When Disasters Strike – The Case for Remote Workers

Hurricane Helene barreled towards the Florida Gulf coast. Like most hurricanes, we expected Helene to dissipate as it entered Georgia and turn into the typical heavy rain and thunderstorms by the time it reached Greenville, South Carolina, the location of our home and headquarters to Sidekicks.

We were wrong – VERY wrong. What was forecasted to simply be a rain event for the area, became a fast-moving Cat 1 hurricane, hooking right and headed straight for Greenville.  When we realized what was happening, the storm crashed into our town and wreaked havoc, uprooting trees and downing powerlines. Our downtown is full of historic neighborhoods with large trees well over 100 years old, which simply could not handle the type of wind and rain that tackled the area. Trees were everywhere—some crushed houses and vehicles. Power and internet lines were down across the region. All communications, including cell service, were down.

Eleven days later, we received power at our house, and of this writing, we still do not have internet. While we certainly fared so much better than our neighbors in Western North Carolina, just 30 miles away, who lost everything, the impacts were very real.

What happened to our business?  Unlike so many companies with brick-and-mortar stores, Sidekicks is 100% remote and runs essentially online.  What we quickly realized is that we had unintentionally built a disaster contingency plan through our diversification of remote employees.  What an incredible blessing, and one that immediately prompted this writing.

We currently have a team of ten spread across six states throughout the Southeast and Midwest. When the hurricane hit, four members of our team in Georgia and South Carolina—essentially the entire C-suite and management team–were out of commission. There was no communication, no power, and no neighbors to help. The priority was helping the community and our families get back on their feet.

Having team members in the Midwest states literally saved our business during the storm’s aftermath. The unaffected team members took the reins and handled customer calls, sales calls, onboarding sessions—everything needed to take care of the business, our clients, and the Sidekicks across the nation. If our entire team had been based in Greenville, SC, we would have been in serious trouble.

Now, more than ever, we do not only view remote workers as a great way to find talent. Instead, we view remote employees as a necessity! Much like diversifying your business products and services, having all your employees in one place may be a tremendous risk when disaster strikes.

Application:

Critical Questions:

1. Consider your current business team makeup.  Is everyone in one single office or area?
2. What would you do if your office were out of commission and your town lost power?
3. What would you do if you could not service any of your customer accounts?

Diversifying your team locations:

If the business allows it, consider searching for top talent not just remotely but in different regions of the country. Mitigate the risk of natural disasters by having team members in areas that would be completely unaffected by regional disruptions. For example, if you have a business in the Southeast, consider finding a great person for your team in the Midwest or West.

At Sidekicks, we train and place remote workers with businesses. Naturally, most business owners want someone in their home state for payroll reasons. While easier, we actually encourage the opposite–having several remote employees outside your town and state can be critical to keeping your business moving when disaster strikes. Consider the workload that they can take if your local team is down.

Contingency Planning:

We never expect disasters to strike, and they may never happen. However, we should plan for them, and if you do not already have a business disaster contingency plan, make one today so the entire team knows what to do.

Making your plan

1. Risk Assessment and Disaster Scenarios
   • Identify Potential Disasters:
     • List possible disasters that could impact the local office, such as natural disasters and power outages
   • Evaluate Risks:
     • Identify the likelihood and impact of each disaster scenario on business operations, including remote work and client services.
     • Pick the top 3 most likely to occur and make your contingency plan around those.
2. Define Roles and Responsibilities
   • Emergency Contacts:
     • Identify the call chain – how everyone can quickly notify their call chain to let them know they are ok
     • Identify alternate points of contact – If someone cannot communicate, who can you contact to find out? This alternate might be a family member or friend.
   • Team Member Roles:
     • Define roles for remote employees in case of disaster, like customer service, communications, or tech support.
     • Determine primary and secondary roles for team members. For example, note who your lead service person for client communications is and who their backup is.
3. Communication Plan
   • Establish Primary and Backup Communication Channels:
     • Make it clear what everyone should use for primary communication and the backup.
     • What if cell service is down? Consider how you can communicate even without cell service and the internet
   • Client Communication:
     • Pre-plan how to notify clients, including email templates, website updates, and automated voicemail messages.
   • Immediate actions:
     • What should the entire team do, immediately, when disaster strikes?
4. Remote Operations Continuity Plan
   • Identify essential services:
     • List essential services and processes and assign them to remote employees if the local office is down. The reverse applies if the remote employee is impacted.
   • Daily Check-ins:
     • Establish daily check-in procedures to maintain team coordination and track service updates for clients, however possible.
5. Training and Testing
   • Employee Training:
     • Regularly train employees on the disaster plan to ensure everyone knows what to do. This also helps identify ambiguous areas of the disaster plan.
   • Plan Testing and Updates:
     • Test the plan periodically to identify any gaps or improvements.
     • Update the plan as business needs, team members, or technologies change.

Our disaster plan took shape after Hurricane Helene. Although we had simple protocols to follow when communications were out, exercising our disaster plan revealed areas that needed improvement. One fact remains clear: having remote team members out of state is paramount to ensuring business operations continue in the face of disaster.

At Sidekicks, we have a heart for providing service to our clients, whether it be service functions or executive assistant roles. In both cases, we saw the remote employees help tremendously for clients affected by Hurricane Helene.  We encourage you to add remote employees to your business plan for continuity of service and to ensure you always have someone to help when disaster strikes.