How To Operate A Business Through Emergencies

In truth, there are very few things in the professional world that count for ‘emergencies’. They are few and far between which is only natural as disasters cannot occur unless you’re running a two-bit operation. Most of the time they are not of your own making entirely and something always happens on the outside of your business to catalyst major malfunctions. However, it’s not always about things and something occurring such as a blackout and no way to run your business due to no power. It can also be about people, who suddenly need to have a break from work and therefore leave you holding the bag as it were. Where do you shift responsibilities in such a scenario where you key team members are unable to work? What if there is an economic crash and it was unforeseen like in 2008, how will you cope or have a plan to survive? These are just a small example of the various kinds of emergencies that can affect your business, but how do you broadly prepare for them?

 

Fly in the ointment

Depending on your circumstances, you may need stop taking the power your office receives for granted. Those that are startups and have to share offices because they can only afford such a style of workspace are at the mercy of their landlords essentially. Usually in new high-rise buildings the owner of the building will lease out to office space per floor and, then someone is likely to buy a long term lease in order to rent it out to startups and entrepreneurs. Already, you have a double layer of people who you are relying upon to make sure your office is always powered and things run smoothly.

Responses to mains shortages are often slow and can take more than 2 working days to get fixed or even more. The problem may be solved on your floor quicker if you could call out a commercial electrician that deals with professional environments such as offices and commercial buildings. They can handle pretty much any repairs and can help with emergency lighting systems so your staff can continue working without the ceiling lights working as they normally do. This is great for late nights at the office, during the winter time when sunlight hours are minimal and generally speaking helps people to see what they’re doing better.

 

Replacing a project leader

When a team leader is no longer able to perform their duties late on into a project, it can spell disaster for a business. There are many reasons why this could happen to you as one thing is for sure, there aren’t ever any shortages of those. One of the more common reasons why suddenly a team leader cannot come to work is they are sick. And during a crucial time such as giving a presentation to investors or pitching to potential business partners and clients is maybe the absolute worst time this can happen. The other reasons could be, they simply cannot handle the stress when the moment of truth arrives, they are no longer supported by their team members and a mutiny occurs, they are injured such as in a car accident and maybe even they jump ship and are hired by someone else.

Regardless of what the reason is, you as the business owner should plan for this. Don’t just think about who in that team could take over, because they know the project and seem to be supported by the other members. A project leader is a very important position and you need someone that is savvy to your wider aims. Essentially, picking someone who is just competent is not enough, you need to choose someone who is going to have the bigger picture of your business aims in mind. This could mean giving that team a leader from outside the circle of members, however this may be the proper option when you aren’t so close to an important event. This is so some kind of personal relationship can form with the team and the team in turn trust them and respect their authority. If it does come to a head and you need someone to take charge quickly, you should have already made you second and third best options at the time you chose the original leader. Therefore, the next in line takes over and you have a meeting with the entire team to patch things up.

 

 

The expendables

There’s a line in the famous action movie ‘Heat’ when the main antagonist says “never get involved with anything you can’t walk out on in 30 seconds”. For business that’s incredibly extreme but in certain aspects it’s the truth. In case of an absolute emergency whereby the economy is collapsing and trillions of dollars are being flushed down the drain, companies are going bankrupt and consumers are retracting from spending their money, you need to slim and trim down.

There are parts of business that are not essential, they just make life easier. For example, virtual assistants and virtual mailboxes make life easier for small businesses and make them look larger and more international than they actually are. You can and should drop these services when economic times are tough. Other things can be dropped quickly when you’re in business is cloud storage services. You should already be backing up your vital data onto hard drives thereby having two copies of things like customer data and accounts etc. Even certain luxuries like a free meal service or coffee for workers may need to be axed when things are getting tough. It may not seem like much, but these things tend to add up when you could be spending that money securing your future.

When the bottom drops out, a business will either drown or learn how to swim. As the business owner, you need several different plans ready for almost any scenario in case the economy flips upside down, a team leader is no longer in a position to lead and when you need to make any and all kinds of cutbacks. Emergencies come when you least expect them, but a clear plan b and plan c will save you from collapse.

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