What Is a Crisis Management Plan?

Posted on April 24, 2023 by Keith

Did you know that 25% of businesses never recover after a major crisis? This startling statistic underscores the importance of having a well-prepared crisis management plan in place.

In this article, we’ll explore what a crisis management plan is, the benefits of implementing one, and the steps to create an effective plan. We’ll also introduce the role of Erwood Group in helping businesses develop and execute their crisis management strategies.

Definition of a Crisis Management Plan (CMP)

A crisis management plan, or CMP, is a well-thought-out plan that a business puts together to deal with any critical situation that may arise. But, you might ask yourself, “what is a crisis management plan?” In simple terms, it is a guide that helps businesses prepare, respond, manage and recover from unexpected events that could hurt the business.

Overview of a CMP

A crisis can come in many forms, such as natural disasters, cyber-attacks, loss of a key employee, or public relations issues. A CMP is designed to help businesses manage these challenges effectively.

It lays out the steps to take, the people to involve, and the actions required to handle a crisis. A good plan is like a safety net, ensuring that a company can bounce back from a tough situation.

Objectives of a CMP

A CMP has three main goals. The first is to protect people, such as employees, customers, and the general public, from harm. This can mean providing guidance on how to stay safe during a crisis or offering support to those affected.

The second goal is to keep the business running as smoothly as possible during a crisis, disaster or disruptive situation. A CMP can help reduce the impact of a crisis on daily operations and ensure that critical core services are still available.

Lastly, a CMP aims to protect the company’s reputation. In today’s world, news spreads fast, and a poorly handled crisis can quickly damage a business’s image. A well-prepared response can show that a company is responsible and cares about the well-being of its customers, employees, and other stakeholders.

Key Components of a CMP

Every business is different, but there are a few key elements that every crisis management plan should include. First, it should identify the possible crises that could affect the company. This can help businesses prepare for the most likely events.

Next, a CMP should outline the roles and responsibilities of the crisis management team. This team is made up of people from different parts of the company who will work together to manage the crisis.

A good Crisis Management Plan will also have clear instructions on how to communicate with employees, customers, and the media during a crisis. This helps to ensure that everyone gets accurate information, knows what to do, and that messaging is consistent.

Finally, a CMP should include a plan for how the business will recover from the crisis. This can involve:

Recognizing the Crisis Event
Assessing the Crisis and damage
Mitigating the disruptive event and/or preventing further damage
Managing and initiating the implementation of Contingencies
Rebuilding damaged infrastructure
Addressing any long-term consequences of the event
Getting back to normal operations
Closing of the Crisis Response

Benefits of Implementing a CMP

A crisis management plan (CMP) is more than just a smart idea. It’s an essential part of a company’s business strategy. By developing and implementing a CMP, businesses can enjoy several important benefits that help them navigate difficult times and come out stronger.

Improved Decision-Making During Crises

Crises often require quick thinking and fast action. A CMP provides a clear plan for how to handle a disaster, emergency or disruptive situation. Which allows businesses to make better and more efficient decisions under pressure. With a CMP in place, leaders can focus on the most important tasks and implement strategies to continue key core business processes while avoiding wasting time trying to come up with strategies after an event.

This allows a business to quickly pivot or transition into pre-planned strategies allowing the business to continue operations and making them more resilient. Better still, with the right strategies in place businesses will be able to absorb and endure the crisis while still maintaining full operations. We at the Erwood Group call this Operational Endurance™.

Protection of Company Reputation

In a crisis, a company’s reputation is often at stake. A well-designed CMP ensures that businesses respond to crises in a responsible and transparent manner, which can help maintain or even enhance their public image. This can be especially important in a world where news travels fast, and a company’s reputation can be damaged in an instant.

Enhanced Business Continuity

One of the main goals of a CMP is to keep the business running during a crisis. By planning for potential challenges, companies can minimize disruptions to their operations and maintain essential services for their customers.

This not only helps to reduce financial losses but also shows customers that the business is reliable and committed to meeting their needs. Even in difficult times.

