Crisis management of human resources: lessons from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita taught many businesses on the Gulf Coast a valuable lesson about the ability of management to plan for every contingency--it cannot. What managers can do is learn from tragedy when it strikes and try to be better prepared the next time. We examine crisis management from a human resource perspective and offer insights into how to minimize losses and disruption should disaster occur. HR managers' centralized location for employee relations, and expertise in communications, writing human resource policies and procedures, and employee training and development offers them the opportunity to make valuable contributions in crisis management planning and implementation. Through lessons learned from these recent storms, we offer specific recommendations on how HR managers can do so. Using examples of how organizations responded to these crises, we illustrate what worked well and what did not in HR.

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Recent events have underscored the need to think about the unthinkable. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita taught many businesses on the Gulf Coast valuable lessons about the abilities of management to plan for every contingency--it cannot. No matter how forward-thinking company managers are, there is no way to plan for every possibility when a crisis strikes. What managers can do is learn from tragedy when it does happen and try to be better prepared the next time.

After terrorists struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, many managers in the United States revisited their crisis management plans with hopes that they would be prepared should a similar disaster, whether manmade or natural, hit (Kondrasuk, 2004). Because Hurricanes Katrina and Rita packed a one-two punch to the Gulf Coast, many businesses across the country again are examining their disaster preparedness and crisis management plans in light of new lessons learned. This article examines crisis management (CM) from a human resource perspective and offers valuable insights on how to minimize losses and disruption should disaster strike.

We begin by defining CM, outlining the phases of the CM process, and exploring how the concept of organizational learning relates to CM. In particular we illustrate that now is the optimal time to learn from these crises. We then examine the HR manager's role in CM and how HR managers can take advantage of these recent crises to improve their organizations' responses to future events. We offer specific recommendations to improve CM in the HR arena and use several examples to illustrate what HR managers have learned and how these lessons can minimize disruptions in the future.

Crisis Management and Organizational Learning

An organizational crisis is "a low-probability, high-impact event that threatens the viability of the organization and is characterized by ambiguity of cause, effect, and means of resolution, as well as by a belief that decisions must be made swiftly" (Pearson & Clair, 1998). CM involves a systematic attempt by managers to prevent crises from occurring and to manage crises successfully when they do take place. CM begins long before a crisis occurs and continues long after recovery (Pearson, et al., 1997). Three major stages of CM include (Castillo, 2004; Heath, 1998):

1. Pre-crisis or planning: Managers plan how to respond to crisis events that may occur;

2. The crisis itself: Managers respond to the crisis in hopes of reducing or mitigating its impact; and

3. Post-crisis or recovery: Managers assess the damage and attempt to return the organization to at least its pre-crisis state.

The literature on CM and organizational learning suggests that crises may be beneficial if specific learning outcomes are encouraged, because crises create learning readiness in organizations (Kovoor-Misra & Nathan, 2000). They shine a light on organizational weaknesses that might otherwise remain hidden or be ignored. Crises can motivate the parties involved to search for a wider portfolio of responses for future crises and can encourage experimentation and practice (Seeger, et al., 2005) that ultimately may lead to increased flexibility and adaptability (Sitkin, 1996). The ultimate outcome of any crisis is organizational learning that reduces future risks.

During a crisis, stakeholders often experience emotional upheaval that they seek to resolve once the crisis has passed. Often this resolution involves rejection of systems and structures that are associated with the crisis or that may be viewed as contributing to it (Seeger, et al., 2005). The crisis becomes a force for organizational change, an attention-getting event that forces management to focus on a problem that it previously may have overlooked or underestimated.

Timing is everything when it comes to learning from a crisis (Kovoor-Misra & Nathan, 2000). Organizational change is most likely to occur while management is still focused on the crisis and before stability returns and new organizational routines are established. According to Turner (1976), after a disaster, organizations go through a period of normative readjustment during which cultural changes are made that align beliefs and avoidance norms with new post-crisis information and understanding. New insights often lead to changes in organizational policies and procedures that incorporate new understandings of risk.

