Transportation and Logistics
Give them a job
How to ensure your company is prepared for the worst
By Mark Scott
Smart Business | August 2009
Michael Loede can talk to his team at Group Transportation Services about how to be ready if disaster ever strikes the logistics company.
But one of the best ways to ensure your people will be ready to handle a crisis situation in your organization is to give them an important task to perform to help get through it.
“Give them a piece of the puzzle that will fit together if something bad does happen,” says Loede, the company’s less-than-load supervisor.
According to the 2009 ERC/Smart Business Workplace Practices Survey, the number of companies that have disaster recovery plans in place should the worst occur has increased from 49 percent in 2007 to 63 percent in 2009.
GTS has prepared a secondary location that would become the new base of operations if the current building became unusable. Every employee is regularly reminded of what his or her role would be in an emergency and how he or she would help pull the company through the crisis.
“If I give one of my employees a task to do and they don’t perform it, then the other people can’t do their jobs as well,” Loede says. “It just becomes a domino effect, and the plan won’t work unless everyone is doing what they are assigned to do.”
Loede says it is critical to get everyone involved in the effort so they have a stake in helping the company get through the crisis.
“Each person has their own specific duties that need to be filled so we can provide the best customer service we can,” Loede says.
Talk about the plans on a regular basis so that it’s always fresh in their minds and stress the importance of being prepared for anything.
“It’s just going over that plan and making sure everybody understands what needs to be done,” Loede says. “There are a lot of competitors out there. If our customers don’t get immediate contact or satisfaction with a certain situation, they’ll just go somewhere else. If you’re not fully prepared, that’s the biggest mistake you can make.”
How to reach: Group Transportation Services, (800) 689-6255 or www.onestopshipping.com