Increased Employee and Stakeholder Confidence

A well-prepared business is a confident business. When employees and stakeholders know that a company has a solid plan in place for handling crises, they are more likely to feel secure and trust in the company’s ability to weather any storm.

This can lead to increased loyalty and commitment from employees. As well as increased confidence from investors, partners and customers.

Reduced Legal Liability

Implementing a CMP demonstrates that a company is proactive in addressing potential crises. This can help reduce legal liability in case of an incident.

By having a plan in place and taking appropriate actions, businesses can show they have done their due diligence. This can potentially lower the risk of lawsuits or regulatory fines resulting from negligence or lack of preparedness.

Competitive Advantage

Companies that effectively manage crises can maintain or even improve their market position. This is because they are perceived as more resilient and reliable.

By handling problems well, these businesses can stand out from competitors who have a hard time recovering from similar situations. This attracts customers, investors, and partners who appreciate a stable and trustworthy company.

Better Resource Allocation

A CMP enables companies to identify the resources required for crisis response, such as:

People (employees, contractors, customers, vendors etc.)
Property (assets, buildings, equipment, IP)
Processes
Data & Information
Finances
Security

By allocating these resources efficiently, businesses can ensure they are prepared to respond effectively, minimizing the impact of the crisis on operations.

This proactive approach to resource management also helps avoid scrambling for resources during a crisis. This can lead to costly mistakes and delays.

Steps to Create an Effective Crisis Management Plan

Creating a crisis management plan might seem overwhelming. By breaking it down into simple steps, businesses can develop a plan that will help them navigate any challenge. Here are the key steps to create an effective CMP:

Identifying Potential Crises

The first step is to think about the kinds of crisesthat could affect your business. This might include natural disasters, cyber-attacks, or public relations problems. By knowing what might go wrong, you can create a plan that addresses these specific challenges.

If you need a starting point you can obtain our Risk Reference Card which outlines the common crisis events that impact businesses.

Establishing a Crisis Management Team

Next, it’s important to put together a group of people who will be responsible for managing the crisis. This team should include members from different parts of the company, such as:

Communications
Facilities
Finance
Human Resources
Information Technology
Operations

Each person on the team should have a clear role and know what they are responsible for during a crisis.

Developing Response Strategies

Now that you know the potential crises and have a team in place, it’s time to develop strategies for how to respond to each crisis. This might involve:

Creating evacuation plans
Creating Shelter in Place plans
Outlining steps for dealing with a cyberattacks
Developing guidelines for communicating with the media
Developing templates to communicate with employees, customers, vendors
How to operate with a reduction in personnel or supplies
How to operate if your facility is impacted
And more

These strategies should be flexible, as every crisis is different and may require unique solutions. We here at the Erwood Group recommend thinking of your plans as the toolbox and the strategies themselves as the tools to implement in certain situations. The more strategies you have ahead of time, the more tools you have at your disposal in the event of a crisis.

Allocating Resources for Crisis Management

Handling a crisis often requires resources, such as money, equipment, and personnel. Be sure to allocate the necessary resources for crisis management, so your team has what it needs to respond effectively.

For instance, you may want to allocate a conference room or even have a dedicated area to utilize as an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) where your Crisis Management Team can meet. Alternatively, you can set up a dedicated virtual EOC (vEOC) if you’re not in a physical office or if the office itself is impacted.

Within the EOC you will also want to have some blank checks, credit or pre-paid debit cards, copies of contingency plans, strategies, and communication templates.

Creating Communication and Action Plans

Clear communications are extremely important during a crisis. Develop a plan for how you will share and communicate information with your employees, customers, and the media. This might include:

Setting up a dedicated phone line
Creating templates for press releases
Establishing a social media strategy
Selecting a Public Information Officer or key person to speak to the media

In addition, create an action plan that outlines the specific steps your team will take during a crisis. This can help ensure that everyone knows what to do and can act quickly when needed.

Training and Testing the CMP

Once you have developed a plan, it’s essential to train your crisis management team and employees on their roles and responsibilities. This can help ensure that everyone is prepared to act when a crisis occurs.

It’s also a good idea to test your CMP by running simulations or drills. This can help you identify any weaknesses in your plan and make improvements before a real crisis happens.