Organizations appear to go through three learning phases after a crisis: defensiveness, openness, and forgetfulness (Kovoor-Misra & Nathan, 2000). The defensiveness phase is characterized by crisis containment. In this phase, managers fixate on controlling the crisis situation and are not likely to recognize or evaluate the situation for possible learning opportunities. Although information is collected during the defensiveness stage, managers use it to minimize and deal with the immediate crisis, not for long-term learning. During the openness phase, leaders become more accessible to examine the crisis response and understand organizational weaknesses. Most learning occurs in the openness phase because participants are willing to question core assumptions and beliefs of the organization that typically are unconscious and resistant to change. This is the most opportune time for deep learning, because attention is directed toward finding solutions. During the forgetfulness phase, managers lose their sense of urgency and, although the crisis event is not forgotten, the motivation for change and opportunities for learning decline.

Although crises present an opportune period of learning readiness, not all organizations learn from disasters (Kovoor-Misra & Nathan, 2000). Some organizations are too deeply mired in assigning blame, denying responsibility, and other dysfunctional behaviors. Healthier organizations are better able to get on with rebuilding or revitalization. These organizations are able to engage in a "discourse of renewal" that links the pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis stages, forming a frame for motivation and cooperation (Seeger, et al., 2005). This is the most opportune time for managers to undertake a discourse of renewal and examine their organizations' CM plans, before forgetfulness and complacency set in.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita captured the attention of the majority of the population and have encouraged managers everywhere to question their prior assumptions and beliefs about how well prepared their organizations are for disasters of similar proportions. The immediate crisis is over. Organizations have moved on from crisis response to recovery, yet forgetfulness has not yet set in. Now is the time to learn, while openness prevails.

HR's Role in Crisis Management

CM should be multifunctional (Pearson, et al., 1997) and an important part of a company's strategic planning process (Evans & Elphick, 2005). Key management players from across the organization should be involved in CM planning and implementation to ensure a comprehensive approach. HR managers are in a position to make a crucial contribution by developing an infrastructure plan for the company's human capital (Deming, 2002); however, 22 percent of HR professionals report that they have no role in their organizations' disaster preparedness (Fegley & Victor, 2005).

A common mistake in CM planning is to think about a company's human capital only after plans are made for the organization's systems, operations, infrastructure, and public relations (Lockwood, 2005). As Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have illustrated, organizations must give more consideration to the effects of critical events on their employees. Without its human resources, a company's best-laid plans for disaster response and recovery cannot be realized. This is not to suggest that HR should play the lead role in CM, only that HR should be an active participant at the CM planning table. HR managers' centralized location for employee relations, and expertise in communications, writing human resource policies and procedures, and employee training and development offer them the opportunity to make valuable contributions in crisis management planning and implementation. Some vital CM activities, like getting people back to work and paid on time, demand HR's heavy involvement--another reason to include it from the start.

HR should play a vital role in all three phases of CM: planning, response, and recovery. HR departments are the one area of an organization that deals with every employee. Further, HR managers act as liaisons between management and employees, and they routinely help employees deal with significant health and personal issues (Jones Walker, 2005). This expertise can be invaluable in developing the human side of CM plans.

Recovery plans are an especially important aspect of CM to which HR managers can contribute, as evidenced by the rapid escalation of workforce issues in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (Lockwood, 2005). Once the crisis has passed, HR can lead in helping the company and employees get back on their feet. The remainder of this article is devoted to lessons HR managers can take away from these two powerful hurricanes; however, the lessons learned may be equally applicable to other disasters.

Preparation and Training

HR should play a strategic role in CM preparation and training to facilitate organizational continuity (Lockwood, 2005). This role begins long before a crisis strikes and continues throughout the crisis response and recovery stages. A successful CM plan includes tactics for an immediate response to a disaster and for recovery once the initial crisis passes. It also should go beyond the crisis itself to include organizational learning for increased flexibility in future crises. HR professionals can contribute to these efforts by being involved in the development of CM plans, by promoting the plans and training for emergencies, and by leading the post-crisis examination of the crisis response for areas needing improvement.

