By Kyra Cavanaugh and Jaime Leick
Work&Place Journal Issue 2 – February 2013 Pages 32-35
Tags: business continuity • telework
As “Superstorm Sandy” loomed, off the coast of North Carolina USA in late October 2012, we thought of all the telework pieces we’ve ever written about maintaining productivity in a disaster. This storm was no different, and as Sandy subsided, media outlets everywhere began reporting on the benefits of remote work. Sometimes, of course, work can’t continue as planned. Jaime Leick, a member of the Life Meets Work team, learned this lesson from an old college friend:
“Julie Broihier was a college friend of mine and bridesmaid at my wedding, but I rarely get to see her since she left the Midwest to become a bona fide New Yorker. She married a local boy and now lives on Long Island. I waited days to hear how her family fared in the storm. Finally, her sister posted an update to Facebook. All was well, but internet was out and phone was spotty. It took four days before Julie and I could trade text messages and three more after that before an actual phone call was possible.”
Julie is a project manager with the World Trade Center Health Program at Stony Brook University. The governor asked all non-essential state employees to stay home immediately after the storm, but Julie’s team felt the clinic should be available.
Getting to work wasn’t the issue—she had a full tank of gas. Although a week after the storm she still had coworkers waiting two hours to get gasoline and counting themselves lucky to be among the “first” in line.
For her, the real hurdle was childcare. Roughly 900,000 Long Island customers were without power, her children’s school and daycare included. She was able to drop off her girls with the in-laws, although they too lacked electricity.
Julie says many of her coworkers live alone, and for them coming into work was preferable to sitting in a dark apartment. But for her, she admits, she was glad when the clinic closed early. “I was torn,” she says. “As a manager, I felt like I needed to be there. But I was also thinking about my community and all their needs.”
Clearly telework won’t always work—not when power and communication services go down and not when people are coping with anxiety and loss. But, for every employee who couldn’t work after the storm, there were hundreds more who could. All over New York, work was still getting done.
Many employees were able to log in remotely from home. Others simply did “thought-work,” drafting letters, creating action plans. And still others—like Julie—did inadvertent team building in the office, coming together to assess the organization’s needs and capabilities.
Work, offline
As Superstorm Sandy loomed, organizations began rolling out their disaster plans, topping off generators with gasoline, and warning employees to bring their laptops home in case the storm made travelling unsafe.
The reality, of course, is that the storm knocked out power to roughly 8.5 million people across the east coast. And many of those that did have power didn’t have internet or phone service.
So for many organizations, telework (in the technical sense) wasn’t an option. But for plenty, work continued in different, “less modern” ways. Here are some quick thoughts on how work can still be meaningful and productive, even when your systems are offline:
• Tackle projects that require big picture thinking—the kind we never slow down long enough to do otherwise.
• Work on strategic planning, writing, visioning.
• Do goal-setting for you and your team.
• Take advantage of the camaraderie and team building opportunities that come from weathering the storm together.
• Envision new initiatives that would improve the meaningfulness of your job—something you’ve always dreamed of starting but never had the time to plan out….