The Role of Erwood Group in Crisis Management

In today’s unpredictable world, businesses need to be prepared for any crisis that might come their way. At Erwood Group, we understand the importance of having a solid crisis management plan in place.

Our team of experienced consultants is dedicated to helping businesses like yours stay strong in the face of adversity. In this section, we’ll discuss the various services we offer and how we can help your company become crisis ready.

Be Ready for Any Crisis That Might Hit Your Company

No business is immune to crises, and the impact of a crisis on your company can be significant, from damaging your reputation to disrupting operations. That’s why it’s essential to be aware of potential risks and have a response plan in place. Our team at Erwood Group is committed to protecting your business and helping you navigate any challenges that come your way.

Crisis Management Team Creation

One of the key elements of a successful crisis management plan is having a dedicated crisis management team. Our consultants will work with you to create a team that is well-equipped to handle any issues that might arise. We’ll help you identify the right people for the job and provide the necessary training and guidance to ensure that your team is ready to respond effectively in a crisis.

Active Response to Ongoing Crises

If your company is already in the midst of a crisis, our active response team can help you manage the situation and minimize the damage. We’ll work quickly to address the problem, with the goals of sustaining credibility and trust, mitigating risk, protecting relationships and reputations, and keeping your business viable and running.

Our Five-Step Process for Crisis Management

At Erwood Group, we use a simple, four-step system to take your company from unprepared to crisis-ready. Here’s how it works:

1) Reach out to us by calling our office at 877-565-8324 or filling out our online contact form.

2) Our consultants will evaluate your organization and identify any areas of concern.

3) We use our Learn, Practice, Implement, Challenge™ (LPIC™) methodology to provide ongoing training and improvement for your crisis management team.

4) Once you’ve worked with our crisis management consultants, you’ll feel prepared for any scenario your business might encounter.

5) Impacted by a crisis? We’ll stand with you and assist you through the crisis by providing guidance to get you through the crisis. Unlike most of our competitors that will tell you to “Just Follow the Plan” we are true partners to our clients and are here to assist you in your time of need.

Why Work with Our Crisis Management Consultants

There are several reasons to choose Erwood Group for your crisis management needs:

Our team has firsthand experience dealing with multiple crises, giving us the knowledge and skills to help other businesses prepare for and respond to challenging situations
We understand that every business is unique, and we tailor our consulting services to fit your specific needs and concerns
From building a crisis management team from scratch to training your existing team and providing assistance and guidance during a crisis, we’re here for you every step of the way
Our consultants can help you recognize the events leading up to a crisis, enabling you to respond faster and more effectively

By working with Erwood Group, you’ll gain access to a team of crisis management experts who are dedicated to protecting your business and helping you navigate any challenges that come your way. With our support, you can be confident that your company is ready to face any crisis, ensuring the safety of your employees, the continuity of your operations, and the preservation of your reputation.

Be Prepared for Any Crisis with Erwood Group

In a world filled with uncertainties, having a solid crisis management plan is crucial for the survival and success of any business. By following the guidelines discussed in this article and partnering with the expert consultants at Erwood Group, your business can be better prepared to face any crisis that comes your way.

Don’t wait for a crisis to hit. Contact us today to schedule a crisis management consultation and safeguard your company’s future.

Why We Exercise Part 2 of 2

Posted on April 7, 2022April 15, 2022 by Keith

Yesterday, I shared some Golden Nuggets on the benefits of exercising your Crisis Teams and why we exercise. Today, I am going a little deeper on another major hidden and often overlooked benefit that exercises create.

Confidence.

Whether this is for Crisis Teams, Incident Management teams (or whatever you like to call your team), Business Continuity Teams, and especially Information Technology Disaster Recovery (ITDR) teams. Frequent, repeated exercises build confidence.

Confidence among the team(s) themselves, confidence in managers and executives of the business, and confidence from your customers and business partners. The most important place to build this confidence is among the teams that are doing the recovery work.

As you might expect, a lack of conducting exercises among your teams has the opposite effect. It can cause your team to break down and literally destroys their confidence, which also negatively impacts recovery times and overall recovery.