Developing and Documenting the CM Plan

HR managers are in a position to be a driving force behind the development of CM plans (Jones Walker, 2005). As Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have shown us, low morale, fear, physical relocation, or even death from a crisis may result in the loss of workers, along with vital talent and organizational knowledge. One critical role of HR in developing CM plans is to minimize these organizational losses, as well as the negative effect on employees themselves, by developing strategies that address the safety, health, and well being of employees before, during, and after an emergency (Lockwood, 2005). Further, HR must clearly illustrate the importance of these plans to the organization's goals by tying plans to the organization's mission, vision, and values, and connecting CM plans for employees to the organization's bottom line (Lockwood, 2005).

Training and Education

Developing a CM plan is just the beginning in preparing for a disaster (Jones Walker, 2005). Former NASA space shuttle flight director Ran Dittemore likened the development of contingency planning to the concepts used to prepare for space flight missions. Just as shuttle flight controllers practice flight simulations over and over, increasing the number of issues faced each time, repeated practice is absolutely essential for companies to be able to react under stressful conditions (DeMoss, 2006).

HR can be a driving force in convincing top managers to test their plan to determine if it is actually going to work when needed. The plan should be implemented frequently and routinely to allow employees to practice the plan and to work out the kinks in the plan before disaster strikes (Danowsky & Poll, 2005). Because the HR department is the one area of the company with access to all employees, it is the logical starting point for CM training and education. Further, HR managers are uniquely qualified to share and promote CM plans throughout the organization given that HR is a common source for training and development of, and communication with, employees (Jones Walker, 2005).

BellSouth Advertising and Publishing Company's (BAPCO) then benefits manager, Carmen Kruse, emphasized the importance of training in her account of BAPCO's response after Hurricane Andrew (Kruse, 1993). Just seven months after BAPCO instituted training of its newly developed CM plan, Hurricane Andrew struck. The company was able to respond quickly, returning its employees to work while other companies' work forces were still in chaos. BellSouth's preparation again paid off after Hurricane Katrina when the company was prepared for the worst and was recognized for coming to the aid of its employees by planning ahead (Lindorff, 2005).

Communication

One of the most important parts of CM is a continuous line of communication (Carides, 2005; Gurchiek, 2005, Oct. 19; Lookwood, 2005); however, communication is one part of disaster planning that is often taken for granted (Gurchiek, 2005, Oct. 19). Most CM planning is done with the expectation of a disastrous event happening to the company itself, not to the world around it (Woodward, 2005). HR must be ready to communicate with both internal and external stakeholders of the organization and should have a convenient and easily located source of communication available (Lockwood, 2005) no matter where disaster strikes. As illustrated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, this is more easily said than done. Although most HR professionals indicate that their organizations have emergency communication plans (Fegley & Victor, 2005), many communication plans went out the window in the wake of these crises when both primary and secondary forms of communication were severely disrupted or even eliminated (Carides, 2005). In the following sections, we make recommendations for ensuring continued communication both during and after a crisis.

Contact Information

Once a crisis strikes, a top priority of HR managers should be accounting for employees and maintaining contact with them (Jones Walker, 2005). After a hurricane, it typically takes a few days for a company to locate all its employees (Marquez, 2005); however, after Katrina and Rita, it took many companies weeks to do so, and some employees were never accounted for. Up-to-date contact and next-of-kin information should therefore be maintained and updated regularly for every employee.

Although many businesses in the hurricane-ravaged areas routinely collect and maintain this information from employees, most employees' contact information included family or friends who lived in the same city or area and were also negatively affected by the storms. Businesses had not counted on entire regions being wiped out. Organizations should require that employees provide out-of-the area contact information. "Because of Katrina, we are requiring that our plans now list non-corporate email addresses for all employees and an out-of-region contact," said Glen Curole, CBCP, director of business continuity for International Paper in Memphis (Ballman, 2005).

