We have previously blogged about the role your intranet can play during an emergency, namely the H1N1 pandemic last year. This week Martin White, founder of Intranet Focus Ltd, wrote an article about intranet support for emergency planning in light of the volcanic ash from Iceland and air flight ban in Europe.
Martin spoke to a number of his clients and found that users were rushing to find documents on the intranet so they could attend meetings on behalf of colleagues that were stranded abroad due to the air flight ban. This speaks to the importance of a well-organized and searchable Document Management system so that users, who might not normally be looking for these documents, can locate them easily and efficiently.
The intranet phone list/staff directory is another application that is being hit hard due to the situation with the volcanic ash, as users are searching for alternative employees and managers with a similar skill set as their stranded counterparts. As the rest of the company keeps running during an emergency, projects still need to be completed, proposals signed off on, and customer service levels maintained, it is essential that employees can find other managers as sources of expertise.
You never know when an emergency may strike so the best preparation is careful assessment and planning of systems and strategies that can be used to minimize the effect of the emergency. As people are rarely in the place they expect to be during an emergency, the intranet can play a key role in ensuring that employees have access to the information they need to be able to step in for their co-workers. Intranet managers can take an emergency as an opportunity to find out how effective their intranet is at the time, put together business plans for additional requirements to deal with an emergency situation, and ensure that they are included in discussions about planning for an emergency.
Read Martin White’s full article here.
Tags: best practices, enterprise tools, intranet ROI, Intranet tips
