2. Do you know how to contact all your employees at 9 pm on a holiday Friday?
You make effective decisions every day. During a crisis, you want to be able to do the same. Displaying great insensitivity, many crises are prone to erupting outside of business hours – often at the most inopportune times. You should create an easy-to-use and always handy means of contacting your employees when a crisis occurs.
This may take the form of a simple list of names and contact information, or it may be an SMS text distribution plan, automated telephone dialer or other more advanced solution. Whatever it is, you should plan to practice “reaching out” to everyone at least three times before it works properly. As simple as it seems, this is always a complicated procedure.
You also need to put in place a mechanism to keep that contact information up to date and in the hands of those who will need it. A contact list on your office PC or taped to the fridge at home won’t be much help if you’re at the cottage. Nor, will it be useful if the information is six months old.