Corporate 800 Numbers

HR managers should also make sure that employees know whom to contact and how (Jones Walker, 2005). Hibernia National Bank had an emergency hotline number that workers were familiar with, but the number was in the 504 area code and did not work in the first few days after the storm (Woodward, 2005). A better alternative is to establish an 800 number for employees to call to get updates on developments and to check in. Entergy, McDonald's, and Stein Mart, Inc., relied heavily on their 800 numbers to communicate with their workers during and after Hurricane Katrina (Marquez, 2005; Gurchiek, 2005, Oct. 19). Sodexho North America leased a plane to fly over Houston with a banner (Marquez, 2005), and many companies broadcast public service announcements and took out newspaper ads asking employees to call their corporate 800 numbers. HR departments should provide employees with a laminated pocket card that contains emergency contact information, such as the company 800 number, website address, and any other necessary information (Woodward, 2005).

The Ritz Carlton used its 800 number to set up a hotline before the storm to communicate among managers and let them know the status of the hotel and employees. Managers also used the Ritz hotline to communicate with employees and other stakeholders throughout the week after the storm (A. Odinet, personal communication, Dec. 7, 2005). McDonald's converted its HR service center in Chicago into a help center where it fielded approximately 3,800 calls (Boorstin, et al., 2005). Forty staff members in the command center were instructed to encourage dislocated employees to go to the nearest McDonald's and post a sign with its 800 number to facilitate others' ability to get information (Marquez, 2005).

Email

If a company's email system is located on a server outside the disaster zone, email can be a powerful communication tool. Coe Solutions, a CPA firm based in Metairie, Louisiana, moved its website and email to a third-party hosting site before evacuating and was able to maintain its web connection and email capabilities as a result (Scott, 2005). JW Marriott, Jr., CEO of Marriott International, said "Safety through email. The most important thing in dealing with any crisis is communication, so we moved our email system out of New Orleans and up to Washington, D. C., before Katrina hit. Our people were able to send emails and pictures through the system, and we were able to find out the status of each hotel" (Boorstin, et al., 2005). The Ritz Carlton also relied on email to keep employees informed. After moving key employees, including HR personnel, back on site, they sent emails to all employees on a regular basis to keep everyone informed (A. Odinet, personal communication, Dec. 7, 2005).

As many companies found out after the hurricanes, email will be ineffective if the organization's email server or service provider is inoperable because of the disaster. In addition to contracting with an out-of-area provider, companies can use an emergency email system, which can be activated quickly by phone or the Internet if an organization's email system goes down (McCarthy, 2005). Several telecommunications companies now offer emergency email systems.

Website/Bulletin Board

The organization's website also can be used to keep employees informed (Jones Walker, 2005). HR can set up an area on the website informing employees of the company's operating plans. The website also can serve as a means for employees to communicate with the company and with one another, and it can provide the corporate 800 number if the organization has one.

Placing a bulletin board on the company's website may become a form of group therapy for employees. A bulletin board on a corporate website can help employees get back in touch with one another and maintain their ties to the company, which may help with employee retention.

Text Messaging

Another possibility for maintaining communication is text messaging. Katrina and Rita each wiped out land-based phone lines and cell phone communications towers across wide geographic areas. Other areas' towers were so inundated with calls that successful completion of calls was difficult, if not impossible. According to communications expert Charles Pizza, who was also a storm evacuee staying in Houston, "One of the major indignities of being an evacuee from Katrina is the complete collapse of the telecommunications infrastructure," he says. "I am 600 miles away from my home in New Orleans, with a brand-new cell phone number, and reception is no better" (Woodward, 2005). For many, cell phones were supposed to be the backup for landline phones, and when cell phone communications failed, companies' emergency plans failed with them (Danowsky & Poll, 2005). In many instances, text messaging continued to function. Although text messaging uses the same cellular networks as cell phone calls, they are much smaller, limited to 160 alphanumeric characters, and, therefore, are usually able to go through even when the network is too damaged or overtaxed to transmit voice traffic (Cobbs, 2005).

