Flu Pandemic and Disaster Planning
October 21, 2005 | Filed Under Technology, Managing, In the News
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have provided real-time stress testing for the disaster planning of many businesses. Not all have fared well; many are now doing things differently.
Amid the stories about a possible worldwide flu pandemic, one planning difference becomes apparent: while hurricanes and other severe natural forces impact people and physical structures, the flu only hits people. And keeps hitting–a flu pandemic comes in waves and can last for months.
A white paper written from the perspective of the banking industry has a pandemic timeline on page 3 that extends for more than a year. (The banking and securities industries tend to lead the pack in disaster planning due to regulatory requirements).
So the first thought for many businesses will be to expand and enhance technology that enables workers to work remotely, either from home or from secondary facilities that may not yet be in the path of the epidemic. Imagine during the onset of the pandemic what will happen in the workplace when people show up coughing and sneezing. Employees may demand that people are checked by medical personnel before they are admitted to buildings.
One complication may be that the flu could have a significant impact on company IT staff, causing a crash in the remote-working scenario.
What really prompted this post was a line from a story in that essential paper for long airline flights, USA Today:
“[an expert] advises companies to consider having employees stay home if they are sick, bringing in food and water so essential workers could be quarantined on the job…”
Quarantine? I think that requires some color of governmental authority. Just how does a business do that? Adding it to the employee manual under “Q”? Placing rent-a-cops at the exits?
What if their family members are sick? What if they stay at work and get sick?
I think many employees will simply refuse to come to work if things get bad. Will businesses order them to show up to work when the flu is in full force? And fire workers who don’t?
In the nearly 90 years since the last major flu pandemic, the world has become much more interconnected. Witness the disruptions to travel and commerce from the SARS scare a few years ago. A flu pandemic will likely make SARS seem like the sniffles.
Each business needs to think through what it would do if major groups of employees are unavailable for significant periods of time on short notice. Most simply don’t have a plan for that right now. There may not be an optimal one.
There’s a good BBC overview if you have the stomach for more flu information.
And please eat well, drink your orange juice and get plenty of rest.
Off The Grid - By The Numbers
October 19, 2005 | Filed Under Technology, General
Number of days Off the Grid: 10.
Number of days not thinking about work: 9.
Number of voicemails awaiting me: 1 (Perhaps due in part to my away message).
Number of e-mail messages awaiting me: 177.
Number of Wi-Fi hot-spots found here:
0.
Number of years wife of Wired GC had to endure before going Off the Grid: 25.
Number of books read while Off the Grid: 1. (Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux; here’s an excerpt from the first chapter):
I wanted to drop out. People said, “Get a cell phone, use FedEx, sign up for Hotmail, stop in at Internet cafés, visit my Web site …”
I said no thanks. The whole point of my leaving was to escape this stuff, to be out of touch. The greatest justification for travel is not self-improvement but rather performing a vanishing act, disappearing without a trace. As Huck put it, lighting out for the territory.
Africa is one of the last great places on earth a person can vanish into. I wanted that. Let them wait. I have been kept waiting far too many times for far too long.
I am outta here, I told myself. The next Web site I visit will be that of the poisonous Central African bird-eating spider.
Source. (Free copy of this book to the first reader correctly naming the not-spot pictured above).
Number of days until going Off the Grid again: 133 (and counting).
Off the Grid
October 7, 2005 | Filed Under Technology, General
Sometimes you have to unplug to recharge your batteries.
In a world of wireless and broadband it is easy to be constantly connected. The good news: you’re always available when needed. The bad news: there is really no way to get away from “work.”
One of the associate survey stories I noted two days ago had this description of a lawyer’s Modern Life:
“Cell phones, BlackBerrys, fax machines and high-speed Internet connections allow junior attorneys to work from home or a vacation hotel room. So while partners moan about empty offices late at night, many associates are toiling at night and on weekends from other locations…”
(One solution for such firms may be to have a red light on the top of associate computers that flashes when they are logged in remotely).
Being able to work anywhere doesn’t necessarily mean you should work everywhere.
