9/11 Learning curve
In the aftermath of September 11,2001the world's business continuity guidelines were
given a reality test and everyone went back to the drawing board. A more tightly woven
plan emerged, not only for business, but for all aspects of daily life in the workplace.
INSIDE VIEW
Puiling together
Filtering communication
Managing aftershocks
Recreating order
Forward motion
(~V 11 completely reshaped our crisis
V planning parameters,' says Bill
Padula, Business Continuity Planning
(BCP) Manager for Rabobank Interna
tional (RI) New York. 'We used to plan
around how long a building would be out
of order, not whether or not it would still
be standing.' Fortunately, 30 years of disas
ter and back-up planning meant Padula
was intuitively equipped to tend to one of
the most pressing issues, the emotional
trauma that had overtaken the workplace.
RI's New Jersey back-office building stands
150 meters across the water from the
World Trade Centre site. 'We saw both
planes hit the buildings,' says Padula.
'When the second plane came by it was so
close we could feel the jet-wash.' RI staff
memhers were impacted in many ways. 'I
think everybody in our office knew some
body in the towers. I alone went to 15
funerals,' says Padula. Despite the grief, on
September 12 alrnost every staff member
came to work. Human Resources (HR)
arranged to have counselors present,
something which is now built into the BCP
framework. 'On that first morning we had
a kind of guided catharsis session,' he con-
tinues. 'This helped people get past the ini-
tial shock of being back in the office.' In the
days and weeks to come, HR kept a
therapist on-call for individual sessions.
Thanks to the prompt initiative to re-route
some of the RI New York workload to the
London office, the days following 9/11
were normal business days in a mechanical
sense. Communication emerged as one of
the biggest challenges. 'Because we were in
the middle of the situation it didn't occur to
us how much we needed to let others know
what was going on,' says Padula.
Rabobank's Global BCP team quickly initi-
ated a phone blockade to filter non-essen-
tial calls. This proved so effective, that it is
now implemented at the first signs of a
crisis situation.
These momentary solutions enahled RI
staff to cope with the emotionally charged
scene at hand. 'The rumour-mill was oper-
ating at warp speed,' explains Padula.
Bomb threats were regularly called-in to
buildings in the financial district and the
media was predicting further attacks. 'Peo
ple had one eye on the window, watching
the buildings around us evacuate and one
eye on the television.' No BCP scheme had
ever addressed a situation of this magni
tude. 'I have never seen anything like 9/11
in terms of prolonged anxiety,' says Padula.
'The bomb threats and the subsequent
anthrax scare left people edgy for a
long time.'
Amidst the chaos, Padula explains, he was
clear about his role: 'In a crisis, the most
important thing for someone in my job is to
be the first one in and the last to leave. I
spent all day, every day, trying to reassure
people and prevent them from imagining
terrible things. I kept the televisions in the
office on the cartoon channel and we
brought food in every day so that people
wouldn't have to encounter the scene
outside. People told me later that work was
a great relief for them. It kept them from
thinking about everything else and from
being locked in front of the television.'
Recently, RI New York has put the lessons
learned from 9/11 into action. The disaster
recovery site has been moved from where it
stood in the shadow of the twin towers, to
a new location over 48 kilometers north of
New York City. RI New York staff are well
versed on the BCP procedures of their own
workplace and other institutions they rely
on. BCP testing, now a way of life, ensures
these skills stay sharp.
The Word I 25