Starbucks drew from its experience with the 2001 Seattle earthquake to maintain contact with employees after Katrina. Starbucks used a voicemail system, developed by its vendor after the Seattle earthquake, to tell Starbucks employees to call or text message the company to make sure that everyone was accounted for; not one employee was lost (Boorstin, et al., 2005). Smoothie King, a New Orleans-based smoothie-and-juice franchise with 380 locations, used text messaging extensively after Hurricane Katrina, first to check on employees, and then to begin business recovery (Cobbs, 2005). Alltel was able to facilitate the rescue of an employee trapped by rising floodwaters by tracing her phone through its network infrastructure and contacting the friend whom she was text messaging at the time for information on her whereabouts. Alltel then contacted the Army to get her out (Boorstin, et al., 2005).

Other Measures

In addition to the measures mentioned earlier, resourceful companies used several other tactics to communicate with their employees. "During a crisis, there is no such thing as over-communicating," says Steven Thorpe, manager of Public Relations at Hibernia National Bank (Woodward, 2005). For example, the leader of Entergy's business continuity efforts had fax machines along with generators delivered to employee staging areas throughout the region to keep it up-to-date on where power had been restored and what areas still needed work (Marquez, 2005). Sodexho sent three HR managers and several district managers to the Astrodome to work with the Red Cross, helping them locate 110 employees (Marquez, 2005). Kimberly Wheeler, director of human resources with the Pensacola News Journal, suggests making sure that key people use different cell phone carriers, and points out that Bluetooth technology can allow for the use of cell phones through an Internet connection (Woodward, 2005). Some companies advertised on news websites such as MSNBC.com; others had employee volunteers wear brightly colored shirts with the companies' 800 numbers inscribed on them in hopes that displaced employees would spot the numbers on news reports and use them to make contact (Woodward, 2005). Sam's Club had fliers handed out at every Red Cross shelter, whereas Hibernia National Bank visited local talk shows and ran radio, television, and newspaper ads (Woodward, 2005).

Ham radios are another possible tool in a company's emergency communications arsenal. During both hurricanes, ham radios worked better in some areas than did any other form of communication (Gurchiek, 2006). During a disaster, all the rules go out the window and all managers must be able to think on their feet and come up with innovative ways to keep the communication lines open. Recovery depends on it.

Pay and Benefits

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have prompted employers, even those unaffected by the storms, to revisit their policies for pay and benefit continuation in the event of a disaster (Miller, 2005). A post-Katrina survey of large US companies shows that companies are not fully prepared to deal with pay and benefits issues in a disaster, with over 70 percent lacking formal policies on how to handle pay and benefits matters (Miller, 2005). HR managers should ensure that workers' pay and benefits are considered in CM plans. Decisions should be made about whether pay and benefits should continue and for how long, how administrative requirements for benefits will be handled, and what, if any, accommodations will be made for increased flexibility in work arrangements.

Pay

After the storms, many employers announced, often through the media, that they would continue to pay workers for a set period of time. Some employers may choose to continue earnings with no strings attached; others may tie continued pay to continued employment with the company once it resumes operations or may charge emergency pay against future earnings. Regardless, employers should avoid any confusion by clearly stating the terms up front (Barron, et al., 2005).

Harrah's Entertainment announced before the storm that its employees would be paid for at least 90 days; Gap extended payroll to affected employees for 30 days (Boorstin, et al., 2005). Other companies took a "wait and see" approach, announcing shorter terms of continued pay and then extending the period as events unfolded. Some employers, such as a credit union in southeast Texas, used a promise of uninterrupted pay to lure employees back to work quickly after Hurricane Rita. Employees were given a deadline for contacting the company with a promise that they would receive their full pay for all time missed if the deadline was met. This allowed the credit union to re-open more quickly than many other businesses in the region did.