So earlier this year I decided to see if I could go off the grid. I unplugged for a week, and still seemed to be employed when I returned. Starting tomorrow, I’m going to up the ante to 10 days.
Aloha and I’ll be re-Wired on October 19.
Associate Satisfaction and Client Service
October 5, 2005 | Filed Under Managing, In the News
The American Lawyer has released its annual Midlevel Associates Survey.
As you might expect, there’s a decent amount of complaining, about things like billable hours targets, opportunities for partnership, work/life balance, and the lack of good firm communications.
One quick reply would be: when you’re making a six-figure salary plus bonus, you have to take some of the bad with the good–and you may not get a lot of sympathy from the public-at-large. Another view might be is that if you give well-educated, Type A people an anonymous survey, you may not hear “great firm, love it” too much.
But consider this excerpt from one of the articles:
“Associates say partners pile on the assignments in a never-ending effort to boost profits per partner without a thought to giving younger colleagues direction, feedback or guidance on their development as lawyers. Mentoring and communication about longer-term career prospects are largely absent..”
Sounds like fun.
Bruce MacEwen has a good overview, focusing on what the results mean for law firms, and the resulting management challenges.
What I’ll offer is one client’s viewpoint.
Since midlevel associates are often regular service providers for many law firms, I do cringe when I think that those entries on the monthly invoice represent clock-fixated young lawyers who resent their firm’s partners. What do they think about the firm’s clients? Am I part of the problem?
Are my legal needs addressed with optimism and client-orientation? Or is matter X just something else to gut out so you can leave by 10 pm?
It’s not enough for a GC to just complain about this. If associate satisfaction is a real concern, what do you do about it?
Well, you could choose firms based upon quality-of-life surveys. In reality, however, that’s not the way firms are selected–it is nice to see, but not a sufficient criterion.
The other thing a GC could do is migrate work appropriately to good firms that have lower billable hours targets. Would these firms have associates with better attitudes? Maybe. Would the firm charge less per hour? Probably.
Let’s be clear–this stuff is hardly new. I had many of these same feelings when I was an associate in private practice eons ago. And I was billing 300 hours less per year than many of the associates surveyed.
Today’s reality has changed a bit–clients are more aware than ever that they have choices in law firms. And in any service business, customer awareness of employee dissatisfaction hardly makes you want to continue–or expand–a business relationship.
Most clients of major law firms have probably restructured operations and staffing in the last 10 years to reduce costs, increase quality, and meet competitive challenges.
How long can law firms continue to meet their challenges by raising rates and hourly targets?
The survey says: perhaps not much longer.
A GC on SCOTUS?
October 3, 2005 | Filed Under In the News
This morning President Bush nominated White House Counsel Harriet Miers to succeed Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
While I was expecting the nomination of a woman, I had a faint hope it would be Justice Maura Corrigan (Update: Apparently William Kristol agrees). If you said a GC was involved, I thought it would be Larry Thompson of Pepsico.
I avoided commenting on the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts, and I will let others expend substantial time and massive bandwidth on the Miers nomination.
But I can’t resist spending my 2 cents. It seems that President Bush looked at two sets of numbers in the Roberts confirmation: 13-5 and 78-22. Those votes, from the Senate Judiciary Committee and the entire Senate, illustrated that someone with qualifications will get confirmed. Advice and consent does not require prior approval.
When the Democratic leadership announced after the Roberts confirmation that this one would be tougher and the nominee’s record would be strictly scrutinized, President Bush responds by nominating someone without a judicial record.
Also, much like when Vice President Cheney was vetting potential running mates for President Bush, the President picked the person who was “running the show.” Familiarity and loyalty seem to count a lot.
My surmise is that the minority will make issue of Ms. Miers’ lack of judicial experience and her career proximity to the President.
But at the end of the day, my guess is that Ms. Miers’ substantial legal experience and achievement will lead to confirmation, in numbers very close to those of Chief Justice Roberts. The drama of Senators Schumer, Kennedy and Biden railing against Ms. Miers may make for must-see TV, but likely won’t resonate with the public.
Now I climb back under the corporate rock and we’ll return Wednesday to matters outside the Beltway.
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