Let me provide some deeper insight by using an example from some previous work I did.

Several years ago, I was consulting for a major airline assisting some of the IT teams to develop Disaster Recovery Plans, getting them to move beyond tabletop walkthroughs and doing “functional” exercises, as well as documenting the exercise to get credit during an audit.

It is important for me to state here that this was a project based on an internal audit outcome. I was working with the bottom performers on remediation based on that audit. These were groups that either:

Had zero plans in place
Never conducted an ITDR exercise beyond a tabletop walkthrough
Conducted a functional exercise but didn’t document it properly and received no credit for doing the exercise

I want to talk about a particular group within that project that I worked with and why they never conducted anything more than a tabletop walkthrough, and why they lacked confidence and were afraid to even think of doing anything functional.

During my first meeting with this group, I specifically asked the simple question:

Why haven’t you done a functional failover exercise in the past?

The reply may come as a surprise to many of you but didn’t surprise me at all. The response they provided to me was that they weren’t allowed to do anything beyond a tabletop walkthrough.

My follow-up question to them was, who said that they were not allowed to conduct a functional exercise?

The Response: “The Business” (specifically operations).

After some discussion, I learned that the “business side” in the operations leadership felt that the systems and application were too critical to do a functional failover exercise while the application was running in production.

However, the systems and application weren’t deemed or signed off as an application that was too critical to for such an exercise. Yet, every time the team submitted a request to conduct a functional failover exercise operations would reject it and say it was too critical.

Normally, with a set of systems and or applications that the business deems too critical to complete these failover exercises they elevate them as such, and the business signs off on it as well as accepting the risk of not having these exercises done.

Not really the best decision as there are ways to do these exercises even while in production. But that is not the purpose of this story.

You see, this team not only lost confidence but felt a distrust in their capabilities from business leadership. So much so. that after working with them in both the development of a runbook and tabletop walkthrough that when I proposed having them submit permission to conduct a functional failover exercise, I was told, “there’s no point, they’ll never sign off on it.”

I told them, let me worry about that, you just pick a date and submit the request.

Behind the scenes, I was working with my engagement manager to either get the business to approve the request, or bump the criticality up to properly accept the risk, and sign off on it.

We got the approval.

Over the next 30 days, I worked with that team on their runbook to ensure that every step was in there and that they knew how to properly document and track the failover exercise, including backout procedures.

When the day of the exercise came, they performed wonderfully and did everything right.

They hit a glitch late into the exercise and couldn’t do a 100% successful failover. But did achieve the following:

They learned a lot. They ran into several issues during the exercise and were able to overcome them and move forward
They properly documented what they were doing. Conducting log capture, taking screenshots of before and after states, taking notes as they moved through the process for later use
Completed an after-action and discussed lessons learned, things that went wrong, and things that went well

All of this, even though the outcome wasn’t a successful failover during the exercise. They learned immensely during the exercise. They learned they could depend on one another to complete their assigned tasks. And the business learned they could trust the team to do the failover exercise, without disrupting the production environment.

The most important part. They were happy as a team and gained massive confidence in their own capabilities. This allowed them to continue to conduct exercises, gain further confidence and learn new skills.

In the end, a successful exercise isn’t always about a successful failover or other such success. In fact, you can learn a great deal when you fail. And when you learn and build the lessons into your plans, that is when the real success comes.

That, and the confidence you gain will boost you and your team during the next exercise or incident.

So. Get out there. Exercise and build confidence in yourself and your team.

Why We Exercise Part 1 of 2

Posted on April 7, 2022April 15, 2022 by Keith

The reasons why we exercise are often varied yet sometimes misunderstood by many. Below I will share some of the many reasons why we exercise and perhaps you’ll gain some insights into Why We Exercise.

Let me let you in on a little secret – A Golden Nugget – even the professionals make mistakes.

This is at all levels, in all industries, it even holds true in sports.

But what I am talking about specifically here are first responders and emergency managers. We all make mistakes.

Why am I telling you this? Perspective!

First Responders and Emergency Managers consistently drill, practice, and run exercises regularly. Yet they still make mistakes. They also have great outcomes, but they do make mistakes.