An additional challenge faced by employers was to get the money owed employees into their hands or bank accounts. Paying employees was quite a challenge with banks and businesses closed, and many workers displaced far away. Accordingly, companies should encourage, or even require, employees to use direct deposit of their payroll, as this gives employees instant access to their funds and can be a cost-saving measure for the company. Paul Pressler, then CEO of The Gap, said "One thing we're going to do is encourage more employees to set up direct deposit--a small tactic, but a lesson we learned from Katrina" (Boorstin, et al., 2005).

Direct deposit is not, however, without problems. For example, the payroll employees at one university in the region affected by both Hurricanes Katrina and Rita discovered that, because of telecommunications and data transmission problems, the payroll had failed to run and the money thought to be deposited was not in employees' accounts. Payroll employees spent a Sunday evening at the bank re-processing the university's direct-deposit payroll. Any problems with processing individual employees' payroll were not discovered until several days afterward, causing additional problems for these individuals.

A possible solution may be to use pay cards rather than traditional paychecks. Pay cards are credited with the amount of an employee's pay, and employees can use the cards just as they would a debit card. After Hurricane Katrina, McDonald's tapped into a pay card arrangement that the company had been pilot testing through Bank One (Marquez, 2005). "We never thought of it as something to do for an emergency situation but it proved to be a great solution," said Steve Russell, senior vice president of human resources (Marquez, 2005). Getting the cards into employees' hands when the system is not used routinely presents some of the same problems as traditional paychecks; however, if pay cards are used routinely, adding payroll funds to employees' cards is straightforward, and workers can have access to their funds quickly even if they are distally located. Some employers, such as New Orleans Public Schools, chose to use money-wiring services like Western Union to get workers' payroll to them ("Payroll complete ...," 2005). They ran advertisements in newspapers and on television and radio to notify workers that they could pick up their payroll at any Western Union office.

Some of these payroll hassles could have been avoided or at least lessened by including payroll policies and procedures in CM plans. Organizations should work with their financial institutions before disaster strikes to determine how not only payroll but other financial transactions are to continue in the event that a crisis affects both the organization and its financial institution. Company managers should verify that their bank or other financial institution has its own CM plan in place and should attempt to tap into this plan, if possible, for their own continued financial security during crisis. Regardless of how organizations choose to deal with payroll during crisis, employers need to keep employees informed of any wage payment processing problems and let them know when they can expect payment and how.

Benefits

In addition to pay issues, CM plans should include policies and guidelines on the continuation and administration of employee benefits. Employees will be worried about having access to medical care and prescription refills (Marquez, 2005), and injuries or illness caused by the disaster may qualify employees for leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) (Barron, et al., 2005; Barrow & Darrow, 2005). Employers who have lost workers to injury or death because of the crisis should promptly determine life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment, and workers' compensation coverage of those workers (Barrow & Darrow, 2005). Bereavement leave or other types of leave provided by company policy or state laws may be in order (Barron, et al., 2005).

If an employer decides to continue coverage, vendors should be contacted right away to determine how coverage will be maintained (Barrow & Darrow, 2005). Most companies responding to Mercer's post-Katrina survey relaxed their administrative requirements for benefits (Miller, 2005). Working with insurance providers, many took actions such as covering all medical services as "in-network," loosening precertification requirements, allowing grace periods for premium payments, relaxing due dates for forms, and continuing disability benefits without attending physician statements (Miller, 2005). Affiliated Computer Services, Inc., processed all claims as in-network and the Pensacola News Journal waived all copays for displaced workers (Woodward, 2005).

Employee Assistance Programs

Employee assistance programs (EAPs) can be an effective means of helping employees deal with the emotional grief and sense of loss that workers may experience after a crisis; however, before healing can begin, workers may need assistance with more basic needs such as food and shelter (Gurchiek, 2005, Sept. 11). EAPs can help with these needs as well as finding dislocated workers and educating workers about what benefits are available to them. The US Postal Service's (USPS) EAP found 40 families by sending a team to the Astrodome shelter wearing USPS EAP t-shirts and carrying signs (Gurchiek, 2005, Sept. 11).

