Emergency Management

NOAA recently released their 2020 hurricane predictions and the Atlantic and Gulf coasts are expected to have an above-normal season. The well-respected team of hurricane forecasters from Colorado State agree—predicting a season that is 50% more severe than average, when it comes to major hurricanes. When you add in the uncertainty and disruption caused by the pandemic, the end result is a hurricane season that could be unprecedented in its potential for destruction.

As businesses and organizations craft their hurricane preparedness plans, it is vital to business continuity and employee safety that hurricane communications are relevant and can be sent rapidly as conditions change. The fastest way to ensure every employee receives the right message at the right time is to utilize hurricane notification templates. Modern emergency communications solutions will provide templates that companies can send across all communication channels, including email, text, push notifications and phone calls. Read More

With hurricane season just days away, it’s time for businesses to start preparing for potential impact. The first line of defense in protecting your people and assets is understanding how a hurricane’s category level can help your business prepare appropriately. Read More

“Preparedness is everyone’s responsibility.”

– Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

The 2020 hurricane season is quickly approaching. Early preparation is the smartest way to ensure business continuity and protect employees.

While the full hurricane season lasts from June 1 to November 30, building an early plan of action helps businesses craft emergency hurricane communications ahead of time, map out their evacuation routes, and brace for impact. Developing a plan well before a storm arrives also gives employers and their people much-needed peace of mind. Read More

The pandemic has a certain way of putting things in perspective. Worries that seemed so important just a few months ago seem trivial today. Businesses have been forced to conjure up a new (and all too real) meaning of the word “resiliency.”

But as companies start to settle into the new normal, they must acknowledge another reality. Some of the concerns that generated the most anxiety and preparation a year ago are still relevant today—and must still be addressed. Life goes on in the midst of the pandemic, and organizations need to make sure they are not caught flat-footed by the yearly threats that seem less important in the present circumstances.

One of those threats? Hurricane season. Every year around this time, companies start to review their hurricane plans and protocols, looking for minor tweaks and improvements to make things go a bit more smoothly than the year before. 

The problem is, this isn’t just any hurricane season. The pandemic will make it more tempting to push hurricane preparedness to the wayside, when in reality: the pandemic will make hurricane season even more difficult to prepare for than past years. Read More

The Coronavirus pandemic has created an unparalleled time of uncertainty. It seems that nothing can be taken for granted anymore—from basic human interaction to the supply of toilet paper.

Epidemiological forecasters have tried to satisfy this need for certainty by building models to predict the spread of the disease. But these models often tell very different stories and can be hard to digest. 

However, if one takes a step back and looks at pandemics broadly, there starts to be some agreement. Even though people disagree about when or how we should “reopen the economy,” just about everybody agrees on one thing: there are three stages of a pandemic. Let’s discuss what you can expect in each of those three stages, and how your business can prepare for every stage of a pandemic. Read More

As everyone is learning during the Coronavirus outbreak, pandemics are a unique type of threat. They last for months, provide new insights every week, and require organizations to adapt every day. With pandemics, it is more important than ever to be vigilant and proactive in your company’s response. 

To facilitate this agile response, many companies have decided to form central teams dedicated to pandemic response, known as COVID-19 task forces. Management experts like McKinsey and Company recommend this approach, because a small, central team is most likely to develop the creative, pragmatic solutions that a pandemic requires. 

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Whether you know yours or not, everyone knows what IQ is. A high IQ score can be a source of bragging rights, or a qualification for membership in societies like Mensa. The lesser-known sibling of IQ is EQ, or “Emotional Quotient,” which is a measure of emotional intelligence.

What you might not have heard of before, though, is RQ—a measure of risk intelligence. Unlike IQ or EQ, RQ measures the “Risk Quotient” of organizations, not individuals. In this article, we will discuss what risk intelligence is and how you can boost your company’s RQ. Read More