Natural Disasters: The Toll on Employees

After Hurricane Helene hit last weekend, managers slowly began hearing from their employees, some of whom used dying phone batteries to report homes under water. The message from nearly every manager was the same: Take care of your family and yourself first.

But alongside the historic storm’s human tragedy and property damage, firms are trying to find ways to deal with widespread disruptions to their employee base in the hurricane’s path from Florida to North Carolina. And the magnitude of these disruptions is considerable: Estimates place lost labor and production costs at $5 billion to $8 billion, according to Moody’s. In some cases, whole regions are expected to be out of commission for extended periods.

Whether it’s hurricanes, earthquakes, or forest fires, the world is now experiencing about 400 natural disasters a year, according to the International Monetary Fund—twice as many as it did a generation ago. Wherever these events occur, well-meaning managers often want to offer tangible help immediately, but next steps are often “complicated,” says Steve Kapper, head of the National Health and Welfare Benefits practice at Korn Ferry. Extreme weather can prompt a flood of complicated compensation claims whose outcomes can depend on an employee’s status—exempt or non-exempt, fixed-salaried or not—and possible workplace closures, among many other variables. On the corporate side, most benefits and compensation packages were not designed with natural disasters in mind, and so the rules can be anything but intuitive.

In the immediate aftermath, of course, work is not the priority and smart leaders are showing this. “The first thing is knowing where your people are and that they’re safe,” says Ron Seifert, leader of the North America Workforce Reward and Benefits practice at Korn Ferry. Leaders in this situation take their cues from the military, which specializes in rolling out solutions following crises. Safety and security come first. Are people safe, and are their basic needs being met? The organization should reach out to everyone affected. “It should be aggressive contacting and communication,” says JP Sniffen, practice leader of the Military Center of Expertise at Korn Ferry. If possible, boots are on the ground. “You want someone there observing, versus watching on TV and telling people what to do,” he says.

Only then is it time to assess when work might begin again, and even then, expectations have to be tempered. The question managers should ask themselves, says Seifert, is what employees can do, based on the environment and prevailing conditions. Managers should be tasked with empowering them, to the degree this is possible, he says.

The capabilities of one employee category or level may differ sharply from those of others. Experts advise setting the baseline with sensitivity to the needs of lower-level employees. “Otherwise, efforts to help will just further the divide between employer and employee,” says David Vied, global sector leader for medical devices and diagnostics at Korn Ferry.

In the interim, experts say, managers can’t go wrong if they connect employees with available benefits programs and advise them of creative applications of those programs, such as using an Employee Assistance Program to help with the mental-health impact of living in a disaster zone. “Make sure they know what programs they have access to,” says Seifert.

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