You may be emotionally and physically ready for what comes next, but is your team? You’ll need to help them to understand what to expect and what their roles will be “just in case”. Ready.gov provides guidance and exercises for you to use in coaching your team, but you’ll need to adjust to address the unique challenges of your people and pharmacy. For example, it wouldn’t be unusual to have customers in the pharmacy with limited mobility, hearing or vision, so be sure and include evacuation instructions for those with special needs into the plan for your team’s preparedness training.
When preparing your team for a disaster, they will want to know how it will affect them:
- What if I can’t get to the back-up location because of the weather?
- How do I get paid?
- Will I get paid if we are closed because of the weather or natural disaster?
Work with your trusted advisors for guidance on what the labor laws require. You also want to plan ahead to do what you can do to be both compliant and a good manager.
Communicate with your community
Make it easy for your customers and community to know what is happening with your business. If you are warned of a potential disaster (for example, a few days in advance of a hurricane), you’ll not only be busy with customers stocking up on their essential medications, but they’ll want to know what happens “if”. You and your team should be ready to answer questions and supply information via your website, social media and phone. Have a newsletter list? Send them a note in advance and help calm fears with answers to classic questions you expect. Regardless, have a communications approach as part of your overall preparedness plan.
Much like insurance …
You buy insurance for your assets and hope you never have to use it. Same with your plans for handling disasters: build and hope you never have to use them. And much like insurance, you need to revisit these plans on a regularly scheduled basis to keep them up-to-date and relevant as your business evolves and new information/resources become available to you for handling potentially catastrophic events.
