Readying a workforce is perhaps one of the most challenging things to do. It’s not that training on its own is particularly difficult, but getting an entire organization to step back and understand what their individual essential functions are and how they each need to prepare to play their part…that’s a big lift.
Our team is pretty mobile – used to working on laptops, connecting remotely, using digital tools. But they are also used to going to an office and connecting face-to-face. That’s normal business. What about in an emergency? We have found two things really helped ready our workforce: tabletop exercises and real events. Tabletops help the team imagine a circumstance and role play in an invented scenario. The biggest benefits that come out of them are the weak spots you identify, and more importantly how you address them and adjust your plan. We’ve also had real emergencies: remember the 2017 and 2019 fire events in northern California? Some of our people were right in the middle of them. We figured out quickly during those events what worked and what we needed to change to help our team deal with the circumstances and keep moving forward. That is key: keep moving forward.
Discussion: What are do you need to adjust in your response to current events?
