Disaster, according to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, is “a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope with using its own resources.”
The pandemic COVID-19 is a major disaster. Whether this catastrophe is intentional or unintentional, or due to negligence, is a secondary concern because communities and governments need to address immediately pressing needs not only to ensure well-being and survival but also to sustain the economy.
Thus, for any business, disaster management is critical because the organization needs to know the threats from the looming danger despite the lack of adequate information (for example, how the virus spreads) and limited resources (for instance, ventilators for the sick and personal protective equipment for the health professional). The appropriate actions should be comprehended and identified. Moreover, forces and elements that affect each activity must be considered together with its impact and effects on internal and external stakeholders, environments and to the organization itself. All these are planned under time pressure to survive the adversity.
Any organization needs to make sure that it is prepared for emergencies and disasters. Disasters can be managed through four different steps: prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. The steps of handling crises can be achieved via the traditional management methods of planning, leading, organizing and Controlling.
First, top management should ensure strategic planning is done well. Through proper planning, an organization would satisfy the preparedness phase to facilitate its readiness to organize, lead and control. In the planning stage, it is best to draw different scenarios to see how various events will affect the organization.
For example, the long-term effect on office space rentals could be a declining occupancy; consequently, there will be a drop in revenue because of relocations or business closures in affected areas. Thus, there should be a risk assessment that identifies hazards and its impact on specific events, and the processes to address the risk.
Risk reduction plans should be crafted and may include new functions and expansion for required competencies; response strategies and procedures; adaptability to different threats; detailed explanation of all functions, roles and responsibilities; a periodic review of vulnerabilities and resources; backup plans; and continuous training and planning processes, among others.
Second is the unification and integration of efforts achieved through organizing. In this step, pertinent structures are put in place, making individual activities, tasks and responsibilities embedded within the organizational culture via efficient communication. Risk communicated through one-way information dissemination, dialogue and social interaction would be about hazards, susceptibilities, preventive measures and response.
What is germane is the third management method of having a dynamic leadership that would face the situation on hand accurately and precipitously. Decision-making is central to crisis management. Leading in disaster situations involve confronting the incident directly, rapidly and accurately.
The effectiveness and efficiency of actions can be achieved through strategic, tactical and operational levels of authority, control, and coordination. This will guarantee the effectiveness and efficiency of action. A leader must allow others to work in their best abilities. To be able to lead, the leader should know the internal human and material resource capability of the organization. Efficient logistics is critical in emergency response. Tasks and implementation must be well explained to all participants to establish familiarity.
Fourth is control of the processes so that mistakes can be eliminated, if not reduced. Controls will safeguard the effective, efficient, swift and comprehensive implementation of all undertakings. Resources can be well managed by measuring if goals had been achieved or not. There ought to be close supervision of the crisis teams’ activities. The organization must know its limitations to prepare and be able to ensure the availability of needed resources.
As the country starts to recover, businesses may not be able to begin fully operations right away. And so, planning, as humanistic management theory espouses, should protect human dignity and contribute to everyone’s well-being. Therefore continuity plans should include how to remain viable when there is no business (e.g., the decision of Singapore Airlines to cut executive pay to cope with this disaster) or how to operate for several weeks or months with a skeletal force because some employees might be sick or quarantined, maybe caring for their sick family members, or sadly, may have died.
Hence, creating a business continuity plan that is crafted appropriately to the uniqueness of the business, which describes how an organization will continue to function during or after a disaster, is significant to the survival of an organization.
It is the responsibility of executives, the strategic planners of a business, to ensure that their organization will be able to continue its existence and ensure its market competitiveness as it manages the disruptive events of a pandemic.
So, is your organization prepared for this pandemic threat?
Ana Liza Asis-Castro is a part-time faculty at the Management and Organization Department of the Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business, De La Salle University. where she teaches in the MBA program. She recently placed fourth in the Philippine Professional Real Estate Consultant Licensure Exam and has been a Licensed Real Estate Broker for over 30 years. She welcomes comments at [email protected].
The views expressed above are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the position of De La Salle University, its faculty, and its administrators.
