If you didn’t experience it last week, you probably heard about the massive snowstorm that hit the Northeast, which took out our power along with that of the rest of our county. You can read more about the details of the storm and how we managed to support our clients in the previous post, Staffing Software Firm Weathers the Storm to Support Clients.

While I can’t say we had an emergency “snowicane” protocol established, we had progressively put things in place that helped us act quickly to:
#1 Notify our clients in the staffing industry of our situation.
#2 And offer an alternate way to get support for our staffing software.

Here are three things our staffing software firm had in place that you can easily do to prepare your staffing company for some type of natural disaster or act of God that renders your office temporarily inoperable. Â

1. Record your staff’s cell phone #s: At the very least, two or three of your office’s top decision-makers should have everyone’s cell phone numbers programmed into their phones and on hard copy hanging up at their homes. If the phone lines go down, cell phones are typically the best way to get in touch with the staff and tell them what’s going on and what the plan is.
2. Keep your client email database in an online email application: If the power goes out at your main office where your servers are housed, then you’ll have no access to your company email or to any contacts that are on those servers. Therefore, having a company Gmail account or other free online email service is a simple way to give your clients an alternative way to get in touch with your staffing company. However, if you send out a mass email to your client database notifying them of your situation through your free email account, your email may be flagged as spam. Therefore, I suggest you have your client email database loaded into an online email service like Constant Contact or Mail Chimp, through which you can send out mass emails that are spam compliant. Make sure two to three people know how to access and use the mail service and it would be a good idea to have an “emergency” email notification template setup and ready to be modified and sent out.
3. Make sure there’s a clear distribution of responsibility: This makes things a whole lot simpler once the unexpected strikes. Here are the main responsibilities that should be doled out ahead of time:

• Decision-making regarding how your staffing company is going to react to the current situation.
• Phone calls to staff letting them know what is going on.
• Email to clients and candidates notifying them of your situation and how to best get in contact with your company.
• Monitoring and responding the available support-channels for your clients and candidates to get help.

Being able to support your candidates and clients through extenuating circumstances goes a long way in their eyes. After sending an email through Constant Contact to our client-base notifying them our office was down and to email our Gmail account as an alternate way to get support, I received numerous emails (once my power came back on and our servers were restored) of appreciation for our commitment to keep support going. Also, Frank Salustro, owner of a temporary staffing firm in Jamaica, NY, was extremely grateful that he was able to get a hold of Chantel, the manager of our support department and one of the few people who had power in our county. She helped him print payroll checks from our staffing software after he had run into a snag.

To help other staffing firms prepare to support their clients and candidates through the unexpected, email me, ev@astusa.com, some other ideas you have and may have put into practice.  If you are interested in talking to us about our staffing software, go to our Contact Us page.

 Remember that taking these simple steps ahead of time will go along way with your clients and candidates and make your company stand out in the staffing industry when it matters.

Everett Reiss
Project & Account Management and Internet Marketing
Applied Systems Technology
845-534-7100 X1102
ev@astusa.com
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