervisors and employees.


• An off-site meeting place. Designate an off-site location for top management to meet in case your building is unaccessible.


• Customer communication plans. How will you communicate with customers on the status of their orders and deliver information to business clients?


• Data recovery plans. Natural and man-made disaster can easily wipe out hard drives and destroy databases. Keep critical back-up data at an outside location and have a plan on how to retrieve that information if disaster strikes.

Once your disaster plan is in place, practice it and then practice it again. Train employees and supervisors on emergency procedures and what to do if they have limited or no access to the building.

Test your plan with emergency dry-runs and document performance. Look for ways to improve and update your plan wherever necessary.

The amount of lost time and productivity after a major disaster will ultimately come down to the effectiveness of your communication. With effective communication and employee cooperation, your business can keep recovery time to a minimum and your business standing after disaster.

When employees are talking about you online

Chances are most of your employees are members of popular social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or LinkedIn. They’re publishing and commenting on blogs, and writing reviews on their favorite products.

Employees’ online behavior can pose a serious threat to business. Take the example of the Home Interiors & Gifts employee who spilled the beans about a major pending transaction in a casual email to a friend. The employee meant no harm by sharing the news, but executives were furious.

Earlier this year, CNN caused an uproar after firing Chez Pazienza for his blogging without having a policy regarding “personal writings online” in place. Since then, CNN has written a policy which Pazienza was happy to blog about.

While you may have some sense of control over what employees say about the company over instant messages in the office, how do you guide what employees are saying about the company on their own time, outside of work?

When speaking online as an employee it’s important to have a clear set of rules that everyone in the organization can follow, according to Denise Shiffman at Engage Daily. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but companies should train employees on how to act responsibly when talking about their employer online.

Take a look at how the BBC, Sun Microsystems and IBM have put their social media guidelines into writing. After drafting your own policy, Schiffman advises running them through the legal department before passing the document out to employees.

Here are some online behavior guidelines Shiffman would include (read the full list):

• Use your real name and identify the company you work for.
• Everyone speaks for themselves, not “on behalf” of the company. Only designated spokespeople speak for the company.
• Protect confidential and financial company information.
• Follow the same rules you would if speaking inside of the office.
  

Writing policies on employees’ actions outside of the office can be a bumpy road to travel. As always, seek out legal advice before publishing any guidelines on employee online behavior outside of work.

Do you think it’s right to have guidelines on employee online behavior while on their own time? What problems have you come across in writing your own company policy?

Disgruntled Chrysler employee fired after Internet post

For the past 10 years, Rob Diel worked as a contract information technology worker at Chrysler. Last week, he was fired for posting the email and phone number of Chrysler’s chief executive on the Internet.

In response to an article about Chrysler’s decision to outsource jobs, Diel posted the email and phone number in a readers’ comment section of the Detroit Free Press online.

"I guess he started getting e-mails. They didn't tell me how many," Diel said of the security personnel. "They just said his Blackberry lit up," Diel, told the Detroit Free Press.

His post encouraged people to boycott the company and send the chief executive an email to “tell him what a great job he’s doing.”

Diel made the post from his company computer during work hours and found the executive’s contact information on the internal company directory.

Every company has policies on how to handle situations when employees use company computers for personal reasons and on disclosing company information. In order to keep your job, most experts would advise keeping your personal business at home and privileged company information at work.

Using company computers for such activities as checking personal email or banking information and viewing questionable internet material has employees in trouble everyday.

But, do your employees know exactly what your company policy is?

Surely, it’s written in the company handbook, right where everyone has access to it. Unfortunately, that’s not enough.

Especially with Gen Y entering the workforce, who manage most of their personal business on the Internet, training on proper internet use at work is crucial. Managers, employees, contract workers and even the interns should know what is off limits.

In this particular case, Diel was not surprised by the firing, he was expecting to lose his job at the end of May. But, many times employees are caught off-guard when a manager approaches to discuss their internet use, mostly because they simply didn’t know.

Read the full story of Rob Deil and how Chrysler handled this case of personal Internet use on company computers.

Google refines search options -shouldn't we?

According to the Official Google Blog searchers who start out at the top level of certain large sites will now see an additional search box, allowing them to target more specific information faster. This means that a search on the term "Amazon.com", for example, will not only list the official website, but will provide an additional Google box to allow you to quickly target specific pages within the site. Ditto for other large sites like NASA.

While this is great for online searches into large websites like Amazon, I couldn't help but wonder what message it might also carry for training providers.

So often, the materials we provide to employees as training materials are extensive and comprehensive --- but nearly impossible to search. Employees looking for a particular procedure, or specific guideline must browse through pages and perhaps even volumes of material. And sometimes the material is stored in different departments with the company, making a quick fact check even more cumbersome. The result of making it hard to find the information could be:

• Guessing. It's just too hard to find the facts, so the employee guesses to save precious work time
  
  
• Misunderstanding. The employee finds something related but not exact, and assumes it applies to the situation at hand, and consequently uses the wrong procedure.
  
  
• Immobility. The employee so fears making a mistake on an unfamiliar process or procedure that s/he does nothing.
  
  
• Focus on the rule books instead of the work. Detailed searches are made of every guide and rule book to make certain the exact policy is followed. Work slows to a crawl.
  

In designing procedure manuals, we need to consider the user. Like Google, we want to make it easy for poeple to find the information they need, quickly and accurately.

Some important questions we might want to consider in designing a manual:

1. Is it well indexed? Could a new employee come in and find the answer to a simple question within five minutes?
   
   
2. Is the information grouped in a logical way? A manual arranged by date of creation would offer little to an employee looking for a certain fact or process.
   
   
3. Is it available online or on company computers with a good search function? The days of huge print manuals are long past. People expect and need searchable access. Back it up in print if you must, but be sure the information is digitally accessible as well.
   
   
4. Finally, is it all necessary? Take a long hard look at the rules and regulations. Start with a fresh eye and avoid the justification of "We've always done it this way." Consider each regulation and procedure in light of today's business world, technology and lifestyle. Decide whether each rule is needed, or if a few more general guidelines would suffice to get the job done well.