Organizational Lessons from

September 11th, 2001 Disaster Response

& Employee Assistance ProgramsGary S. DeFraia, M.S.W., D.C.S.W., B.C.D

Webinar Presented, August 1st & August 6th, 2002

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Agenda Collect the cumulative learning of employers most

severely impacted by September 11th Review what they thought they did well and what

could be improved upon Summarize Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

experience Five employer stories & lessons learned Observation of patterns of employee assistance Developing disaster response strategies

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An EAP’s Experience• Centralized Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) unit

received 1,797 requests for critical incident stress debriefings (CISDs) between 9/11 & 9/30

• Existing CISD provider network was overwhelmed within the first two hours Available providers outside the area could not get into the area; 266 new local providers were identified within a few days and added to the CISD network

• Within the first three weeks... 2,925 group sessions were held; 5,361 on-site hours 39,963 employees attended those groups; average group size was 14 participants

9,458 individual sessions were provided following the groups 2,526 management consultations were provided on site or by phone

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An EAP’s Experience, cont.

• Within the first week 68 new & specialized articles and tip sheets were developed Made available via e-mail and on-line Topics addressed employer, supervisor, and member concerns

• Website hits increased by 400% Over 160,000 server hits within first two days

As of March 2002, utilization remained at 150% of pre-September 11th utilization

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Employer Stories

• Fourteen client EAP organizations experienced loss of life on September 11th Losses totaled 293 employees in NYC, the Pentagon and on the three flights

• At a post-incident conference, five organizations who were severely impacted communicated detailed information about their experience Industries represented: Banking, Retail Clothing, Financial Services and Consulting (two customers)

Major employers with large populations nationally

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Company A• Had 44 employees in the WTC; 5 perished• Disaster recovery hot-line & crisis intervention plans

were in place pre -9/11 Called for establishment of a command center (24/7), set up in corporate

When bomb threats continuously closed down that building, the disaster management command center went down as well

• Assigned one HR professional to each family, with back up Advised to talk to one person to reduce misinformation - which was widespread

HR staff dealing with families were very stressed emotionally

HR became the customer, i.e. What did they need from the company to support their families & employees?

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Company A, cont.

• Target audiences; Different needs Families of missing Survivor employees in the area Remaining employees outside the area

• Difficult to determine who was on vacation and who was out of the office or traveling Could not determine who was missing

• Were not prepared for the magnitude or for the wide range of needs that had to be met

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Company B• Lost lost two employees, one on each of the

planes that hit the WTC• Set up a crisis management team• Had several locations near the WTC. First

challenges were… Establish whereabouts of all employees Get information to families of missing Confirm employees got home safely

• Handled the immediate crisis well Felt they fell short in dealing with the aftermath

Lost two employees to suicide post 9/11

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Company C• Had 645 employees at the WTC; 87 were lost • Disaster plan in place but housed only locally in NYC and

was lost in the attack• Employee data was also housed only in NYC and also lost

Hard to determine who was supposed to be where? Had to scramble to identify which employees from other parts of the country were working in NYC

Difficult to determine which NYC based staff were out of the office on business travel or on vacation

• Evacuation drills held regularly after previous attack on WTC Increased survivors and enhanced crisis management response

Employees knew where to go and what to do. Knew who to call and what to report.

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Company C , cont.• Assumed the first call from the employee would be to

home Company called homes to gather employee whereabouts

• An HR generalist assigned to each family with a missing person Insured consistent messages; Used a script for calls

• Established an employee call-in hot-line phone number Not all employees knew to call the line; Took up to 4 days to hear from all survivors

Staff answering the line recorded name and time called and who else was seen; Mistake was not getting enough details from callers on locations and times employees were seen

• Set up a recorded 800 “Info-line” with information and messages that were updated twice a day

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Company C , cont.• Set up an 800 “Friends & Family Hot-Line” and staffed it

live for 3 weeks• Company website went down after attack but was back up

later in the day On home page they placed a static notice informing users of all three 800#s to call

Created a message board for locating employees Posted a missing person bulletin board

• Media was a major problem Had to password protect web sites to stop media from accessing and interfering. Users obtained passwords from the employee hot line by providing identifying information

Reporters were relentless in attempting to obtain names and addresses of missing employees

Needed a plan to deal with media interference

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Company D • Had 160 people in WTC and lost 13.

All casualties were in Tower Two. After safely evacuating, they went back to the office when they heard an announcement saying it was safe

• Set up crisis management team Were not prepared for scope and intensity of the tasks or for the initial chaos

Problems with identifying those in need and confirming survivors

Misleading information, i.e. someone claimed they saw “John Smith” when he was actually missing

Talking with families was extremely difficult and emotionally draining; Not prepared to deal with the level of emotionality

• Methods to compile information and forward to families E-mail proved to be a reliable means Held frequent conference calls as well

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Company E• Had 230 employees and lost 12.

Company had a central disaster plan that was very outdated

False sense of security that it would never really be needed

• Telephone Hot-line was set up to determine impact & loss• Had a lot of trouble keeping press away from the company

Families of missing were “hounded” by the media; Very distracting from higher priority tasks

• Struggled with how to support families Established two points of contact for each family for everything from benefits to current information

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Company E, cont.• Needed to provide more support to their crisis

management team Difficulty of emotionally draining work HR & Benefit staff were severely impacted to point of compromising their ability to help others

• CEO called as an outreach after the initial contact was made with employees and families Believed it was important for CEO to make this outreach, but when they spoke to these families two weeks later, most did not remember receiving the call; Due likely to cognitive effects of trauma and shock

Should have waited to pull in CEO; They had a reunion two weeks later where CEO, President and Chairman participated

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Notice of Loss

• Who is responsible for the notice of loss for a death while at work?

