EXCERPT
Christopher Boyce, "Dealing with stress is stressed during outages," <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">St. Louis</st1:place></st1:city> Post-Dispatch, July 21, 2006.
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Jerry Yudt found out Friday that restored electricity does not spell a return
to normalcy -- at least not when much of the <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">St. Louis</st1:place></st1:city> area is either cleaning
up or still waiting for power to return to their homes and businesses.
As manager of [a] Home Depot ...., Yudt said patience and
understanding was a necessity. Indeed, managers throughout the area have been
forced to employ such crisis management techniques as stressed out employees
have been pushed to the limit coping with storm-related complications.
Stable businesses may find that a little selfless entrepreneurship can go along
way in building loyalty among customers and employees, said Michael Harris,
professor of management at the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Business Administration</st1:placename></st1:place> at the
<st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Missouri</st1:placename> at <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">St. Louis</st1:place></st1:city> mharris@umsl.edu .
"The organization may have employees that can help other employees out," he
said. "These kinds of resources build the feeling of loyalty that you are part
of a team that cares about you."
At his busy and understaffed store, Yudt said he was thankful for the hard work
of his 30 employees on hand and sympathetic to the situation of the other 25
who couldn't come in that morning.
"Obviously there's a lot of associates calling in with children who can't go to
day care," Yudt said. "We just ask customers to bear with us."
Many business owners lose sight of such sentiments amid the chaos of disaster,
said Patrick Crawford, director of the <st1:place w:st="on">Midwest</st1:place> office for James Lee Witt
Associates, a Washington-based crisis management firm for the public and
private sectors.
Crawford encouraged business owners to approach reopening their businesses as
part of a community restoration.
Obviously, businesses are concerned about their bottom line and how quickly
they can get operations back on line, Crawford said. "But you need to think not
just in terms of how to get your employees back to work, but how their families
are taken care of."
At Home Depot, Yudt said the store stayed open in the dark after Wednesday's
storms knocked out power and Friday's storms interrupted electricity. During
the disruptions, employees used flashlights and calculators to check out
customers.
The services of Tony Miller, owner of Hanneke Hardware, and his employees have
also been in high demand. But, similarly, he's made safety of employees and
customer service a higher priority than profits.
"We made sure all our guys (out doing service calls) knew the storm was
coming," Miller said.
Providing good customer service is impossible without stable employees, said
Randall Flanery, a professor at <st1:placename w:st="on">St. Louis</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype>'s <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">St. Louis</st1:place></st1:city> Behavioral
Medicine Institute.
Unpredictable events trigger stress, Flanery said. The storm could act as such
a trigger for employers and employees, both at work and at home.
"I think recognizing that everyone will be on edge, unhappy and irritable (is
important)," Flanery said.