#chennai flood disaster lessons that hr’s can learn fastcollab blog

18/09/2016

#Chennai Flood Disaster: Lessons that HR’s can learn | FastCollab | Blog

#CHENNAI FLOOD DISASTER: LESSONS THAT HR’S CAN LEARN December 11, 2015 Mukul Agarwal

Few organisations did try some measures to successfully tackle the situation. Through this article, we would like to reach out to a larger audience of HR’s, as suggestions to look forward in case of similar catastrophes in the future.

1. Ensuring Employees’ Safety The first thing HR’s did was to move employees out of city, quickly and safely. They kept office close, booked hotels or hostels for temporary stay and made necessary food arrangements. HR’s can even

Chennai Flood Disaster has costed $60 million in loss to IT companies, Rs.300 crores to let employees go to their hometown or at best other telecom companies and Rs.1600 crores of loss for automobile sector. More than 90% of thebranch locations of the company. More than companies were not prepared to tackle this situation and were forced to close the businessanything, make sure employees are at comfort. without any alternate plan.

2. Get an alternate place to shift everything Almost 90% of the companies in affected areas of Chennai stayed shut down for more than 10 days. They had no alternate plan to continue the business. Keeping this in mind, HR’s should be aware of alternate places to shift necessary equipments quickly to keep the business up and running. These places could be hostels, flats on rent, community halls or even shared space within another organisation.

3. Encourage critical role employees to stay behind

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18/09/2016

#Chennai Flood Disaster: Lessons that HR’s can learn | FastCollab | Blog

In most of the organisations, there are few key roles which need physical presence of employees within the office location. Companies have encouraged them to stay back with full comforts in place, like booked hotels for them or made staying arrangements within office premises. They even gave compensatory benefits in terms of money, food, clothes, internet etc.

Infact, these organisations kept power backup and server backup options intact.

Today, after about 15 days of disaster, the water is receding down. Companies are looking to open­up the offices again. It is time for HR’s to bring everything back on track.

Here are some quick tips which HR’s can follow to make sure employees are motivated enough to get back to normalcy.

1. Regular Updates about Office Situation through Social Media Social Media has proved out to be effective in letting others know about the exact situation of the disaster. HR’s should keep posting about current situation of city as well as office premises. Keep sending photographs, videos and even email communication. This will give confidence among employees to travel back to city. Also an indication to key customers, that business is about to continue with 100% efficiency.

2. Make temporary arrangements for Stay, Food and Travel When office premises are good enough to function again, it is time for HR’s to make sure employees have access to their stay places and food. If not, check them into a nearby hotel for stay and food and make necessary travel arrangements as well. Make sure employees are at comfort till situation is under control.

3. Employee Entertainment Activities A disaster can have a depressive impact on the employees. It is time to light­up the mood. When employees are back to office, HR’s can look to make sufficient arrangements to keep employees engaged or motivated during initial days. It could be lunch/dinner arrangements in office, movie screening, gaming activities and other similar things.

4. Keep a regular Health Check­up Threats on Health issues are inevitable after any disaster. The best HR’s can do is to arrange weekly health­checkups for the employees. This will make sure employees are safe, at comfort and good to continue with their office activities.

5. Encourage employees to help others

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#Chennai Flood Disaster: Lessons that HR’s can learn | FastCollab | Blog

It is times like these that show true nature of a human being or organisation as a whole. Companies should take it as a CSR activity to help recover those who are affected. Encourage employees to move across the city, look for those who need help and provide them with food, shelter, clothes, medicines etc.

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