After each exercise, drill, or real incident they hold a debriefing. This is done whether it was a tabletop or a large-scale multi-agency functional exercise or a real incident.

The debriefing covers:

What went well
What went wrong
How can we do better
This worked great and we should implement it more
What did we learn – Lessons Learned
What are your takeaways
Let’s revisit and have a conversation on what we need to improve on

The reason why they exercise so often is because make mistakes. It’s also part of training and educating. Taking corrective action and using criticism and critique in a positive way. The repetition of doing assists both actual memory and muscle memory. Some actions also become habit. These habits can be both good and bad. It’s also an excellent way of highlighting bad habits so they are corrected.

When it comes to businesses, crisis teams don’t exercise nearly enough. Many will do this once, maybe twice per year. And if they do, that’s a lot.

But more than just frequency alone crisis teams in the business world need to also take a different approach and outlook. Every exercise should be looked at as an opportunity to learn, expand skillsets, stepping beyond comfort zones, and training for the future.

Additionally, every exercise does not need to be disruptive. It can be as simple as getting in a room, conference call, or zoom/teams/insert your other favorite video conference provider and having a discussion that asks:

What do we do when (insert event or impact)
How will we handle (insert event or impact)
Are we prepared for (insert event or impact)
Have we considered (insert event or impact)

In fact, this can be done far beyond crisis teams. Each of your departments and teams that hold regular team meetings or get-togethers can take 3, 5, 10, or even 15 minutes to discuss topics depending on what is on the regular agenda. This can be done every meeting, every-other meeting, or even quarterly.

You’ll see changes to your planning and preparedness levels. You might even see changes to your long-term culture. Trust me that’s a good thing.

This is why we exercise.

Businesses face challenges in Reopening after Coronavirus

Posted on June 17, 2020June 18, 2020 by Keith

Businesses face challenges in reopening after Coronavirus. Why? Well, there are several reasons, from temperature checks and whether to do them, even if you can. Sourcing cleaning supplies, added security, enforcing social distancing, and finding out employees don’t want to return to work yet.

Below we mention some of these issues and provide some recommendations on how to handle each situation to make your reopening a little bit smoother.

Employees May Not Want to Return to Work Yet

With every disaster or major disruption, there is also a psychological impact. This is particularly true when it comes to the Coronavirus. The biggest reason your employees might not be ready or even refuse to return to work is they may feel unsafe.

Another reason for this is many employers are discovering they have to compete with higher unemployment payments that may be greater than the employee’s actual earnings.

Yet, another often overlooked issue may be how employees get to and from work. Employees that don’t have transportation, may look to avoid public transportation and even carpooling to avoid contact with other people. This may cause them to refuse to return to work.

Recommendations on Employee Safety:

One of the first things you should do when you first begin to consider avoiding challenges in reopening after coronavirus is to set up a series of one-to-one calls with your employees and survey them about returning to work. Find out their concerns, fears, and doubts directly from them. Don’t just assume they will all want to return right away. Some employees may need some extra coaxing.

Another thing you can do to ease this transition is to have employees meet at the worksite to visually observe and experience the proactive steps you’re taking to ensure the safety of not only them but customers and others who may come to the worksite. Have them experience and participate in the cleaning and sanitization process. Let them see and experience social distancing policies. Have them help set up for social distancing by actively measuring out 6-foot distances.

Have them wear their face coverings before entering the worksite and experience what it is like to wear it continuously while working and discussing the proactive steps being taken to overcome the challenges in reopening after coronavirus. Then reassess their comfort level. Do they still have concerns? Can they be addressed further?

Recommendations on Employee Compensation:

You may have to consider offering increased compensation policies or even a one-time bonus incentive to encourage employees to return. If for instance, you implement all the safety measures you can, and many employees still refuse to return consider increasing the hourly pay rate or a one-time return to work bonus. We witnessed businesses that remained open and offered a $2 per/hour increase encouraged people to return and increased the number of new applications for employment

There are currently discussions taking place on having government subsidizing a return to work through incentives. For example –Idaho is paying people $1,500.00 to return to work. Many employers that remained open during the coronavirus increased pay and offered other compensation incentives should employees become ill or perhaps exposed, such as increased sick leave and pay during quarantine periods.

