The holiday season—with its gingerbread and gifts and cozy family gatherings—is behind us. But we still have to get through the rest of winter. And that can come with several less exciting disruptions to your organization.
With severe weather brewing, your teams need to be prepared in case of a sudden shutdown. Read on for answers to the most common HR questions about creating an emergency response plan, with special attention to severe weather.
Winter Storm Elliott buried huge swaths of the nation in snow and ice in late December 2022. But if your organization is in the South or somewhere else with a mild climate, you may think severe weather prep isn’t worth your time.
Some winters, BerniePortal’s headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, hardly sees any snow. But in spring 2020, a tornado swept through Nashville. Several team members’ homes were affected, and we had to shut down after losing power at headquarters. So no matter where your organization is located, it’s crucial to be prepared in case severe weather does come your way. A good response plan has many advantages:
From winter storms to tornadoes to pandemics, an emergency response plan offers these three benefits for any sort of unexpected disruption or emergency.
Remember, if your industry can’t work remotely at all, decide how and when to make the call to shut down during a storm.
2. Communicate the policy in advance. Include it somewhere team members can easily refer to it at any time. That could mean including the severe weather policy in your Culture Guide or employee handbook. Or, if you use an all-in-one HRIS like BerniePortal, you can house it in the Compliance feature alongside other postings. You can even require employees to sign off acknowledging they’ve reviewed it.
3. Train your team. All employees should know where to go and what to do immediately if severe weather strikes. And a few designated leaders should be trained to guide the whole team. At small to midsize businesses, it’s likely that this responsibility falls to you.
4. Practice. Hold regular fire, tornado, and lockdown drills, and for winter weather, be sure to practice—or at least review—the action plan each year before winter sets in.
The most common winter weather event is a winter storm, which typically leads to power outages, icy roads, and downed trees and power lines. In this case, use multiple communication channels to let employees know whether, when, and how they’re expected to report to work.
As you make decisions, remember to err on the side of safety. If possible, you might consider shifting operations to remote work so team members don’t have to navigate treacherous roads to commute to the office. If that’s not possible, be cautious about remaining open.
Every organization is different, and so is every storm, so don’t make the decision to open or close lightly. As important as it is to keep your operations moving, it’s even more important to keep your team safe.
Once employees are safe, the next priority should be minimizing the impact to the organization itself. To help with this, you’ll need to create a business continuity plan, or BCP.
This document includes all the information your organization needs to keep operating during a disruptive event—from a winter storm to a cyber attack. It’s designed to help minimize interruptions during a crisis, which supports your business’s bottom line by helping you avoid losing customers to better-prepared competitors.
A BCP not only explains logistics like how to run the generator and which employees are essential—it also includes communication with external partners and customers. A good BCP will have a customer support checklist that prepares you to let clients know how the disruption will affect them, and for how long. These effects can include delayed deliveries, slower response times, out-of-office replies, and more.
Larger organizations often have their IT departments create the BCP. But at small to midsize businesses, this responsibility can fall to HR. Your BCP should include at least these four parts:
Creating a BCP can be time-consuming, but it will be worth it when an emergency strikes and you already know what to do—you just have to follow the plan’s instructions.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, is a U.S. government agency dedicated to ensuring health and safety standards for employee working conditions. OSHA’s mission is to help prevent work-related injuries, illnesses, and deaths.
By law, employers must provide their workers with a workplace that doesn’t have hazards and must follow all OSHA safety and health standards. Employers must find and correct any known safety and health issues in the workplace. And they must eliminate hazards by making any possible changes in working conditions rather than relying on personal protective equipment such as masks, gloves, earplugs, etc.
In the context of a winter storm, the work mentioned above to keep employees safe is a good starting point in maintaining OSHA compliance. If an accident or injury does occur, report it via Form 300A.
OSHA has also released a detailed handbook for emergencies and evacuations that you can consult as you create your emergency response plan. They have an overall winter weather guide as well, which is especially helpful if you have employees who work outside.
The Fair Labor Standards Act, or FLSA, outlines which employees must be compensated during severe weather based on their exempt or nonexempt status.
Exempt, or salaried, workers are paid a regular rate regardless of the number of hours they work, so as long as they’re ready, willing, and able to do their jobs, you still have to pay them under the FLSA—even if you were closed.
Nonexempt, or hourly, employees technically do not have to be compensated for any hours not worked during a closure. If operations totally shut down and hourly team members did not work, you don’t have to pay them.
However, consider at least partial pay for these employees as a gesture of goodwill—especially if your organization employs both exempt and nonexempt workers. If it’s possible for your budget, compensating all team members while you’re closed for a winter storm can help you show your talent that you care about their financial well-being, which can be a great tactic for retention.
If that’s not possible, you might allow these employees to make up lost hours after you reopen, or approve overtime to help mitigate the lost income. These strategies can help you build a healthy company culture that avoids resentment among some employees who did not get paid while others did.
While an effective response to an emergency is a complex task, two simple concepts can guide your entire process: safety is priority one, and preparation is key. If you keep those two things in mind as you plan, you’ll be on track for a thorough, effective, and compliant emergency response plan for whatever storms come your way.
You can stay informed, educated, and up-to-date with important HR topics using BerniePortal’s comprehensive resources: