The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1st to November 30th, and the Eastern Pacific hurricane season runs from May 15th to November 30th. Organization leaders are reminded that duty of care negligence may include not being able to track or assist employees during crisis management situations that occur while on business travel, meetings, or events.
A few years ago, we experienced an over-abundance of hurricanes where we were conducting numerous meetings. During a crisis assessment team call, I reviewed and presented meeting attendee participation data from our strategic meeting management technology tool system. I was able to provide the crisis assessment team with the group size, location, venues and the onsite contact information. Our department heads concluded that evacuation was required for some groups while others should stay put based on their location within the state.
After a few minutes of discussion, one particular department head asked about her client meeting as she knew they had planned a 50-person meeting that was in progress in one of the cities that we agreed should remain at the property. Frantically, I searched through all of my reports without finding anything on her group meeting. We concluded that the organizer of the meeting had forgotten to register the meeting in the strategic meeting management tool. If she had not been on the call, and if that location had been scheduled for evacuation, they would have been left behind because we had no record of that meeting. Because it was a client meeting, attendees had booked their own travel with their preferred agencies so we did not have those records. Since that time, a mandated policy has been implemented that all groups and meetings must be registered in the strategic meetings management tool.
Enterprise level tracking improves crisis management and actions. Ask yourself:
1. Are all employees using a centralized travel management company booking system so that tracking is available from one report? If you have leakage outside of your online booking tool or travel management company, you risk not having access to employee locations during crisis situations.
2. Are all employees, executive assistants, marketing, human resource, sales team, and meeting planners using one centralized strategic meeting management technology, across the enterprise, to register meetings and events on a central calendar? Does the system offer attendee management in order to find employees, attendees or other participants during a crisis? Are these attendees using the same group travel booking tool as your business travelers?
Tracking travel, meetings and events, at the enterprise level, is imperative for crisis management, cost and risk reduction. Many companies are using a centralized online booking tool for travel but only a few are using strategic meetings management tools.
If you want help finding a strategic meetings management tool, I have prepared business cases, RFP templates, questions and scoring mechanisms that you can use to find the right supplier for your environment.
For more information on hurricane tracking, visit: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
Debi Scholar, CMM, CMP, CTE, CTT
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