Whether other Local, State, and Federal governments end up providing some type of return to work incentive remains to be seen.

Recommendation on Employee Transportation:

If you have employees that utilize public transportation, they may be concerned about traveling to and from work. This may be a bigger concern than the safety of your worksite. Additionally, some employees that car-pooled in the past may no longer be willing to do so.

While some of your employees may refuse to utilize public transportation altogether during this time, one of the solutions you can implement to reduce challenges in reopening after coronavirus is to allow employees to take public transportation to travel during off-peak times. This will allow them to travel and share contact with fewer people and less crowded transportation. This may take some trial and error since many businesses may implement the same policies. Also, Public transportation may allow for fewer riders, and commute times may increase. Anticipate and allow for this.

You may want to consider informing carpoolers that are not domiciled together to take extra precautions. Such as wearing face coverings while traveling together. Suggest they take other precautions as well, like those the CDC recommends for Ridesharing, taxi, and limo service.

As a last resort, if cost-effective and feasible you may want to consider hiring your transportation for employees. You can either have them expense their transportation or hire a shuttle bus that allows for social distance spacing provide pickup and drop off service for employees.

Social Distancing May be Harder Than You Think

Included in social distancing mandates in some localities is a reduction in the number of people allowed into a worksite. This reduction doesn’t just include customers, it includes your employees as well.

Some businesses will have the added challenges in reopening after coronavirus by having to select which employees can return, and which do not. On top of that, will you be able to have enough staff on-site to handle any customers that need service? Too little, and customers will have to wait longer than what they may deem acceptable. Too many, and your costs increase, and profits decrease. For some businesses, this will be a continuous balancing act and for others, it will be a non-issue.

The next challenge you’ll encounter is if your worksite has enough space and flow for employees to be socially distanced and still be able to work effectively. You’ll also have to consider breakrooms, restrooms, hallways, and small spaces, and what about the reception area?

Recommendation on Social Distancing:

Make sure you have clear and concise signage that explains the social distancing policy at your entrances and displayed throughout your worksite.

Next, you’ll want to incorporate clear visuals and signage that shows 6-foot distancing clearly. You’ll also want to implement a nonpunitive and friendly reminder policy where all employees can remind others, including customers and guests of the social distancing policy.

Temperature Checks Are Not A Panacea

While this sounds like a great way to ensure employee safety, it includes its own set of challenges. Where will you source the preferred no-touch thermometers? Will you use and implement thermal cameras and where will you source them? Many scams are out there in sourcing for both – do your due diligence. Who will take employee temperatures? Other employees? Managers? Self-checks? Should you hire an outside vendor? What type of vendor? Will, you set up screens and barriers for the checkers? What about Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and what kind? Will you record or not record temperatures? If you do you will have to comply with HIPAA, and how will you do that?

It doesn’t end there. What is your policy if someone has a temperature of 100.4°F? Sure, you won’t allow them access to the worksite, but then what? Do they need to self-quarantine? Do they need to go to a doctor? Get tested for COVID-19? How and when can they return? Also, they are now covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Once you send them off-premise, do you require contact tracing for those around that person? If so, how far back will you go?

Next, how will you go about getting the temperature? The CDC guidance calls for doing this before entering the facility or worksite to minimize exposure. This, however, has proven extremely difficult to implement and most employers that are implementing temperature screening are doing it just after the employees enter the facility. Outside increased temperatures of as little as 80°F and people traveling in hot cars have caused false positives. One client implemented utilizing a large swamp cooler outside the entrance to help reduce this. Another potential problem seen is people trying to reduce their temperatures with icepacks. How will you handle that?

Then we have compensation issues to worry about. Having employees waiting in line before the start of their shift or day can cause delays, lateness, and if required is considered part of work.

All of these issues combine to create immense challenges in reopening after coronavirus. Many businesses that start off planning to implement temperature screening tend to abandon it once they’re confronted with the challenges of implementing it.

Recommendations for Temperature Screening:

Now that you are aware of many of the challenges around temperature screening, the first step to take if you’re still considering this is to create a written plan on how you will meet these and other issues you encounter.

