Key Resources
In this section, you will provide information, upload documents, and answer questions regarding staffing, equipment, supplies, facilities, and transportation necessary for your department/unit to operate.
Staff Basics
Throughout this section, it is useful to include individual’s names, however, keep in mind employee turnover. We suggest including Position Titles as well. Your department/unit should already have a telephone contact list; you can upload that document under the Document section of Key Resources.
Key People
Resist the temptation to list all your staff under “Key People.” The staff you should list here are the ones you would call upon first in time of crisis: those who have the experience, skills, or authority to help “sort things out” and plan the next steps. A leadership successor is a person who would be an appropriate substitute if the head of the unit is absent. In most cases, this will not be an officially-designated position. A formal delegation of authority is an assignment of authority and responsibility to perform specified acts on behalf of the organization, such as to sign specified types of contracts. This assignment is almost always granted via a written document. Again, be sure to include Position Titles.
Work from Home
Although we assume everyone has the basics necessities to work from home (a computer and Internet access), this section provides an opportunity to talk with your faculty and staff to understand the actual capability to work from home. Please list all faculty and staff. You will need to poll your faculty and staff to answer the simple questions on this page – perhaps a show of hands at a faculty/staff meeting, a questionnaire, or just stop them in the corridor! Once you know who currently can connect from home, do you have a strategy for enabling key staff who cannot? If the crisis comes, will you loan them the equipment or pay for their broadband connections? Is your IT support team ready to support people working from home?
Skills
We provide two options of employee skills in this section for you to choose from:
- Communicable Disease Employee
- Mandatory Employee
This is to denote those employees who would be required to work during various interruptions. These categories should reflect the same HR categories of mandatory and communicable disease employees for your department.
Staffing Requirements
The extreme demands that we may face during time of crisis, including the need to ramp up certain services, may require temporary realignments of staff. These questions attempt to address that need by asking you how many and what types of staff in your department might be available to assist elsewhere.
It is important to list the number of full-time employees (FTE) for each staff category you need to operate for each of your critical functions. You will list the FTE during normal operating hours as well as estimated FTE needed during a crisis
Staff of Other Units
Who are the most important people from elsewhere in your campus or medical center whom your staff will need to contact within the first few hours or days after a disruptive event? The lists in the Key Resources section collect information that you may need close at hand because:
- crucial staff may not be reachable
- offices may not be accessible
- computer networks may be down
- leaders/managers may have to handle issues outside their normal spheres.
If you prefer, existing lists can be uploaded on the Document Summary page.
Stakeholders
Are there any other people that your staff may need to contact after a disruptive event? For example – vendors, clients, project partners, donors, sponsors, other stakeholders? If so, please list them here. When listing vendors, please include only those from who your department makes individual purchases (as opposed to those vendors who sell in bulk to the central purchasing department). If you prefer, existing lists can be uploaded on the Document Summary page. Regarding alternate vendors: if a usual supplier is local, you may want to seek an alternate outside the local area.
Documents
Please upload any documents such as telephone lists, vendor lists, equipment/supplies lists, or any others you deemed necessary as you went through the Key Resources section of the plans.
Equipment and Supplies
Please indicate on this screen the MINIMUM equipment you will need to perform ALL the critical functions that you listed earlier. Estimate, don’t agonize. Guess if you need to.
Facilities and Transportation
List any special space or facilities needs that are IN ADDITION TO your office/classroom/lab needs. Please indicate, using this drop-down list, the utilities that are very important to the functioning of your department. Lastly, list any special transportation needs. If needed, you can always upload lists in the document section.