Do you ever wonder what you must do to protect your business, your customers and yourself in the event of a crisis? It seems that more of us have those concerns these days and are trying to find out as much as possible in order to keep operating smoothly if such an event should occur.
There’s so much to think about. What should be done if there’s no electricity or phones or transportation? Who is in charge of the decision-making process? How should an action plan be communicated at the workplace? How do you keep cool when everything seems to be spinning out of control?
In the on-site foodservice world, there have been a number of seminars and conferences dedicated to disaster planning recently. Perhaps many of us assume that things probably would just continue to run as they always have, and I confess, I never really gave the prospect much thought until the other day when I learned that communication is key to avoiding chaos.
On June 27, I participated in a webinar hosted by the National Society for Healthcare Foodservice Management, or HFM, that was devoted to disaster and pandemic planning. More than 200 participants listened to the nearly three-hour webcast, which addressed such possible disasters as hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes and the outbreak of bird flu. The panelists also discussed what to do if a blackout occurred—how to keep serving in the dark without being in the dark, so to speak—when suddenly, here in New York, that’s exactly what happened, if only for a second.
The power in our office surged and then shut down and the phones cut off, leaving me incommunicado with the rest of the members of the webcast and unable to listen to the end of the program.
At this point I should tell you it wasn’t a full-fledged blackout, but rather a brownout that lasted nearly an hour before things started getting back to normal. The real problem was most folks didn’t know what was happening. Even Con Ed, the local power company, said it had no clue why it happened. Because there was so little information to be had, a number of people worried about what they would do, how they would get home if subway lines weren’t running, and where they would go if things got worse—and I admit I was one of them.
Of course, New Yorkers are not unfamiliar with these situations. Last summer a blackout occurred in Astoria, Queens, that left nearly 200,000 people without power for a week. And in the summer of 1999, a massive blackout hit New York and virtually paralyzed the city for the better part of two days.
While everything this time turned out just fine and the day ended in uneventful fashion, it got me thinking about what webcast panelist Gordon Meriwether said before my phone went dead: “Prepare for crisis,” he said. “Target communications, target the audience, the message and the medium. It’s all about how you get the message out.”
Words to live by.