Employers should include procedures in their CM plans for communicating the availability of EAPs to workers and for contacting providers after the crisis to facilitate employee use of the programs (Barron, et al., 2005). Employers without EAPs, but with the means to provide one, should consider implementing one as soon as possible.

Employment

Once the initial crisis has passed, and the company moves from the response to recovery stage, HR can help the company return to some sense of normalcy as it attempts to get back on its feet. At this stage, HR's role is to know where employees are and what it will take to get them to work (Jones Walker, 2005). Decision-making guidelines concerning layoffs, furloughs, reduced hours, job sharing, transfers, paid and unpaid leave, and terminations should be included in CM plans in the event that employees are unable to return to work or if reduced operations do not require all workers to return right away. HR should identify before disaster strikes who the key people needed during recovery are (Lockwood, 2005) and should have plans in place to facilitate the return of these key players.

Alternative Work Locations and Arrangements

Managers should consider the possibility the company will be unable to resume operations in its pre-crisis location and should have a contingency plan in place for varying levels of business disruption. One possibility, depending on the type of business, is to allow workers to telecommute or work from home temporarily (Barrow & Darrow, 2005). An organization that is not currently using telecommuting or sometimes allowing employees to work from home may want to consider doing so as part of their CM planning. Instituting job sharing and cross training before a disaster may also pay off in a crisis situation. Training multiple workers to do the same job, while costly, will pay back if workers are lost, unwilling, or unable to return to work.

Transfers

After Hurricane Katrina in particular, it was obvious that many people were unlikely to return to hard-hit areas, or would return only after an extended period of time (Barron, et al., 2005). Some employers, such as the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), recognized the value of retaining employees and have worked to place workers in other locations. The TSA told approximately 400 airport security screeners that they could go to work in any airport of their choosing anywhere in the United States (Cohn, 2005). Entergy agreed to continue to pay workers while it found them jobs elsewhere in the company, hoping that they would return when needed (Marquez, 2005). Southwest Airlines allowed about 240 employees to transfer from the New Orleans airport to other cities, and Wal-Mart had about 2,400 workers transfer from the Gulf region to stores in unaffected areas (Cohn, 2005). The Ritz Carlton HR department, through the Marriott Corporation, set up a command post and central location for all employees affected by the storm. There HR directors from all over the country assisted employees in quickly transferring to new locations. All employees who wanted to keep their jobs were placed in different hotels around the country, and all managers were reassigned to different locations (A. Odinet, personal communication, Dec. 7, 2005).

Layoffs and Reduced Work Hours

After a crisis, some businesses unfortunately will have no choice but to lay off employees or reduce their work hours for the business to survive. HR professionals need to be aware of this possibility, should be involved in the decision, and should have a plan in place for how to handle such an eventuality. One aspect of that plan should be to evaluate the applicability of the Federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act to the organization's situation (Barron, et al., 2005; Barrow & Darrow, 2005). Another issue, if the firm has a unionized workforce, is to ensure compliance with union contracts.

Flexible Leave Options/Leave Donations

Few could have predicted the magnitude of the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the ability of workers to report to work for such an extended period. HR personnel should examine company policies concerning illness, bereavement, or other types of leave and determine whether special leave policies should be developed specifically for catastrophes. Further, they should ensure that policies and procedures for complying with applicable federal, state, or local leave laws are included in CM plans. For example, the Family and Medical Leave Act may have special significance after a tragedy. Workers who are injured or who have an injured family member may be entitled to unpaid leave.

Employers may consider setting up a leave bank to which coworkers can donate their unused leave to employees in need. Quite a few large organizations allowed employees to donate their accrued vacation leave or paid time off to other employees who needed paid leave because of personal losses from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (Barron, et al., 2005). The Gap allowed its employees to donate their paid time off to employees affected by Katrina. Within two months of the storm, over 11,000 hours had been donated to some 1,300 employees. (Boorstin, et al., 2005). Flexibility may be the single most important characteristic of leave policies geared toward crisis situations.