Once you address this through a written plan, conduct a walkthrough of the area where you will be doing the temperature screenings. Ensure that you will have enough space for the screener, any barriers you will use, and the person being screened. Next consider the time to check each person and how long it will take to check each employee, guest, and vendor entering the facility.

Next, we recommend hiring a vendor to do the actual temperature screening if possible. If you’re a small business and can’t afford to hire a vendor, utilize your employees to check other employees, or have them conduct self-checks.

Work out and talk through all the potential iterations of what will happen when an employee has a temperature of 100.4°F. Write these policies and procedures down, and do not deviate from them.

We highly recommend that you do not record temperature readings from any employee, whether normal, high, or below normal. Speaking of below normal. You’ll have to decide what to do when someone has a below normal temperature because it will happen.

If you deploy thermal cameras, we recommend people spend time training and getting used to them. There will be a learning curve as to where the camera picks up high temperatures and you may need to use a backup touchless check as well. From experience, thermal cameras work well and speed up the process overall but will also cause significant false positives when the outside temperatures climb. Some may require constant calibration as well as temperature changes occur in the surrounding environment.

Beware of Scams:

Always do your due diligence when researching vendors and products. We as well as clients have run into numerous scams and fake vendors while researching temperature screening solutions. Call clients listed on their sites and reach out to colleagues and see what they are using and where they obtained it. Also, never pay large upfront fees if you can avoid it.

Handling Visitors and Vendors

Another area that presents challenges in reopening after coronavirus is how to handle visitors, guests, and vendors. Early on, it was typical to prevent visitors of any kind from entering your facility. Today as we begin to reopen, visitors of some types are more expected. However, there are different types of visitors and you may want to handle each differently.

One type of visitor could be anyone that shows up unannounced. This could include family members of employees, job seekers, new vendors, or even local officials checking in on you.

Each situation might have to be handled differently, but you should have policies in place to prevent confusion.

Recommendations for Visitors of Employees:

We recommend people visiting your employees that are not doing business with you remain and wait outside your facility. This reduces both the number of people going into your facility and the need for testing or providing PPE to people who enter your worksite. Employees can meet with family, friends, and anyone else outside the worksite.

Recommendations for Job Seekers:

Place signage outside refusing admittance along with a number where they can seek assistance if necessary. Provide them with an online URL application completion process or your jobs/careers website address.

Recommendations for Vendors:

All vendors should have face coverings or a mask when entering the facility. You should also require hand sanitizing before entering as well. If you are going to temperature screen employees, you should do the same for all vendors entering the site for an extended period of greater than 30 minutes. You can also choose to check all of them before letting them into the facility. Set all sales/marketing and non-essential, non-delivery-based vendor meetings to teleconferencing only.

Request all vendors to provide touchless only options for billing.

Recommendations for All Visitors:

All visitors with permission to enter the worksite should sign in and out and provide a cell phone number along with whom they are visiting and why. Face coverings and hand sanitizing should be required. Limit all face to face meetings.

Going Contactless

You will need to set up touchless or contactless methods of interacting with customers and vendors. This includes payment collection methods and the providing of goods and services.

Recommendations for Going Contactless:

First, ask your payment processing vendors about their contactless options and services that you can provide to your clients. If you accept card payments, consider collecting the payment information over the phone and directly inputting it into your payment processing systems. We advise against writing it down and then putting it later. Additionally, you can offer to invoice the customer and accept payment later depending on the type of service you provide.

Next, come up with a delivery method to provide your goods and services to clients and customers. Offer curbside pickup and delivery. Allow, a limited number or one person into your establishment at a time to pick up your products.

Can you deliver some services through a teleconference, videoconference, or through the mail or email? If so, do it where you can.

Find additional ways you can provide goods and services to clients where possible.

Additional Needs

Consider what other additional needs you have. Some businesses require additional security and cleaning vendors. When you find you need a new or additional vendor, we have found it best to start early in the process and execute early. We have seen businesses wait and then be left with zero options in some cases. Find what you need, implement and you can always make adjustments as you go along.