Today was an interesting day at work. We had a tornado come within miles of our plant and I could think of nothing more than what we hinted at in class the other day - what would you do if a tornado came close to your factory? Is there a plan in place to have everyone be safe? I think its an interesting thought made real by today's events. Naturally, the power went out and we all sat around looking at each other. I thought of my current event article from last class that talked about what would your company do if it had to survive without computers for 10 days. Consequently, after 30 mins or so, we were told we were allowed to go home. Draw your own conclusions.
Have any of you put any thought into the two issues above?
Interesting site, could use some more work, but I think they are onto something.
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The only Plan B we have in our building is a fire drill. It is interesting to see how for some the fire is a drag if it happens when they are in the middle of something, and for others it's a ton of fun because they can get out of the building for a while. In either case, these drills are rarely taken seriously. I think most people feel that a fire, or any other emergency, will not happen to them, so why bother.
ReplyDeleteOne of the largest employers in Berks county (which I will not mention the name of), did not have an emergency evacuation plan of their main building. They finally noticed they did not have one and started working on it. They wanted to try a fire drill to see how long it would take to vacate everyone from the building. So what they did was they sent out an email to everyone telling them the date and time of the fire drill so they would be prepared. Fifteen minutes before the drill was supposed to start, the administrator looked out the window of his office and saw almost half of the employees standing outside already!! They of course learned their lesson, and should by now have a plan in place.
Our office computers are backed up outside of our office and we can remote in, so unless something really horrible happens to our system, we can usually gain access to it.
Preparing for an emergency or disaster is a very important aspect of any business. Setting steps for disaster recovery is just as important. You can find useful links to disaster preparedness and relief at the Reading SCORE website at http://www.reading008score.org/disaster_prep_and_relief.html. I apologize, I do not see anything that allows to do a hyperlink to their website.
It's funny how life has a way of doing this kind of thing to you. One minute you're discussing an issue, and the next you find yourself in the middle of it. I once experienced a fire at a job site. Luckily it was another building on the property, but it still sticks with you. I remember all of us running out to the building to help pull equipment out of it. Not the smartest thing to do, but at the time is just what we did. It was 10 years ago this past Saturday that the fire occurred. Not that I remember it for that, but it was also the same day as my husband's birthday and the day my brother left for his enlistment in the Army. My brother is home visiting right now and he mentioned his ten year anniversary. It brought up the memory of that day and the fire.
ReplyDeleteMany organizations have fire drills, but beyond that no real disaster planning. In working with my IT department the other day they defined a critical application as one that must be restored within 4 hours or less. I can't imagine what we would do if we had to go 10 days without a computer.
OSHA offers a number of tools for disaster preparation. See this link:
http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/emergencypreparedness/general.html
Agreed Andrea how life works like that sometimes. When Dr. Weyant first brought that particular issue up, I was taken aback b/c I thought it was kind of an odd issue. While indeed "emergencies" are an issue management must deal with, we typically don't consider natural disasters as managers. Upon further thought I think Dr. W brings up an excellent point. Strengthened by the incident Josh and Mike described, we are reminded by the reality of the scope of management's responsibilities. If we are to become managers someday, we are reminded to think "outside the box." Living in this section of the country, natural disasters are not given enough consideration, but I believe it would send an excellent message to one's subordinates if "natural disaster drills" were implemented at our respective companies every so often...say, once a quarter. It would underscore to those subordinates that management has considered EVERY issue that might arise, and might put their employees in harm's way. I personally would feel better about my respective management team should this type of exercise be carried out periodically, along with a simple explanation as to the purpose of it. Josh, and Mike, might have felt more comfortable (not that they were freaked out)when such incidents actually materialized.
ReplyDeleteAnd the link you sent us to Josh is kind of interesting. It most likely won't gain any real traction, but it's nice to see there are communities out there..collaborators...who are given a forum to voice their unique perspective.
At Target we have emergency plans for different types of disasters. We have in store and outside meeting places that everyone is aware of, they are discussed during orientation, and mentioned monthly at huddles. We have many emergency flipcharts located throughout the building to help the managers decide the proper course of cation depending on the emergency. We also have an alert one phone number that helps us through any situation. Being at a retail store, our computers certainly help us to strategize and plan out our workload but we would be able to get by for a few days or a week without too much harm, however we do not the mainframe computers that run our registers!
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