Today, major corporations must put plans into place that take direct action in cases involving employee security, health, political emergencies and natural disasters. We look at how.

Imagine this scenario:  An expat executive, his spouse and two small children are posted to Rome. Their hometown is Seattle. The corporate headquarters is in Amsterdam. The exec goes to Karachi on business. The night he arrives, there is an earthquake in Pakistan; communications are difficult, if not impossible. After only six months in Italy, family in Rome is anxious and alone, away from the support of relatives back home, unable to speak the local language, too new to have close friends to call on. The exec answers to a boss in another country, who happens to be attending a convention in Hong Kong.  What is the role of HR in this situation?

In a circumstance like this, HR should be the thread that connects the various elements, in what has now become an everyday challenge.  Hand-in-hand with globalisation a new reality has come:  disaster is no longer something only seen on television.

Expat assignments involve business duties in ever more far-flung locations, often with team players operating from different home bases. Today, the challenges of worldwide marketing go beyond simply selling products or services and extend to management of disaster preparedness and emergency evacuation plans on a greater scale than before. 
 

In an emergency HR should be ready to act as the central communications centre.

For their part, human resources personnel must place an emphasis on first-hand communications rather than relying upon reports from secondary sources. Today, major corporations must put plans into place that take direct action in cases involving employee security, health, political emergencies and natural disasters.

In its 2005 survey, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that more than half of US organisations have created or revised their disaster-preparedness plans to ensure employee safety and business continuity.  Eighty-five percent of HR professionals surveyed indicated their organisations have formal disaster preparedness plans in place. Almost half of those surveyed said that HR is responsible for devising and implementing disaster preparedness plans, either as a department or in concert with other departments.

Crisis-response training for employees in the field includes CPR/first aid training, fire suppression, crisis management, and hazardous material containment.   Corporate policies in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa echo these results.

Outsourcing emergency services to specialised companies is often the best solution, although HR absolutely must maintain an interactive line of communications with employees and their families.

Such services might include:  obtaining complete details of disaster or incident; establishing immediate contact with the appropriate law enforcement agency; determination if any personnel or family members are threatened and, if so, arranging for additional security procedures.
 
Shortly after the attacks on September 11, Expat-Repat Services, Inc. held a telephone conference with international HR professionals to discuss expat employee security issues, something even more relevant in 2006. 
 
The participants agreed that:

• Support from top management is a must, as well as careful and prudent planning to meet employee needs, both domestically and internationally. Plans must be made for host country native employees as well as for your expatriates.
  
  
• Companies must create, evaluate and update policies for possible eventualities. Appropriate information should be shared with all employees regularly, with assurance that plans are easily understood, current, adequate, and sustained by required resources.
  
  
• Each employee must take responsibility for his or her own actions in particular contexts and understand that responsibility. Employee readiness to meet challenges must be, in addition to company plans, to insure safety, security, and profitability.
  
  
• No longer will it be "business as usual."  Present circumstances focus such intense attention upon the need to regain a sense of normalcy in a complex world that all of us will face a very steep learning curve. 
  
  
• We must value and cultivate exchange of non-proprietary information and ideas among leaders in International HR to benefit all employees. Focus should be particularly on how companies seek better ways to ensure the safety and security of all their associates, whether expatriates or host country employees.

Tom Paton of Prudential Relocations identifies four main priority areas upon which employers must focus when preparing employees for expat assignments:

• Pre-trip/pre-departure instruction
  
  Pre-departure security, evacuation and cross-cultural consultation is essential if employees and families are to stay calm during a crisis and avoid making mistakes that might place them at further risk. 
  
  
• Real-time intelligence
  
  Identifying and communicating assignment location danger signals before they become situations is critical.  More and more companies employ around-the-clock global travel risk management services, who monitor international conditions that may affect employees to avoid or minimize trouble. 24/7 security and counselling hot lines, manned by staff with military, security and evacuation backgrounds, has become extremely popular with global companies that deploy assets in high-risk locations. 
  
  
• Planning and rehearsal
  
  Communicating expectations and evacuation issues prior to an employee's departure for an expat assignment is good insurance for the future safety of the employee and their family. Employees must prepare before - not after - catastrophe strikes. Information should include the company's financial and logistical responsibilities for evacuating employees to a safe haven, what actions to take before, during and after evacuation and what insurance coverage is available for household goods in the event they are lost, stolen, damaged or left behind during a situation. 
  
  
• Resources
  
  Corporations must consider that commercial transportation in or out of a country can be disrupted during or after disasters.  Sometimes, embassies and consulates will assist their citizens to depart via chartered air and ground transportation. However, if there are many expats in an area, it may be difficult to accommodate them all in a timely manner. Multinationals often prefer to engage emergency evacuation companies on their own to take employees out of harm's way.

In countries with poor medical services, comprehensive expatriate health insurance backed by emergency medical evacuation, goes hand in hand with non-medical services to provide a complete network of security for expat employees and their families. Even in non-emergency situations, medical airlift may be required to provide specialised care not available in a given area.

"Companies are realising that their employees are at much greater risk while travelling than at home," Tim Daniel, the chief operating officer of International SOS, told the New York Times. A company that coordinates emergency travel home for Americans who are injured or otherwise disabled overseas, International SOS's rescue missions rose last year to 11,000, an indication of an ever-changing world.

Lastly, returning to the scenario posed at the beginning, HR must serve as the command post and central communications centre when employees and their families are separated by geography, disaster, or both. Expat families must be secure in the knowledge that, in times of need, there will be an HR professional dedicated to assisting them.  Such a support system can be a lifeline in an emergency, alleviating fears and providing comfort to the family, while allowing the executive to focus on the situation at hand.  That's the bottom line.

Sharri Whiting writes about international business and cross-cultural issues.

2006

More information: http://www.expat-repat.com/safety.php

Subject: HR and disaster management, disaster planning