“This is all pretty high-tech compared to what used to happen just five years ago, when all you could do was listen for the sirens,” Canoles says.
Home Depot also has 25 asset deployment teams that respond to crisis-affected areas to ensure that stores are properly secured before a storm and safe to reopen afterward.

Being able to reach associates at a time of crisis is critical, and Cracker Barrel does so through a variety of means, including cell phones, beepers and e-mail. (Hardman has implemented a program to gather e-mail addresses for all new hires.)

In the event that a crisis is severe enough for fuel in a local area to be in low supply, Home Depot keeps fuel trucks on retainer so that, among other things, it will have “fuel for our associates to get to work.”

With the help of their human resources department, Home Depot is able to bus associates from other parts of the country into areas affected by a devastating storm, as it did in the aftermath of Katrina. “That makes it easier for our associates in the affected areas to do what they need to in terms of taking care of their own lives and personal business until they are in a position to come to work,” Lamb says.

Cracker Barrel has a similar process in place. “We have transferred employees from one unit to another, trying to make it work for everyone, especially people in the affected areas who may not be able to make it into work,” Davis says.

Personal safety a priority
Jason Jackson, director of emergency management for Wal-Mart, agrees. “Employees have to know how to deal with emergencies in their personal lives,” he says. “If they are able to deal with a crisis as it affects their personal lives, they are able to recover quicker and to sustain themselves in a tough situation. We learned that following Hurricane Katrina, where we had about 34,000 associates directly impacted and about 100,000 family members impacted.”

As its crisis management planning initiatives evolve, Home Depot is developing programs that prepare store and district managers to be even more pro-active when a crisis arises. Part of that training now being developed at Home Depot will cover the types of information that local managers should be communicating to
corporate headquarters as a crisis evolves, as well as ways to enhance communications so that corporate can respond to the specific needs of the stores confronting a crisis.

Before the start of hurricane season, Cracker Barrel sends alerts reminding store and district managers to revise and update their lists of local contacts that can be of service in an emergency — power companies, local contractors, suppliers of food and building materials, for example.
Many businesses have also integrated community service programs into their business continuity planning.

After a tornado hit downtown Atlanta in March, Home Depot sent in a team led by its vice president of corporate communications and external affairs to pass out supplies and gift cards and to assist with clean-up efforts.

Management did the same thing when floods recently hit St. Louis, with the funds coming through the Home Depot Foundation and volunteers from area stores. When local police needed supplies to secure a levee in danger of being breached, Home Depot gave full authorization for the store in question to provide the police with whatever they needed.

“Our policy is and has been to satisfy the needs of the community and figure out the finances later,” Lamb says.

Davis makes a similar point about Cracker Barrel. “It all comes back to people first, then the facilities and the products,” she says. “We are going to do whatever we can to take care of our guests, our employees and to make sure that we normalize as quickly as possible.”

Back