• FREE RESOURCES
        • Accounts Payable
          Finally! The trick to securing greater T&E compliance
          Benefits
          Rooting out folks who don’t belong on your health plan: A 6-point dependent audit checklist
          IT
          3 costly misconceptions about biz email compromise
          Credit and Collections
          Collecting via email: 4 must-make moves in your subject line
          Accounts Payable
          5 Tough-to-spot signs that an invoice is fake
  • PREMIUM CONTENT
        • Staff management
          120 Proven Communications Tips for Today’s CFO
        • Payroll
          Handling Nonexempt Employee Pay: Stay Compliant and Avoid DOL Audits
          Accounts Payable
          T&E Best Practices: Complete Guide to Ensure Compliance
          Payroll
          Payroll Best Practices: 4 Ways to Save Time and Money
        • Staff management
          Email Best Practices: A 6-Question Quiz
          Staff management
          Innovative Communications Strategies: An Email Case Study
          Staff management
          A 5-part Framework for Successful Workplace Communications
        • SEE MORE
          PREMIUM RESOURCES
  • CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES
  • LOGIN
  • SIGN UP FREE

CFO Daily News

  • FREE RESOURCES
        • Accounts Payable
          Finally! The trick to securing greater T&E compliance
          Benefits
          Rooting out folks who don’t belong on your health plan: A 6-point dependent audit checklist
          IT
          3 costly misconceptions about biz email compromise
          Credit and Collections
          Collecting via email: 4 must-make moves in your subject line
          Accounts Payable
          5 Tough-to-spot signs that an invoice is fake
  • PREMIUM CONTENT
        • Staff management
          120 Proven Communications Tips for Today’s CFO
        • Payroll
          Handling Nonexempt Employee Pay: Stay Compliant and Avoid DOL Audits
          Accounts Payable
          T&E Best Practices: Complete Guide to Ensure Compliance
          Payroll
          Payroll Best Practices: 4 Ways to Save Time and Money
        • Staff management
          Email Best Practices: A 6-Question Quiz
          Staff management
          Innovative Communications Strategies: An Email Case Study
          Staff management
          A 5-part Framework for Successful Workplace Communications
        • SEE MORE
          PREMIUM RESOURCES
  • CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES
  • Accounts Payable
  • Credit and Collections
  • Payroll
  • Accounting
  • Benefits
  • Finance Technology
  • More
    • Employment Law
    • Strategy
    • Policy and Culture
    • Fraud
    • Payments and Transactions
    • Budgeting and Forecasting
    • Banking
    • Staff Management
    • Cost Control
    • Supply Chain
    • IT

Sandy tests employers’ preparedness: How would you fare?

Jennifer Azara
by Jennifer Azara
November 2, 2012
2 minute read
  • SHARE ON

Hurricane Sandy will go down in history for its wide-scale devastation. And our thoughts go out to the millions of businesses and individuals heartbreakingly impacted by this disaster.

We’ll likely be hearing about Sandy for weeks and months to come.

But for those of us only tangentially impacted by this crisis, now’s a good time to take a few steps in Finance and throughout your company to not only help minimize confusion and even help your own people do a little good for others in your community or the Northeast in general during this terrible time.

3 strategies for right now

Here are three steps you can take in the coming days and weeks to handle what’s happening now and lay the groundwork for what may come in the future:

Revisit your emergency communications plan. Maybe folks need to call in to a special number or perhaps you call them. But as this storm knocked out so many power and phone lines, chances are many people didn’t get vital information passed to them. That’s why you want to make sure you never rely on a single form of communication.

Instead, in addition to having both land line and cell phone numbers for staffers, keep a preferred email for them (it may not be their work one – something like gmail may be more reliable especially if your server goes down).  That way you have multiple chances to reach folks.

Take the consequences out of it. The last thing you want is people risking life and limb to get to the office in unsafe conditions because they’re worried about being docked a day.  Yes, closing will cost your company money and an entire day of productivity is a huge loss. But you don’t want employees to feel pressured by supervisors to risk their safety.

Some of your peers were sure to include in their messages to employees that while the hope was that they could make it into the office, it was understood if that wasn’t possible people would not be charged a PTO day for missing work.

Find ways for folks to help. The stories coming out of New York and New Jersey are heartbreaking. And likely there’s little else people will be talking about for a while. Organizing anything from a clothing drive to a food drive or even collecting office supplies for local businesses that were hard hit by Sandy will need.  That helps people feel less helpless and shows them your company’s humanitarian side.

Another option:  Offering to match any donations they make to Sandy-relief efforts. Be sure to warn staffers too – many phony charities pop up after a tragedy like this one. Encourage folks to stick with well-known organizations like The American Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

Jennifer Azara
Jennifer Azara
Jennifer, a member of the CFO Daily News staff, has covered business and finance for more than 22 years. She has written for CFOs, credit and collections professionals and accounts payable practitioners and has spoken at industry conferences on sales and use tax compliance.

Keep Up To Date with the Latest Finance News

With CFO Daily News arriving in your inbox, you will never miss critical stories on accounting, benefits, payroll & employment law strategies.

Sign up for a free CFO Daily News membership and get our newsletter!
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
CFO Daily News Logo
  • ABOUT CFO DAILY NEWS
  • ADVERTISE WITH US
  • WRITE FOR US
  • CONTACT
  • Accounting
  • Benefits
  • Payroll
  • Policy and Culture
  • Employment Law
  • Fraud
  • Finance Technology
  • Accounts Payable
  • Credit and Collections
  • Strategy
  • Payments and Transactions
  • Budgeting and Forecasting
  • Banking
  • Staff Management
  • Cost Control
  • Supply Chain
  • IT

CFO Daily News, part of the SuccessFuel Network, provides the latest Finance and employment law news for Finance professionals in the trenches of small-to-medium-sized businesses. Rather than simply regurgitating the day’s headlines, CFO Daily News delivers actionable insights, helping Finance execs understand what Finance trends mean to their business.

Privacy Policy Terms of Service
Copyright © 2021 SuccessFuel

WELCOME BACK!

Enter your username and password below to log in

Forget Your Username or Password?

Reset Password

Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.

Log In

preloader