Recruiting and Housing

Another issue to consider in CM planning is that of recruiting new employees to replace those lost once the business attempts to reopen. Many businesses in the storm-damaged areas are having difficulty resuming operations because of a shortage of manpower.

In New Orleans, employers are using strategies such as signing bonuses, wage increases, door-to-door van services, and hiring tents in an effort to attract workers and rebuild their businesses (Berta, 2005). One industry especially hard-hit by an insufficient number of workers is the restaurant industry, which plays a large part in the New Orleans area economy. Strategic Restaurant Alliance Corp., the San Ramon, California-based franchisee of Burger King, offered a $6,000 bonus to new and returning employees in an attempt to staff its restaurants in the area. Popeye's sent its HR managers to New Orleans to focus solely on recruiting and training new workers. It increased hourly wages for restaurant employees and brought in vans to pick up employees in outlying neighborhoods, shelters, and churches, bring them to work, and take them home again (Berta, 2005).

The staffing shortage issue does not stop at recruiting. Once the business is reopened with at least minimal staff, employees may need assistance with housing. Chances are a widespread disaster will damage or destroy employees' homes along with many other residential areas in the disaster zone. Although hotels may seem the appropriate answer, these may be taken over for emergency personnel and hotel employees. In the hurricane-ravaged zones, many hotels housed their own employees and their families as well as Federal Emergency Management Agency workers and others involved in reconstruction efforts (Sanders, 2005).

Each company may be forced to come up with its own innovative plan. For example, in an attempt to restore its workforce, BP gave generators to workers whose homes had no electricity after the storm, and Chevron Corporation quickly erected an evacuee village in an effort to keep its employees in the area and on the job (Cobb, et al., 2005). Other companies, like Orleans Capital Management, LLC, chose to house their entire employee base in corporate housing units in Houston, Texas (Calio & O'Connor, 2005).

HR managers should consider tactics for recruiting and housing workers as part of their organizations' CM plans. Extra funding and emergency equipment should be kept readily available for emergency wage increases and temporary housing, and managers should establish a housing contract with an out-of-town corporate housing unit or hotel in the case of an emergency. Contact information for companies specializing in disaster recovery should be maintained as well as for companies with possible temporary housing solutions such as recreational vehicles.

Conclusions

No two crises are the same, and managers cannot foresee every possible contingency that may occur; however, the impact of a crisis can be minimized and an organization's ability to recover can be maximized by careful forethought and planning.

Research on organizational learning during and after a crisis suggests that there is an optimal time for learning to occur: after the immediate crisis has passed, but before forgetfulness sets in. Now is the time for many organizations to learn from these hurricanes, as well as derive lessons from 9/11. Who knows when, where, and how the next disaster will strike? It could be a result of terror, weather, chemical or industrial accident, earthquake--just about anything. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita offer many lessons for HR professionals, but the most important one is that they must take a leadership role in CM planning and implementation. Their companies and employees depend on it.

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Sonya F. Premeaux, Nicholls State University Department of Management & Marketing, Thibodaux, LA; Denise Breaux, Florida State University Department of Management, Tallahassee, FL

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

Sonya F. Premeaux is an associate professor of management and associate dean of the College of Business Administration at Nicholls State University where she also holds the Gerald Gaston Endowed Professorship of Business Administration. She obtained her Ph.D. in organizational behavior/human resource management from Louisiana State University in 2001 and her B.S. and MBA from McNeese State University in 1986 and 1988 respectively. Sonya's research interests include work-family conflict and other related human resource management issues. Her research has been presented at numerous conferences across the United States and published in several scholarly journals.

Denise M. Breaux is a Ph.D. student in organizational behavior and human resource management at Florida State University. She holds degrees from Nicholls State University (M.B.A., 2006; B.S., 2003). Her research interests include abusive supervision, dysfunctional workplace behaviors, stress, burnout, and accountability. She has presented research as well as served as a reviewer for the Academy of Management and the Southern Management Association and currently has research under review at the Journal of Managerial Psychology.