Hurricane Sandy, which could become the largest storm ever to hit the United States, is set to bring much of the East Coast to a virtual standstill in the next few days. About 50 million people are in the path of the massive storm, which has already killed 66 people in the Caribbean and is expected to hit the U.S. Eastern Seaboard tomorrow morning.
In such severe weather conditions, our first thoughts have to be of family and friends. Their safety has to be paramount. Cities like New York are acknowledging that and have decided to shut down the transit systems and schools today and have ordered residents of low-lying areas to evacuate before a storm surge that may reach as high 11 feet.
Interestingly enough though, many federal agencies in Washington will continue to get work done during the storm. Why? It’s because many departments have a strong teleworking program that will allow staff to work from home safely.
If you work with businesses in the affected areas, can they say the same thing? In the midst of severe weather conditions can your business, and that of your clients, weather the storm… so to speak? Teleworking should be a part of any business contingency plan where information workers can and should continue to work away from the office in the midst of conditions like storms, sickness and work/life balance events.
To help you consider teleworking, check out the following episode of Five by 5 where I discussed this very thing.
As you can see, a teleworking plan can help address the direst of events while allowing your staff and clients to stay safe. After this storm passes, consider having this discussion with the business leaders in your circle of influence if you haven’t already. You can weigh the business interruption and financial loss against the safety of their staff and opportunity to keep working from home. Could they have continued to run the business away from the office like the many in Washington are? A combination of on-premise solutions like Remote Web Access, Citrix or VDI along with cloud services like Office 365 or Google Apps can help extend your business presence to their home computers. And of course, all of this can be secured with AuthAnvil Password Solutions, giving you the confidence that it is your staff remotely connecting in, and not someone else taking advantage of the situation.
To all our friends on the Eastern seaboard, stay safe. Our thoughts are with you. For the next week, all cases opened from clients on the Eastern seaboard will get escalated support to assist you in the midst of the storm. If you need us, we are here to help you and your staff.