Employers have rarely had a harder time attracting and retaining the right employees. When California employers were asked to rank the most important issue they currently face, 78% said employee engagement and retention.
Much of employers’ hiring and retention challenges come from a mismatch between the skills of the labor force and the needs of employers. But another significant factor
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An Easy Way To Let Others Know You’re Safe
When the Wine Country wildfires of 2017 struck my city, Santa Rosa was suddenly a lead story on national news. Every family member and friend wanted to know if we were safe and whether our house was still standing. So they called.
Not only were my loved ones trying to reach me, but the same was true for the other…
Developing a Preparedness Culture in Your Workplace
If you needed to use the loo when visiting the offices of Family Emergency Shelter Coalition, where I used to serve as Executive Director, you would encounter something a little odd and a little fun. On the inside of the stall door would be an 8 ½” x 11” sheet with an eye-catching graphic and some brief instructions that comprised…
It’s A Moral Obligation
Three massage spas. A supermarket. An office building. Those were the sites of three of the mass shooting incidents in the US in March, 2021. In the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia. In the college town of Boulder, Colorado. In the affluent small city of Orange, California.
By this time in American history, no one can justifiably think about mass shootings…
Can You Reach All Your Employees Fast?
There’s a big snowstorm/wildfire/flood/[your natural disaster here] headed your way. You need to alert and instruct all your employees immediately But there are 200 of them, and they work at 12 different sites, not counting the ones who are working remotely. How do you reach all of them quickly? Just as important, how do you get word back from each…
Go Bags and Stay Supplies
To survive a disaster, businesses have to be back up and running at some level within five days. For that to happen, employees have to be ready and willing to return to work. Employees will not come back if their families are not taken care of. So it’s very much in a business owner’s interest to help employees to get…
DRILLS: THEY’RE DISRUPTIVE. THEY’RE REPETITIVE. THEY WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE.
Our biggest challenge when working with clients is to inspire them to make drills and tabletop exercises a part of their company culture: something that’s built into the company calendar with the regularity of Thanksgiving and Christmas, something that everyone respects and feels a responsibility to participate in, a practice where everyone from the top leadership to the most jaded…
Making Things Stay Where You Put Them
I was walking toward the parking lot to hop in my car for an appointment. Suddenly, the cars in the lot started pitching forward and backward three feet in each direction. The ground was moving. I started running, until I realized I didn’t know where I was running to. It was a good thing that I did run, though: chunks…
Why We Don’t Call It Disaster Preparedness
A lot of people refer to what we do as disaster preparedness. We always use the term emergency preparedness. Why that choice?
Disasters have victims Emergencies have responders.
A disaster (“a sudden event, such as an accident or a natural catastrophe, that causes great damage or loss of life”) is something that happens to you. An emergency (“a serious, unexpected,…
Let There Be Light
When the power goes out, you need ways to light your space that do not plug into a power outlet.
Unless you’re in the footprint of the Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPSs) that California utility companies impose periodically to prevent fires (don’t get me started), your last encounter with producing light without an electrical outlet may have been on a…