• Some took position that they could notify only of a missing employee - but not of a loss

• Most waited for families to receive official word of loss from rescue operations Could not get city officials to declare someone deceased; Left families and company with uncertainty

• Who should make these calls? Most used level of management that someone in the family might recognize

Some managers introduced another contact and a back up who would work with them

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Lessons• Evacuation

Evacuation drills increase survivors and improve crisis management

Employees know where to go, what to do, who to call and what to report (For example - call a central number and report to a central place)

Determine authority for clearance to return to site - building official? company official? Other?

• Official information Employees and families need to know where to check for reliable information (800#s, web sites, etc)

• Media To prevent media from distracting managers from critical needs, a separate unit should be assigned to deal with them

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Lessons, cont.Data: HR (HRIS) and Benefit (dependent & beneficiary

information)

Serves as a baseline data for crisis management Needs back-up in several different locations Comprehensive and accurate data needs to be available immediately

Beneficiary information needs to be up-to-date Following mergers & acquisitions, incorporate new location information, benefits and dependent information as soon as possible

Location assignments; Need to be able to tell who is working where and when; Establish a policy that in a crisis employees must report in even if not scheduled to be in the building that day

House information on temporary assignments as well

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Lessons, cont. • Command Centers; Subsequent bomb threats or attacks can

close down command centers Need back-up command centers with all information available

• Disaster plans must be in place and should be updated on schedule Plan should start at the corporate level, should be centrally driven, address management of all details and rolled out to each geographic location

While corporate-wide plan is centrally driven it should not only be stored centrally; Needs to be multiple back-ups of corporate plan housed at all locations – any of which could become the command center

Locally-specific plans also need to be housed in both the locations and the corporate office

Plans need to cover immediate response, 3 months out and the first year

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Lessons, cont. • Leadership skills for CEOs and senior managers need

to be expanded to include specific skills for managing company response to trauma Response of CEO is critical but needs to address personal needs first

CEOs who appear to only care about the business will damage morale and potentially the future performance of employees

• Families need beneficiary information and benefits eligibility in a written packet Documents allow access to information later, when they can focus on it

Should not be distributed until a few weeks after crisis and never before official declaration of missing persons as lost

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Lessons, cont.• Support services and training for HR, Benefits Staff,

etc. dealing with employees and families need to be enhanced They need the skills, procedures, resources and supports to manage well and maintain their own health

• Management of misinformation Develop ways to build reliable information about who was seen when and where

Need to start with accurate and comprehensive data Inform employees where official information should be obtained and to not use information from other sources

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EAP ObservationsVarying levels of central control

Companies that had a centralized point person and pre-existing procedures were the best prepared to effectively use services; Decentralized approaches to requesting services only work in routine situations

Centralization avoids duplicate requests for services and confusion regarding scheduling & locations

Central schedulers better communicated cancellations or last minute service location changes

Allowed for an internal triage of priority services which supported the EAP first placing staff where they were needed most

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EAP Observations, cont.Varying levels of awareness of need

Companies that had up-to-date information quickly established if employees were safe and were able to assess where they really needed assistance

Better able to distribute supportive information to targeted managers and employees in an efficient and timely manner

Companies that did not accurately assess the need of employees had counselors available that were not utilized

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EAP Observations, cont.Varying levels of understanding of how to appropriately use CISM services

Companies that had trained management on CISM services were better able to appropriately verbalize their needs and internally organize their resources to work with their EAP

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EAP Observations, cont.Varying levels of understanding of trauma and how best to use interventions

Companies that understood the phases of trauma and the appropriate interventions for each phase received better services

Companies that understood brief in-person or telephonic interventions (“defusions”) are appropriate within the first few days had better results

Companies that understood the needs of different groups and the interventions needed for each delivered more targeted and useful interventions

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Sources of the document National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorders

(www.NCPTSD.org) and Anthony Rosenthal, MDObjectives of the document

Only one part of a corporate disaster response plan Support organizations in managing impact Empower managers to address employee emotions and return

them to full functionality in an appropriate time frame Promote positive coping skills in trauma victims Time interventions to match receptivity and prevent PTSD

Organization of the document Characteristics, interventions and EAP services for each

phase Emergency Phase (Immediately after disaster) Post-Impact Phase (2 - 3 days to 8 - 12 weeks) Restoration Phase (8 - 12 weeks plus)

EAP Disaster Response Strategy(Attached Word Document: “EAP Disaster Response Strategy”

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EAP Disaster Response Checklist(Attached Word Document: “EAP Disaster Response Checklist”)

• The companies recommended a quick reference checklist tool was needed to guide their very first responses

• A checklist to serve as a guide to manage through the initial chaos

• Minimizes the initial confusion and inability to focus that typically follows a critical event and serves as a starting point in crisis management

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Closing• Post-Incident Organizational Denial?

Potential urge to act as if “it’s over” or will not happen again

Business demands become center stage and “non-essential” projects not related to productivity are deferred

• Common experiences and lessons from the five client organizations suggest they are relevant to most organizations under similar circumstances

• Insure your organization is prepared for the future Raise corporate awareness around these issues House disaster plans properly for maximum availability and flexibility

Design data management & storage for maximum comprehensiveness, accuracy and availability

Be prepared to work with your EAP in the most effective manner