A 2009 Office Fire Helped Prepare AmeriGas for the COVID-19 Disruption
…some workers into a nearby AmeriGas office that had been opened months before as part of a then-new SAP software implementation project, the employee said.
“We had another office down the street and some employees barged in on them,” the employee said. “We all worked together in this small space. Had we not had the SAP project going on we would have been in a lot more trouble.”
The timing of the fire also eased the initial recovery efforts. “It helped because the fire happened just before the Christmas holidays and workers had time off,” the employee said. “When we came back from Christmas, we were back in business.”
One major IT change that also came about due to the fire was that many data center functions were moved off-site due to lessons learned from the incident, the employee said. “The biggest thing that came out of it was moving everyone to a laptop,” which made employees mobile. “Going through the fire is helping in today’s situation with COVID-19.”
Dan Olds, an IT analyst with Gabriel Consulting Group, said the moves AmeriGas made after the fire were the reason the company was able to get back into operation quickly and prepared it for any kinds of emergencies in the future.
“AmeriGas quickly jumped into action and provided all employees with laptops, docking stations, monitors, plus VPN connections and training, which allowed them to quickly resume business after their fire,” said Olds. “Every employee now has what they need to do their job from home if it becomes necessary in the future. This is a lesson that other companies should learn from and replicate if they can.”
Roberta Witty, an analyst with Gartner, agreed.
“The remote work program AmeriGas implemented after the fire has likely put them in a better position to respond to the coronavirus for those workers that can work from home,” she said. At the same time, not all employees can work from home, so organizations still need to determine how to continue to support their mission-critical business services without the normal complement of the workforce, she added.
David Gregory, another Gartner analyst, said the experiences of AmeriGas can provide great value for other companies facing emergencies. “Time should always be taken to engage with all employees who have responded to the disruption to enable them to share thoughts on what went well and what they would like to do differently on another occasion, said Gregory. “This can also help with employee morale following a situation where they have been asked to work outside their normal comfort zones. Hot and cold debriefs should be part of the stand down procedures and lessons learned and improvement areas should be detailed in management action plans and followed through.”
All of these steps “mean that the organization can truly benefit from the lessons learned in a response and ensure that the organization is better prepared for future disruptions,” said Gregory.
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